Assange's hacking offences revealed in Oz court documents

Melbourne, Jan 17 (ANI): New documents revealed in an Australian court have revealed how WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange created a program that allowed him to access about 11,000 computers belonging to the giant Canadian telecommunications company Northern Telecom.

The court documents released to The Australian under an application to the Victorian County Court include a transcript of Assange's 1996 pre-sentencing hearing for 24 computer-related offences, including accessing a server of Northern Telecom.

"In over 100 of the computers, (Mr Assange) had root access to those computers, which meant he didn't need any further password-he had the key to the door, if you like," the Herald Sun quoted the prosecutor as saying.

"He could have gone anywhere that he liked and he was in those systems for quite some months before the systems' administrators detected his presence," he added.

When the Toronto-based Northern Telecom administrators found Assange's presence, the WikiLeaks' founder watched on as they attempted to catch him out-at one point forcing the exclusion of an administrator from the network who "got very close to catching him", the court heard.

Assange's defence lawyer, Paul Galbally, told Justice Ross the computers that were used "were really just old-fashioned, small computers".

"One of the motives for these offences was that by leading on to these major computer sites, it gave you the power and enabled you to move from one site to the other," he said.

Judge Leslie Ross said that he was satisfied that Assange had not used his skills for personal profits.

But after being sentenced, Assange told Justice Ross claims made by the prosecution in his sentencing were false, "I feel a great misjustice has been done and I would like to record the fact that you have been misled by the prosecution." (ANI)