re: #200 Wendell Zurkowitz (slave of the waffle light)

sorry, the one in the Jan. 16th issue of Rolling Stone

This one? I thought it was pretty decent, although the headline was a bit misleading since Thordarson didn’t start out as a “mole” but actually just a kid with a young teen’s outsized crush on Assange. The immature feelings they have growing up drives them, it seems, beyond anything else. There is a reason hacking is such a draw for so many young people. It can make them feel invincible until reality sets in.

“When I was, like, 12 years old, I wished for a couple of things,” he tells me as we drive one afternoon past some lava fields outside the capital. “I wished to be rich; I wished to be a famous guy; I wished to live an adventureful life.”

“He found the excitement he craved in computers, and at age 12 he says he hacked into his first website, a local union’s home page, which he replaced with a picture of “a big fluffy monkey.” The experience empowered him. “When you do something like that, you feel invincible,” he says, “and if you can do that, what else can you do?”

Read more: rollingstone.com