To say that the list of rattled people in high places around the world is growing because of Wikileaks is an understatement. The fact that the website has no headquarters also means the conventional retaliatory measures - phones tapped, a raid by the authorities - are impossible. Intense interest in Julian Assange began well before the Baghdad video was released, and viewed 4.8 million times by the end of its first week. The former teenage hacker from Melbourne, whose mystique as an internet subversive, a resourceful loner with no fixed address, travelling constantly between countries with laptop and backpack, constitutes what you might call Assange’s romantic appeal.