The Cuckoo's Egg

Ah this was amazing. I didn't have any expectations of this book but it turned out to be a thrilling story of vintage computer crime told in a compelling accessible way.

I loved the way the scale and scope of the story was slowly grown from a tiny accounting error into an intercontinental espionage tale.

Interesting to read about some of the early computer vulnerabilities, early approaches to security, as well as perspectives from government agencies.

This was a great introduction to computer history and cybersecurity, written as a thriller that could easily be fictional - if only it wasn't.

Published in 1989, I'm sad I've been unaware of it all that time. I'm definitely going to read more in this genre. I much preferred the earlier smaller scale of the book, and found it less interesting once the scale blew up.

This book is an excellent introduction to hacking. It's great for beginners as it explains concepts on a fundamental level. It asks moral questions surrounding information security and who protects users. It is also a great starting point for people who need to see the picture of their learning or are struggling with being interested in learning about information security.

I enjoyed this exploration of "vintage" computer systems. It differed from some other hacking tales I've read in that it was from the perspective of a person watching the hacker rather than that of the hacker. This gives it a fun detective story vibe.
The hacking itself was pretty low stakes and a lot of time was spent talking about how the hack wasn't bad enough to warrant any law enforcement getting involved. Somewhat frustrating, though probably not as much as it was for the writer at the time.

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.

This is a classic computer security tale. The first time I read it, I was a novice programmer and knew absolutely nothing about security, so I found the hinjinks thrilling. Years later, and knowing (dare I say) a thing or two, the idea of someone trying admin passwords against everything they can find connected to the network is the type of thing everyone can expect to see in a log file from time to time, and providers most certainly don't leave default admin passwords (if you enable password login at all!) So it's more a historical artifact of an era just before the internet had fully connecte every network, and when big institutional computers where still exciting compared to PCs or Phones. As a record of that era, especially one founded on contemporary notes rather than fond recollection, is a very nice.

The bulk of the book is about making phone traces, logging activity, and the technical details of the chase. The author's initial suspicion of intelligence types slowly changes as he becomes a security researcher himself, and it's a neat introspective journey. We also get small snapshots of the culture of the era and the area which add some human touches to an otherwise very technical story.

It was interesting to hear about vim, emacs, and various other technologies from the perspective of 1989... some things have changed a lot and some things really haven't changed.

This is the kind of book that will appeal to computer nerds, and perhaps no one else, but since I am a computer nerd I quite enjoyed it. It is a true story involving computer hacking, and one of the earliest ones. The protagonist of this story is Clifford Stoll, who was trained as an astronomer but was managing computers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. One day he asked to look into a $.75 discrepancy in the billing for the computer accounts. With a magnificent obsession he tears into it, and eventually traces everything to a Soviet spy operating out of West Germany. Along the way Stoll has to deal with various agencies that don't really know what to do about this, and wonder if it as even anything they should worry about. After all, a 75 cent accounting error is not a big deal. But when it is clear that a foreign agent is looking for information about the Strategic Defense Initiative (aka Star Wars), it is time to take action.

What a page-turner! A real story that's equal parts spy-story and history of computing. Recommended for everyone who ever has used a shell.