The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage

Maybe a little too concerned with narrating every single step in the process, even the many, many failed attempts that lead nowhere. This comes at the expense of excitement in the middle sections of the book.

But that's a minor complaint, overall this was a really cracking story. I'm really impressed by how well Stoll explained topics in computer science, networking, and security to readers who may very well have never been on a network before, and who may be hearing about hacking for the first time. He did a good job choosing what to simplify, and how, to let readers understand what was going on, while not overwhelming them or talking down to them. Even more impressive given that these intrusion detection techniques were things he show more invented, so he had no examples to draw from, and not many people around to give him advice.

This book was all the rage in the BBS scene in the 90s, and I didn't read it then. I'm glad I finally got around to it. Maybe the longest time between putting a book on my "to read" pile and then actually reading it: about 30 years. show less

I was ready to give THE CUCKOO'S EGG a mere four stars, because this is just not really the kind of book I normally read. But then I decided that wouldn't be fair, or an accurate reflection of how I ended up reading it. Which was nearly nonstop from beginning to end. The book is almost 400 pages long and I read it in less than two days. A jacket blurb says it "reads like a le Carre novel," and it does, no lie. It's that gripping and compelling a read. Except this is a spy thriller that involves no real physical danger to its hero-author, Cliff Stoll. But whodathunk that a narrative that plays out mostly behind a desk, plunking computer keys, could be this exciting? Well, it is; it keeps you turning and turning the pages, 'cause you just show more can't wait to find out what happens next.

Cliff Stoll seems an unlikely hero for an international spy thriller. The guy's an astronomer by training, but also a largely self-taught computer geek, a Berkley hippie sort who doesn't own a car and bikes everywhere. He enjoys cooking, sewing, and Quilting! But the thing is, the guy is cool, very cool. And he's funny too. In the course of the book you learn a little about his relationship with his partner, Martha, which is pretty laid back, unofficial and, well, cool. You also learn quite a lot about the early days of computers and the pre-internet age, when PC's were still something of a novelty and giant mainframe computers ruled. Well, they probably still do. And he also introduces you to the dangers of non-secure computers, how hackers can infiltrate and steal stuff, pretty important stuff in fact. You see how Cliff gradually eases himself from the hippy fringe into the heart of the military industrial complex, accidentally, as it were, just doing his job. Other players are folks from the FBI, CIA, NSA, and lots of DoD contractors too - the whole Beltway bunch and others scattered all over the USA.

And, most important of all, Cliff Stoll is a great storyteller, a natural writer. Or, if he's not, he's got me fooled. I know I've 'discovered' this book almost twenty-five years late, but man, is it ever a terrific read! Five-PLUS stars. Highly recommended. Yeah, VERY highly! show less

This was a fun read. As an IT professional, especially years down the road, it’s interesting to look back at the roots of many of the issues we deal with today. But mostly it’s just an interesting story of a guy using whatever meager tools he could scrape together to stop someone invading his territory. I can’t say whether a non–IT-type would enjoy it, but I suspect they might. His cheeky tone helps, though I’m sure it would have grown old if the book had been much longer.

There’s a great insight near the end, by the way, about the ways that computer hacking has damaged our individual autonomy—precisely the thing most hackers claim they’re trying to defend, in their righteously defensive moments. Stoll’s insights on show more this actually stand the test of time—they’re at least as true now as they were when he wrote this book. show less

Cliff Stoll was an astronomer turned systems manager at Lawrence Berkeley Lab when a 75-cent accounting error alerted him to the presence of an unauthorized user on his system. The hacker's code name was "Hunter" -- a mystery invader hiding inside a twisting electronic labyrinth, breaking into U.S. computer systems and stealing sensitive military and security information. Stoll began a one-man hunt of his own, spying on the spy -- and plunged into an incredible international probe that finally gained the attention of top U.S. counterintelligence agents. The Cuckoo's Egg is his wild and suspenseful true story -- a year of deception, broken codes, satellites, missile bases, and the ultimate sting operation -- and how one ingenious show more American trapped a spy ring paid in cash and cocaine, and reporting to the KGB. show less

Accessible to the layman and engaging as hell, Stoll's journey in tracing a hacker - maybe some script kiddie? - all the way into Europe and beyond is a wonderful read. The ex-hippie shtick wears a bit thin in some places, but his personal transformation is made clearer by the epilogue. And in some ways he is just as much a novice to computer security as an average person reading this. A trip through unix and VAX systems, GNU-emacs holes and root/admin passwords, this is a great introduction to what "hacking" - and classification by aggregation - have always been about.

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2690761.html

The 1980s were more innocent times than ours. This is the first-person account of how Stoll, an astrophysics graduate turned sysadmin at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, spotted unauthorised access to the departmental VAX one day in 1986 and set off on a detective trail that eventually led to Cold War hacking and espionage. One has to admire his forensic attention to detail, in the face of apathy from the USA's own intelligence and security services and the constant threat of being told to get on with his day job by his bosses; but it's also extraordinary to reflect on how things have changed, in that there would be no difficulty now in getting a government agency to pay attention to show more hacking on this scale; there would be no legal difficulty in bringing a prosecution; the technical tools to track down hackers are much better developed; and the big international threat to cybersecurity is not in Russia but further east. Still, it's a great book. show less

When you get right down to it, this is a 400-page book about a year-long, painstaking search for an elusive hacker--a "ghost in the network"--two decades ago during the prehistory of the internet. The hero is a man detail-obsessed enough to notice a 75-cent accounting discrepancy and track it back to its source. The story is full of computer technology so old that only aging IT gurus and historians will recognize it. Its tempo reveals what professional investigators (spies, detectives, scientists, historians) have always known and novelists have always glossed over: real-life investigations are full of tedious repetition, dead ends, and false starts. Stoll tells it straight, resisting the urge to inject the artificial drama we've been show more trained to expect.

Four hundred pages of this should be as dull as a thud. Except that it's not . . . it's brilliant, engrossing, and frequently even charming.

The credit for this goes entirely to Stoll's easygoing literary voice and his ability to explain just enough of the hardware and software behind his story to make it crystal clear to the non-geek reader. He's an interesting enough character, and he talks about himself so naturally and unassumingly, that even seemingly mundane events become interesting. Stoll is also an astute observer of the world around him, and of his own quirks as well as those of his fellow humans. The book is filled with sharply drawn vignettes of his home life in Berkeley, the computer work he was paid to do, the astronomical research that fed his soul, and the bureaucratic absurdities he encountered while trying to get some law-enforcement agency interested in the hacker he was chasing.

In the end, The Cuckoo's Egg works because it's as much a story about people as a story about computers. It has that in common with Tracy Kidder's Soul of a New Machine and Stephen Levy's Hackers, and--like them--it's a classic of the early computer age. show less