Assange No-Show at Hacker Conference

The following post was written by Dawn Lim, former Nextgov intern.

Jacob Appelbaum

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was a no-show at the annual New York City hacker conference HOPE , after five Homeland Security agents turned up the day before he scheduled to speak.

After an army intelligence analyst blew the whistle and leaked 150,000 State Department classified diplomatic cables and an aerial attack video to Wikileaks, conference organizers warned in June that Assange, a scheduled keynote speaker, might not turn up if hew wanted to avoid detention.

Jacob Appelbaum, who is involved in Wikileaks and is a programmer for Tor software , which protects Internet traffic from eavesdroppers by routing it through multiple computers and encrypting its contents, spoke instead.

"We believe that it is absolutely necessary to accept documents that are relevant," he said, "relevant because they are classified, censored or otherwise, restricted. This is extremely important because this is the type of material that is going to be making the most amount of change."

Appelbaum called on the hacking community to support Wikileaks. Then he didn't take any chances with the feds. While a doppelganger Appelbaum, escorted by a procession of volunteers and swathed in a hoodie, marched out of the conference, the real Appelbaum, according to CNET , "ducked behind a curtain and left the conference hotel through a rear door."