A dangerous boy

Sigurdur Thordarson, otherwise known as Siggi, is the pivotal center in a crazy story of paranoia, intelligence agencies, hacking, abuse, friendship and betrayal, and a heartbreaking coming of age story. Siggi makes his debut as a computer hacker at 12, hacking his school’s website. At 14, Siggi leaks documents to Icelandic media, revealing corruption in the Icelandic bank sector which becomes frontpage news. Siggi gets outed as the source, becoming known as the “teenage whistleblower.” In 2010 Siggi’s newly acquired reputation brings him in contact with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Siggi becomes an integral part of WikiLeaks, where Assange treats Siggi like his own son. Siggi travels the world leaking classified documents to the media while the US government watches in horror. Eventually he gets on the wrong foot with the more and more manic Assange, who turns on him. At the age of 18 he takes a drastic decision and becomes an FBI informant spying on WikiLeaks. It all comes to a drastic end when in 2014 and 2015 Siggi is sentenced to a total of almost 6 years in prison on various counts of forgery, extortion and sexual acts with minors.