1834: The First Cyberattack (2017)

economist.com

22 points·passing··8 comments

https://archive.md/xK2MO https://archive.li/xK2MO https://archive.is/xK2MO

If these don't work for you check your DNS - Cloudflare & archive.{ etc } don't play well - try Google or Quad9 DNS

For those using a DNS servers that the archive.* domains sabotage: http://archiveiya74codqgiixo33q62qlrqtkgmcitqx5u2oeqnmn5bpcb... should work.

Please Note! ^^ The above is the archive.is TOR .onion address ^^

Fictionalised by Dumas in the Count of Monte Cristo. The price was to cure a green-thumb gardening-mad telegraphist of his dormouse problem with cash for a new garden, once sacked.

I read the book recently, there are some interesting details in there:

-The operator of the telegraph does not know the meaning of the signals he transmits.

-The operator had a fixed break time every day, and could never leave his post. If he missed a signal or sent a single wrong signal, he had to pay a fine worth a large chunk of his annual salary.

-The pay was really bad, but it was an easy job which required no physical or intellectual skill at all, and lodging was included. Also if the weather was bad, you just had a paid day off.

-The count essentially offers the operator early retirement with full pension, all in exchange for sending a few different signals, no questions asked. The cost of this bribery is almost nothing compared to the monetary loss to his enemy.

Recent related discussion of the Optical Telegraph itself: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36861004> (23 days ago, 22 comments). Low Tech Magazine: <https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2007/12/email-in-the-18.html>

More at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_telegraph

Title from https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/05/1834_the_firs....

The first use of The Clacks.

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