2011.12.29 1903年的无线大黑客

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TECHNOLOGY
The Great Wireless Hack of 1903
By Alexis C. Madrigal
DECEMBER 29, 2011
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marconi_school.jpg

Guglielmo Marconi is considered the father of modern radio, but his initial conception of the wireless broadcasting technology was as a point-to-point system like the telegraph. This, understandably, made wired telegraph operators nervous that their businesses were about to be disrupted by the Italian. One, the Eastern Telegraph Company, enlisted the services of a frustrated wireless pioneer, Nevil Maskelyne," who New Scientist related this week, was "a mustachioed 39-year-old British music hall magician" who played a nasty trick on Marconi and physicist John Ambrose Fleming.


The occasion was a big demo at the Royal Academy of Sciences. Marconi was stationed on a cliff in Poldhu, Cornwall and ready to transmit a message the 300 miles to Fleming's receiver in London. But just as the demonstration was about to begin, the receiving apparatus began to tap out a message in Morse code.

Someone... was beaming powerful wireless pulses into the theatre and they were strong enough to interfere with the projector's electric arc discharge lamp. Mentally decoding the missive, [Fleming's assistant Arthur] Blok realised it was spelling one facetious word, over and over: "Rats". A glance at the output of the nearby Morse printer confirmed this. The incoming Morse then got more personal, mocking Marconi: "There was a young fellow of Italy, who diddled the public quite prettily," it trilled. Further rude epithets - apposite lines from Shakespeare - followed.
That someone, as he soon happily announced, was Maskelyne. And his trick had a point: radio was not as private a channel as Marconi had made it out to be. Wireless messages could both be intercepted and interfered with. Like many good hacks, the mayhem had meaning.


Image: A Marconi radio school. The students are taking messages from ships at sea. Library of Congress.
Alexis C. Madrigal is a contributing writer at The Atlantic, a co-founder of the COVID Tracking Project, and the author of Powering the Dream: The History and Promise of Green Technology. He is also a co-host of Forum on KQED.



技术
1903年的无线大黑客
作者：Alexis C. Madrigal
2011年12月29日
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马可尼学校.jpg

古列尔莫-马可尼被认为是现代无线电之父，但他最初对无线广播技术的构想是像电报一样的点对点系统。这可以理解，这让有线电报运营商感到紧张，因为他们的业务即将被意大利人打乱。东方电报公司（Eastern Telegraph Company）招募了一位失意的无线先锋内维尔-马斯克利恩（Nevil Maskelyne），"《新科学家》杂志本周报道，他是 "一位留着大胡子的39岁英国音乐厅魔术师"，对马可尼和物理学家约翰-安布罗斯-弗莱明玩了一个恶作剧。


当时是在皇家科学院的一个大型演示。马可尼驻扎在康沃尔郡波尔杜的一个悬崖上，准备将信息传输300英里到弗莱明在伦敦的接收器。但就在演示即将开始时，接收设备开始敲打出摩斯密码的信息。

有人......正在向剧院发射强大的无线脉冲，其强度足以干扰放映机的电弧放电灯。弗莱明的助手亚瑟-布洛克在头脑中解码，意识到这是在重复拼写一个有趣的词。"老鼠"。看了一眼附近莫尔斯打印机的输出，证实了这一点。然后，传来的莫尔斯语变得更加个人化，嘲笑马可尼："有一个意大利的年轻人，他把公众搞得非常漂亮，"它叫道。接下来是更多粗鲁的称谓--莎士比亚的合适句子。
正如他很快高兴地宣布的那样，这个人就是马斯克利恩。他的诡计是有道理的：无线电并不像马可尼所说的那样是一种私人渠道。无线电信息既可以被截获，也可以被干扰。像许多优秀的黑客一样，这种混乱是有意义的。


图片。一所马可尼无线电学校。学生们正在接收来自海上船只的信息。美国国会图书馆。
Alexis C. Madrigal是《大西洋》杂志的特约撰稿人，是COVID追踪项目的共同创始人，也是《为梦想供电》的作者。绿色技术的历史和承诺》一书的作者。他也是KQED的论坛的共同主持人。