The Cuckoo's Egg
Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage
Ratings35
Average rating4.1
15
Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage
Ratings35
Average rating4.1
In the days when the presence of a computer did NOT presume the presence of a network (they used to be freestanding units that could not easily communicate with another system), accounts to use the computer were expensive to maintain and heavily scrutinized by management. When the Accounting staff of Stoll's university employer discovered 75 cents' worth of time used with which no user was associated, they called him and demanded that he locate the "phantom" user. Stoll wasn't even a computing pro - he was an astronomer that used the computer to run programs that pointed telescopes properly. But he was a member of a club that exists today - that person elected to do network administration because he drew the short straw. Stoll tells the ensuing circa 1985 tale of analysis when people worldwide were only just discovering what networks could reveal... and hide. Rather like today.
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I'm usually super into tales about the early days of computers, technology, the internet, and gaming, but I think this one was a miss for me. The author was an astrophysics student at UC Berkeley who accidentally discovers a hacker while trying to explain a 75 cent(!!!) discrepancy in the computer time books. Rather than shut the guy out, Stoll spends months meticulously tracking the hacker's moves through the early ‘net and creating a web of connections within basically every letter agency active at the time. Nobody wants to be the one agency to act, so there's a lot of back-and-forth between agencies at various points of the book, until someone finally loses patience, blinks, and the hacker gets caught.
I had a few issues with the book. I understand it's basically a computer period piece of how technology was at the time, but it still got super repetitive about halfway through. The beginning was really interesting, the end was similarly compelling, but the middle was basically a series of “I see the hacker in my systems, here's what he's doing, I wish I could stop him” short segments. I also was mildly annoyed at the author's massive Main Character Syndrome, where he turns the hacker information over to the proper authorities, and then gets all shocked/angry/annoyed at not being immediately privvy to whatever the government does with the information. Long segments of the book are dedicated to the author waxing philosophical about how he's working with The Man and how much he hates not knowing what's going on. It gets kind of annoying.
I did like the glimpse into the computer technology from the period, though. I liked reading about the innovative ways the author used to track the hacker, determine his location, and mess with him to keep him on the line long enough to be traced. Well done in that respect.
Just kind of a mixed bag of a book all around, honestly.
Executive Summary: A truly excellent and fascinating tale of hacking in the early days of the internet.
Full Review
I'm fascinated with computer crime. I have for as long as I can remember being interested in computers. Somehow I had never managed to read this book.
I'm glad I finally got around to it. It might be my new favorite. Cliff Stoll tells an engaging and personal story of his discovery of computer networks, security exploits and computer crime that reads more like a spy novel than a technical manual.
I think Mr. Stoll does a good job of making things easy to understand for the non-technical person. It has just enough detail to follow the story without being overwhelming. Of course being a computer person myself, I may not be the best to judge how technical this book gets.
This book overlaps with some other stories of computer crime I've read and re-sparked my interest in reading some others I have on my backlog, along with rereading one I read back in high school that seems to overlap with this one a bit.
It's hard for me to judge how non-techies will enjoy this book, but anyone who wants to see what things were like in the early days of the internet should find this fascinating.
The most remarkable thing was how little the various law enforcement agencies seemed to care. It was really the wild-wild west of computer crime. To the FBI, unless they physically stole something, destroyed something or cost your millions of dollars, it wasn't worth pursuing.
How do you quantify computer time? Especially back then when computers weren't affordable and resources were limited. What about the time Cliff Stoll spend tracking the hacker? Time he should have spent doing his job. Everyone wanted him to keep at, and to keep them in the loop, but no one was willing to do anything about it, or cough up funds to support him.
It would take a few more years and some bigger crimes to finally wake them up and change how computer crime ranked in importance. Then again, most people are inundated with malware, spyware, viruses, scams and phishing emails on an almost daily basis. So in some ways it feels like nothing has really changed. You're not going to call the FBI because someone tried to steal your password.
Computer crime is big business these days, and if you want to see how it was in the early days, this is a must read.
