Meet the FBI's secret WikiLeaks mole

A Wired investigation reveals a young double-agent who was paid $5,000 over three months

Julian Assange
(Image credit: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

If you're still not sure whether the U.S. government considers WikiLeaks a threat, a new Wired investigation by Kevin Poulsen should clear things up. The profile begins in 2011 with "a cherubic 18-year-old Icelandic man" named Sigurdur "Siggi" Thorardson, who, according to the report, served as the first FBI-recruited double-agent inside of WikiLeaks, which has once again thrust itself into the international conversation by aiding NSA secret-spiller Edward Snowden.

Thorardson, who turned over thousands of pages of WikiLeaks chat logs to the FBI, was allegedly still in high school when he first joined Julian Assange and Co. He eventually worked closely with Assange, and was charged with recruiting new volunteers and potential sources. (Thorardson was said to be the middle man in the negotiations with Bradley Manning.) Poulsen writes:

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