Progressive Era Hacker Griefed Marconi Demonstration

nbauman writes "In June 1903, Gugliemo Marconi and his partner Ambrose Flemming were about to give the first demonstration of long-range wireless communication at the Royal Institution in London, which, Marconi said, could be sent in complete confidentiality with no fear of the messages being hijacked. Suddenly, the silence was broken by a huge mysterious wireless pulse strong enough to take over the carbon-arc projector and make it sputter messages in Morse Code. First, it repeated the word 'Rats' over and over again (abusive at that time). Then it tapped out, 'There was a young fellow of Italy, who diddled the public quite prettily.' Further rude epithets followed. It was Nevil Maskelyne, a stage musician and inventor who was annoyed because Marconi's patents prevented him from using wireless. It was the first hacking, to demonstrate an insecure system."

Comments

Maskelyne, also great inventor of the pay toilet

[elrous0]

That's not a joke, BTW. So every time you really have to defecate and some greedy business or city has installed a pay toilet, you can thank John Nevil Maskelyne--the noble inventor who pioneered the idea of charging people a penny to take a shit.

And, as an American, god bless you Committee to End Pay Toilets in America--for keeping this scourge mostly out of the land of the free crapper.

Re:Maskelyne, also great inventor of the pay toile

[elrous0]

I live in San Fransisco.

I said in America.

Re:Maskelyne, also great inventor of the pay toile

[arth1]

That wasn't the guy who hacked Marconi, it was his father.

Re:Maskelyne, also great inventor of the pay toile

[alen]

in NYC the public toilets are called Starbucks

Re:Maskelyne, also great inventor of the pay toile

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

It flows downhill.

Re:Maskelyne, also great inventor of the pay toile

[EdIII]

Try visiting China. Went through 20 different cities and rural areas.

Toilets are free, or at least everyone I saw was, but there were no toilet paper rolls, paper towels, etc. You brought your own paper napkins and toilet paper with you everywhere.

Visited a factory and the public bathroom was a nightmare. You had running water, but were expected to have your own soap and paper. The executives handed me them.

It was just normal there. We took around handiwipes with us everywhere.

The only exception were the 4-5 star hotels that catered to westerners. Only time I had a "regular" toilet that I could sit on with a toilet paper roll right next to me. Rest were the squat type.

I hear India and other places are not much different.

Re:I wonder...

[jd]

I suspect you'd have seen much of the same cult leader tactics employed by Edison and Tesla in their fights with each other, ending in the pointless and stupid destruction of one protagonist and the adoption of a highly inefficient technology for the sole purpose of denouncing a rival's. When feuds are settled amicably, you tend to get best-of-breed hybrids and an incentive to move forwards. When feuds are settled at gunpoint (real or metaphorical), politics and Not Invented Here take over, leading to regression and an irrational desire to not move forwards lest the "other side" win.

Apple bashed Marconi was a thief

[Whiteox]

There is no way that Marconi invented anything. He was just an early Steve Jobs, so no wonder someone rained on his parade.
There are too many references, but check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventor_of_radio.
My favourite quote about this was Tesla when he said: "Marconi [... was] using seventeen of my patents"
The first transmissions were around 1872, with most of the work done by Mahlon Loomis with his 'wireless telegraph'.

Re:Apple bashed Marconi was a thief

[cusco]

The full quote, which Tesla said when informed by a reporter that Marconi had managed to transmit a wireless message across the Atlantic, was "Marconi is a good fellow. Let him continue. He is using seventeen of my patents." IIRC, he then informed the reporter that if he had received the funding he had requested to build a receiving station in France he would have done the same thing five years earlier.

Not a musician

[Anonymous Coward]

Maskelyne (of the famed duo Maskelyne and Devant) was a stage magician, not musician.

He was a MAGICIAN, not musician

[Maow]

From TFS:

Nevil Maskelyne, a stage musician

From TFA:

a mustachioed 39-year-old British music hall magician.

Having said that, he may also have been a musician, but the magician part was how he used his interest in wireless technology:

He would use Morse code in "mind-reading" magic tricks to secretly communicate with a stooge. He worked out how to use a spark-gap transmitter to remotely ignite gunpowder. And in 1900, Maskelyne sent wireless messages between a ground station and a balloon 10 miles away. But, as author Sungook Hong relates in the book Wireless, his ambitions were frustrated by Marconi's broad patents, leaving him embittered towards the Italian. Maskelyne would soon find a way to vent his spleen.

Also, I've highlighted the most-relevant part to today's world: he was frustrated by overly-broad patents.

Plus ca change...

Re:Maskelyne, also great inventor of the pay toile

[publiclurker]

Actually, it's more of a grinding noise.

Re:A little mischief has always had its virtues.

[GrpA]

My thoughts too, but Tesla was busy at the time and it was after Marconi won the Nobel Prize in 1911 that Tesla finally sued Marconi and Won.

Marconi fooled the American public pretty well and to this day, most people still believe Marconi invented the Radio Telegraph - probably including most people on Slashdot.

The Radio Telegraph was invented by Tesla. The Radio ( as we know it today ) was invented by Fessenden.

Neither really got the credit they deserve - Marconi had the political connections he needed to abuse the US patent system... I guess nothing has changed in 112 years.

GrpA