Comment by no_time
4 years ago
You could go back even further if you wanted. Possibly to the first handwritten letter delivered by a third party. That's where all the potential for censorship and tampering started.
Truth is even if our tools evolve, our chains evolve faster.
Case in point being the Black Chamber run by the Thurn und Taxis post in Brussels in the 16th Century.
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230298125_11
Signals intelligence intercept and analysis centres have been called Black Chambers for a long time, including the first such group in the US, predecessor to the NSA:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Chamber