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Comment by furyg3 | Hacker News Reader

Hey Cliff, I just have to say thanks. I read the Cuckoo's Egg in the early 90s and while I was already interested in computers, the idea that there were "networks" of them out there... well... it blew my mind.

I immediately went to my school librarian and said I wanted to try to connect computers together, or try to dial-up to library information services, etc. We started learning together.

You were a huge inspiration, thanks.

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There was also a television adaptation, "The KGB, the Computer, and Me" produced by PBS Nova in like 1992, starring Clifford Stoll as Cliff Stoll!

Here is a bootlegged youtube link--it's the best I've got. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGv5BqNL164

A legend!

Thank you for the link. Amazing. And Cliff as himself ! I read the book but just could not stop watching the documentary.

Next time I am in Hannover will have to take a photo in front of the flat. It got a repaint though...

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.371627,9.7208921,3a,53.1y,13...

Ooh ... I visited there way back when. Down where that bike is parked there was a coin-operated cigarette machine. And they sold Benson & Hedges ciggies (which were the passwords that the hackers had chosen). Sends me way back, Belter.

Wanna really nerd out, here's the Grateful Dead show Cliff cut out of hacker chasing to go attend: https://archive.org/details/gd86-06-21.sbd.brame.15406.sbeok...

"A bass guitar note took my attention from the hacker’s trail. The Grateful Dead were playing outdoors at the Berkeley Greek Theater, only a hundred yards downhill from the lab. The police couldn’t keep people from sitting in the field overlooking the concert, so I skipped over there, mingling with a thousand others in tie-dyed shirts. Burnt-out panhandlers, left over from the sixties, walked the crowd, begging tickets and selling posters, buttons, and grass. The drum solo in the second set echoed from Strawberry Canyon, adding a weird backbeat appreciated only by us cheapskates in the fields. Life was full: no hacker is worth missing a Dead concert for..."

"The Cuckoo's Egg" - Pag 35 (on my edition)

Complete agreement — wouldn’t miss a Dead concert for anything.

Hmmm - I seem to be agreeing with myself. I tend to do that, occasionally.

It looks like archive.org also has it: https://archive.org/details/The_KGB_The_Computer_and_Me_1990

That you are linking to a bootleg copy of video on this thread is...ironic, to say the least.

Well, it is unavailable on Amazon...

https://www.amazon.com/KGB-Computer-Me-VHS/dp/B00004Y50L

https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B000JLM0RQ/ref=atv_dp...

Don't worry, I'm sure "AMVOOM The KGB, the Computer, and Me" will be listed anytime soon.

Fascinating movie, thank you for linking to it! I loved to see what logging and tracing looked like back in the day. Looks a lot more fun than just dumping terabytes to S3. I also really enjoyed how stoked and energetic Cliff was about the whole thing. What a gem!

One of my (very sincerely held) goals in life is to be as excited about _something_ as Cliff Stoll is about _everything_.

Ha! I didn't know the klien bottle guy was the accounting error guy. That's very cool.

Googled him there and he's listed as an astronomer. But the astronomers consider him a computer guy ;)

You should read his book! He discusses this in the first chapter. He helped (or maybe solely) design the lens at W. M. Keck observatory, and you can see him on Numberphile a lot.

Definitely, I read it in a day it was so enthralling.

Took a year to write. Asynchronous I/O, I guess.

So long as more than 365 people spent a day or more reading it, you got your revenge on the universe… ;-)

Aaah - a tilt of the karmic plane!

I did! A long long time ago. That's why I mentioned it. It always stuck with me :)

Brilliant read.

I just wanted to jump in and say the same thing. I had the hardback of the Cuckoo's Egg as a teenager in the 90s. Huge inspiration to me and I have worked in and around tech ever since. Thank you.

I read it only last year. A brilliant and now historical book.

Mind slightly blown. The Cookoo's Egg is a great book, Cliff is amazing to watch in the Klein Bottle videos, but I've only just realised they're the same person!

There’s a movie about it, with Cliff Stoll himself on the lead role.

There's a movie about the hacker: 23 – Nichts ist so wie es scheint.

That’s true. I like both movies.

Same here, my copy from 1989 is still on my bookshelf. Thanks for being inspiring!

a fantastic and inspirational read. also great cookie recipe! made them many times

That book changed my life.

Changed mine, too. Q-Bert.

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