A bitter exchange over freedom of information - circa 2000."

A bitter exchange over freedom of information - circa 2000."

Around the year 2000, the Internet was rapidly becoming commercially available and deeply embedded in society. At the same time, there was a strong awareness of the need for information security, and research into cryptography and access control was institutionalized. While these developments were essential order-building for businesses and governments, they were often perceived within the hacker culture as binding on "freedom of information. Julian Assange was right at the forefront of this movement, involved in hacking and software development in Australia and discussing it on mailing lists.

In June 2000, a single paper posted to an information security-related mailing list became the topic of discussion. One participant introduced the classic study "Security Management of Computer Systems" and praised it, saying, "This is the paper that started it all. To which Assange responded sarcastically. This is a sad day for humanity. This is a scheme for paranoids with anal character, isn't it? With it, we can realize our authoritarian dream of automatically crushing unauthorized creative acts. His harsh words were more than just a joke; they symbolized his view of security as a "tool of control.

At the time, the information environment was torn between freedom and control. While corporations sought to protect their intellectual property and governments emphasized national security, hackers continued to espouse the philosophy that "information demands freedom. Assange's statement was a condensation of that ideological conflict and at the same time a foreshadowing of his own subsequent activities. Ironically, it was the security technologies he criticized that would later provide the foundation for the anonymous communications and encryption that supported WikiLeaks.

These exchanges were not mere skirmishes, but rather the ideological fault lines that would determine the direction of the information society, and the period around the year 2000 was the beginning of a struggle for a new information order between a hacker culture that sought freedom and an authority that wanted to control it.