In 1903, as Guglielmo Marconi prepared to showcase his "secure" wireless telegraph at the Royal Institution, the demonstration was suddenly hijacked. Instead of Marconi’s message, the machine tapped out "Rats" in Morse code, followed by crude poetry mocking his security claims.
The culprit was Nevil Maskelyne, a stage magician and radio expert who knew Marconi’s system wasn’t as secure as advertised. Using his own transmitter, he exposed its vulnerabilities, marking the first recorded instance of hacking and signal hijacking.
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