Editing Signals intelligence (section)

===Origins===
{{Main|Signals intelligence in modern history}}
Electronic interceptions appeared as early as 1900, during the [[Boer War]] of 1899–1902. The British [[Royal Navy]] had installed wireless sets produced by [[Marconi]] on board their ships in the late 1890s, and the [[British Army]] used some limited wireless signalling. The [[Boers]] captured some wireless sets and used them to make vital transmissions.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Chapman|first=J.W.M.|date=2002|title=British Use of 'Dirty Tricks' in External Policy Prior to 1914|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26014122|journal=War in History|volume=9|issue=1|pages=60–81|doi=10.1191/0968344502wh244oa|jstor=26014122|s2cid=159777408|issn=0968-3445|url-access=subscription}}</ref> Since the British were the only people transmitting at the time, the British did not need special interpretation of the signals that they were.<ref name=Lee>Compare: {{cite web
|last= Lee
|first= Bartholomew
|title= Radio Spies – Episodes in the Ether Wars
|url= http://www.trft.org/TRFTPix/spies9eR2006.pdf
|access-date= 8 October 2007
|quote= As early as 1900 in the Boer War, the Royal Navy in South Africa appears to have used wireless sets inherited from the Royal Engineers to signal from the neutral port of Lourenco Marques 'information relative to the enemy' albeit in violation of international law. [...] This first use of radio for intelligence purposes depended, of course, on the inability of others to intercept the signals, but in 1900, only the British in that part of the world had any wireless capability.
|archive-date= 27 February 2008
|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080227075207/http://www.trft.org/TRFTPix/spies9eR2006.pdf
|url-status= dead
}}</ref>

The birth of signals intelligence in a modern sense dates from the [[Russo-Japanese War]] of 1904–1905. As the Russian fleet prepared for conflict with Japan in 1904, the British ship [[HMS Diana (1895)|HMS ''Diana'']] stationed in the [[Suez Canal]] intercepted Russian naval wireless signals being sent out for the mobilization of the fleet, for the first time in history.<ref>
''Report from HMS Diana on Russian Signals intercepted at Suez'', 28 January 1904, Naval library, Ministry of Defence, London.
</ref>{{Ambiguous|date=February 2024|reason=What event/side was the first in history?}}