Julian Assange has been indicted for recruiting and conspiring with computer hackers, including those affiliated with Anonymous and LulzSec, to benefit WikiLeaks, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on June 24. The new indictment accuses Assange of using hacking conference in the US and Europe to recruit hackers for WikiLeaks. This new indictment does not add additional counts to the May 2019 18-count indictment against Assange, but broadens the scope of conspiracy around other hacks Assange has been charged with. Previous allegations include the claim that Assange conspired with Army Intelligence Analyst Chelsea Manning to crack a password hash to a classified U.S. Department of Defense computer. According to the indictment, WikiLeaks solicited bulk databases and access to classified documents through its “Most Wanted Leaks” list. Furthermore, in early 2010, when Assange was allegedly working with Manning to get classified information, a 17-year-old teenager in a NATO country gave Assange data stolen from a bank. Assange asked this teenager to hack into computers of high ranking officials of this unidentified NATO country, including its members of parliament, to get more information including recordings of phone conversations. ‘Conspired with LulzSec, Anonymous’ According to the DOJ, Assange got unauthorised access to a government computer system of a NATO country in 2010. In 2012, he communicated with the leader of the hacking group LulzSec, “Sabu”, and provided them with a list of targets to hack. However, Sabu had been in June 11 and had started cooperating with the FBI. Through various proxies, Assange…
