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Clifford Stoll was running a central computer at a Berkeley lab, and was asked to trace a 75 cent error in the user accounts. This began a hunt for a hacker who was infiltrating sensitive American networks. This is the story of how Stoll exposed an international spy ring selling secrets to the KGB.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
About the Author
When, to the delight of the baffled FBI, CIA, and NSA, Cliff Stoll nailed his spy, he wound up on the front page of The New York Times. The story, broken in 1989, quickly gathered headlines across the nation and Stoll became a genuine, if somewhat unlikely, American hero.
An astronomer by training and a computer expert by accident, Cliff Stoll has become a leading authority on computer security, an issue recognized everywhere as among the most important security problems of our times. He has given talks for the FBI, CIA, and NSA, and has appeared before the U.S. Senate. Stoll is an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
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ME, A WIZARD? UNTIL A WEEK AGO, I WAS AN ASTRONomer, contentedly designing telescope optics. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
ME, A WIZARD? UNTIL A WEEK AGO, I WAS AN ASTRONomer, contentedly designing telescope optics. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Spy stories are great fun. James Bond, Tom Clancy... And Now Cliff Stoll, with only one minor difference.
This one's true.
In the Eighties, Clifford Stoll ran out of money for his research into Astronomy at the University of Berkeley and was 'recycled' into the lab's computer division. A couple of days into his new job, his boss brought an interesting problem to his attention, their accounting software - logging, and charging for, time on the mainframe - was missing 75 cents. Would he like to look into it?
A year later Clifford Stoll had tracked a hacker across half the planet, through dozens of supposedly secure military and civillian networks, he'd interfaced with a dozen or more three-letter agencies (CIA, FBI, NSA, CID and more) and become one of the world's most respected experts in computer security.
I wish I had half the brains this man has. I'd reccomend this book to anyone with even a passing interest in the internet, computer security, networks and other computer related hardware. The book'll leave you feeling like an idiot, but you'll love every second.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Despite the age of this book, the basic concepts of hackers, viruses and worms are surprisingly similar now to what they were in the late 1980's, the period when The Cuckoo's Egg is set. The big difference between then and now is the incredible lack of interest in computer espionage from the various US intelligence agencies which the author encountered.
The story of this book is largely Clifford Stoll's battle to get the FBI, CIA and numerous other agencies to recognise what was going on and act upon it. This despite the fact that the target of the hackers were predominantly military computers.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A friend lent me this book as we both work in the networking industry andhe was surpised I'd never read it. It took me a weekend to finish and Ifound it very interesting both for the story it told but also as a lookback to the origins of the internet and how its pitfuls have not reallychanged. Its the story of a university professor who becomes obsessedwith tracking down a hacker, even though he has limited knowledge ofhacking, or even computers. The hacking in this case is rather archaic asit involves dialing in via a modem connection to a unix box and thenexploiting weaknesses in unix to gain super user rights and create newaccounts to link to other computers. All this happens in the very earlydays of the internet and the connection of computers together. As thehacker is very interested in words like miltary, nuclear, secrets! theprofessor tries to alert the authorities none of whom seem clued up onhacking or on the implications of a global superhighway as we like to coinit now.
Although the OS etc.. are completely out of date the mindset of the hackerand the persuer, the dogged determination on both sides to obtain whatthey want out of a man made system was certainly a revelation to me andhighlights that in this domain although the systems have become moresophisticated the people have the same motivations. The sections onwanting to keep openess at the expense of security have unfortunatley beenlost on the interent as we all have to have firewalls and plough throughmountains of commerical websites generating annoying pop up menus. Ithought the most poignant moment in the book was when the author statesthat what saves networking in his time from being totally exposed tohacking is the fact that there are a diversity of operating systems, unix,vax, dos, apple and that if at any moment this changed the hackers wouldbe in paradise. Someone please send this book to Bill Gates. All in allalthough the technology is out of date, its a must and simple read ifyou're in networking and have never read it or just want to understandwhat hacking is all about.
Although the OS etc.. are completely out of date the mindset of the hackerand the persuer, the dogged determination on both sides to obtain whatthey want out of a man made system was certainly a revelation to me andhighlights that in this domain although the systems have become moresophisticated the people have the same motivations. The sections onwanting to keep openess at the expense of security have unfortunatley beenlost on the interent as we all have to have firewalls and plough throughmountains of commerical websites generating annoying pop up menus. Ithought the most poignant moment in the book was when the author statesthat what saves networking in his time from being totally exposed tohacking is the fact that there are a diversity of operating systems, unix,vax, dos, apple and that if at any moment this changed the hackers wouldbe in paradise. Someone please send this book to Bill Gates. All in allalthough the technology is out of date, its a must and simple read ifyou're in networking and have never read it or just want to understandwhat hacking is all about.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A Wonderful Account Of History
I picked up this book in the university library, expecting it to be a technical book (it was after all in the technical section). It isn't. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Shane Hudson
Computer Security 101
Cliff tells an interesting story of an accounting error in the computers at Berkley University. His work to understand this uncovered a computer hacker with access to many other... Read more
Published 5 months ago by M. SMITH
Excellent Book
This is a book that you really will struggle to put down. What adds to the draw of this is that it is all true. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Rob H
The original and best
A classic, of course, and getting on a bit now. Published in 1989, this is a postgraduate astronomer's account of how he stalked a German hacker who was using the university as a... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Mark Hurst
An interesting read
I bought this on a recommendation from a post on TechRepublic about top books every geek should own. Read more
Published 20 months ago by P. Louis-jean
Captivating
An informative, entertaining and thrilling read...but only if you're interested in computers and security. Read more
Published on 1 Feb 2010 by J. Withers
Amazing book
A very nice history. After you start reading it, you wouldn't be able to stop. It grabs you so hard. What Cliff makes to persue the hacker is amazing. Read more
Published on 14 Nov 2009 by Bruno Ricardo Santos
Not just a spy story...
So Cliff Stoll, astronomer, gets a job as a computer bod at Berkeley. He comes across a discrepancy in accounting of about 75 cents for computer time and when he investigates... Read more
Published on 12 May 2008 by S. Bentley
Readable, but could be half the length
This is a book about an academic chasing a hacker in the days when this was a rare and for the most part, irrelevant act in the eyes of the FBI etc. Read more
Published on 13 Dec 2006 by Joe 2316
Fantastic Book !!!
This is by far the best book I've ever read !!
Clifford Stoll starts out as a seemingly happless Astronomer and unfolds into a Spycatcher. Read more
Clifford Stoll starts out as a seemingly happless Astronomer and unfolds into a Spycatcher. Read more
Published on 4 May 2006 by M. Rider
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