Mark Stephens (solicitor) be released, noting that anonymity orders had become "deeply ingrained" in court cases in the UK. After the ruling Stephens commented, "No court henceforth should grant an anonymity order in a significant case unless it is satisfied that the litigant, if identified, would be in serious danger of physical attack." Towards the end of 2010, Stephens was invited by the Jamaican Government to review that country's libel laws and appear before a Parliamentary Select Committee. Shortly after his return Stephens began to defend the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, against extradition to Sweden, where allegations had been made against Assange.
Julian Assange which reflected his growing interest in cryptography; and Surfraw, a command-line interface for web-based search engines (2000). During this period, he also moderated the AUCRYPTO forum; ran Best of Security, a website "giving advice on computer security" that had 5,000 subscribers in 1996; and contributed research to Suelette Dreyfus's "Underground" (1997), a book about Australian hackers, including the International Subversives. In 1998, he co-founded the company Earthmen Technology. Assange stated that he registered the domain leaks.org in 1999, but "didn't do anything with it." He did, however, publicise a patent granted to the National Security Agency in August 1999, for