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December 27 2011
Hacktivists: Doin’ It For the Lulz Since 1903
Marconi and assistants erecting a radio antenna.
They call themselves hacktivists. Or they say they’re doing it just for the lulz: Some hackers take over sites, swipe users’ information, and then post their exploits online just to make the point that hey, you losers aren’t as safe as you thought you were. Better fix that gaping hole in your electronic chain link fence.
It may seem like the kind of public embarrassment only possible in the networked age (at least, Sony probably remembers the era of the Walkman a lot more fondly than this last mortifying year of being hacked again and again), but as Paul Marks writes in New Scientist, it ain’t necessarily so. Just ask Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor of the wireless telegraph.
In 1903, Marconi’s assistants in London were prepping for a big demo of their wireless telegraph (aka long-range radio), just like any tech businessmen in the history of technology—setting up the brass lantern projector, getting the telegraph up and running, letting the crowd get nice and excited, you know, the whole shebang. Then, while they’re waiting for their test message to come in from the boss, who’s camped out ...
