Now, we're not saying that we're all inside The Matrix right now. (Psst! Yes, we totally are. Take the red pill. Or the blue pill. Take a bunch of pills! The Matrix!) We're just saying that ...

We're all familiar with the idea that science fiction often predicts science fact . But every once in a while the universe gets its wires so crossed that something we tend to think of as the far-fetched brainchild of some science fiction writer actually happened in the real world well before we ever saw it on a movie or TV screen.

5 The First Hacker Predates the First Computer

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The Sci-Fi Trope:

From WarGames to The Matrix and, um, Hackers? We guess? 3L337x0rz hackers have been sticking it to The Man ever since the Web was invented.



"Sticking it to The Man" just happens to be identical to "pissing everyone else off."

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But Previously, in the Real World ...

One afternoon in June of 1903, John Ambrose Fleming and his boss, Italian radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi, were about to demonstrate Marconi's new high-tech wireless telegraph system to a crowded theater in London. But right before Fleming was scheduled to receive a wireless message from Marconi, the equipment started tapping out the word "rats" over and over, followed by the Edwardian era equivalent of a rap battle diss:

There was a young fellow of Italy

Who diddled the public quite prettily

Via Wikipedia

"Verily, I say 'Snap,' good sir."

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And all the ladies swooned while the gentlemen got their flummox on, loudly exclaiming things like "I say!" and "Why I never!" Fleming and Marconi were understandably furious that someone would so lewdly interrupt their demonstration -- Marconi actually went on record describing it as "scientific hooliganism" (dibs on the Tumblr name!). But who could have possessed the resources and know-how to hack into wireless technology that had barely even been invented yet?

The answer came four days later when Nevil Maskelyne, a fabulously mustachioed magician whose grandson you may have heard of, confessed to the prank in a letter to The Times. When Marconi arrogantly started bragging about not only the efficacy but also the impenetrable security of his new wireless system, Maskelyne, being a proud member of his multigenerational anachronistic scientist/battle-magician bloodline, did the only reasonable thing: He promptly whipped up his own homemade radio tower and proceeded to hack into Marconi's "secure" signal.