The geek who shook the world

[Joanne98]

The journalist Suelette Dreyfus collaborated qlwith Julian Assange to create Underground, a 1997 book about hackers in Australia and around the globe. Here she reveals the inside story on Assange, the geek who founded WikiLeaks and became the scourge of world governments.

ONE of Julian Assange's favourite books is Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler. It is a bleak novel loosely based on the Stalinist purges and Moscow show trials of the late 1930s.

It tells the story of a Russian named Rubashov who was once a revered 1917 revolutionary, but who is cast out from his society. Suddenly he awakes in the middle of the night to find he is arrested and imprisoned. There are no charges, no due process and no justice. He can get no truth or explanation of what is going on. Eventually he is interrogated, and asked to sign a false confession admitting his guilt in a plot to assassinate the mysterious “No. 1”, the unknown and unnamed government leader.

He refuses.

He is isolated in his cell, but finds a way of communicating with another prisoner by tapping on pipes. Ever so carefully, they begin secretly passing information and stories back and forth.

In the gloomy prison, an interrogation begins. First, an old friend of Rubashov's is brought in to start a soft persuasion. When that fails, because Rubashov refuses to admit to a crime he did not commit, his friend is arrested and executed for going too easy on the prisoner.

Then a coarse and violent interrogator takes over. He believes that torture is a good way to extract confessions from prisoners. He hates Rubashov because the prisoner is educated: being enlightened through learning is clearly a dangerous thing.

At the novel's end, Rubashov is summarily executed.

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/the-geek-who-shook-the-world-20101211-18tep.html?from=smh_sb

[bemildred]

1. Koestler, now that's interesting.

"The Ghost in the Machine".

[Uncle Joe]

2. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Joanne.

[ananda]

3. Whoa.

Darkness at Noon is a great book about the way the idealists that lead a revolution get betrayed.

It's as though Assange, and we liberals, are living in the shoes of Rubashov.

[Alameda]

4. Yes, almost like foresight

[girl gone mad]

5. Will the public still embrace our extrajudicial torture gulags..

now that the government is using its new found powers to target a blond-haired white boy, antihero, internet sensation extraordinaire?