The world's first hack: the telegraph and the invention of privacy
by Thomas McMullan from Technology | The Guardian on (#EC1V)
Concern over personal data interception did not start with GCHQ and the NSA - hacking can be traced all the way back to the 19th century
John Tawell had money worries. The 1 weekly child allowance he had to give his mistress Sarah Hart was the last straw, and on New Year's Day 1845 he travelled to her house in Slough, poisoning her beer with a potion for varicose veins that contained prussic acid.
After the murder, Tawell made his escape on a train headed to London's Paddington station. He wasn't known in Slough and expected to slip through the hands of the law. But he was travelling along one of the only stretches of railway in the world to have telegraph wires running beside the railway lines.
