The world's first ever hacking took place on a wireless transmission that took place in 1901
The first real hacking that humanity has ever known happened about 115 years ago! Isn't that surprising? In 1901, Guglielmo Marconi, an inventor and electrical engineer from Italy, had everything ready in his attempt to prove that he could make a wireless transmission in England. But many people don't know that Marconi had several opponents at the time, who wanted to prove him wrong at all costs.
Marconi claimed that his wireless transmission was impenetrable and could not be intercepted or hijacked by anyone else. A rival inventor named Nevil Maskelyne tried to prove him wrong.
As Marconi was preparing for his grand demonstration of wireless transmission, a transmission that would reach all of England via Morse code, an intrusion into the machine's signal occurred. It was Maskelyne who managed to break into the Morse code signal.
He sent a message intended for Marconi, which read: Rats, rats. Rats. Also, rats. Then, some words from Shakespeare were heard, as well as other insults directed at Marconi.
Although Maskelyne did not know that what he did would one day become widely known as hacking, it nevertheless proves to us that hackers are not a new phenomenon as we might have thought but existed even a century ago!
