Cybersecurity in 1989: Looking back at “The Cuckoo's Egg” (2015) | Hacker News Reader

Cybersecurity in 1989: Looking back at “The Cuckoo's Egg” (2015)

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When I was in middle school back in 1995, my teacher knew I was into computers and gave me this book as an assignment. I didn't even question why I was getting an assignment and no one else was, I just remember tearing through that book. Definitely inspired me to go deeper into computing and hacking, and not too long after reading it I did my first Linux install (Red Hat disks I convinced my dad to buy me).

Years later a friend would buy me a Klein bottle for my birthday and I got re-introduced to Cliff Stoll. Thanks Cliff!

Love this story! I had a similar experience, in that Summer '96 my work experience placement was an IT dept at a London hospital, and they had all manner of Sun SPARC stations and DEC Alpha boxes. After the 2 week placement (my sole task was to learn how to install Red Hat 3.0.3 (Picasso!) on a spare PC they had), they gave me the Infomagic Linux Developer's Resource as a gift, and I then spent another month getting it working on my Packard Bell PC ;-D. Anyway, having discovered Phrack magazine I found reference to the Cuckoo's Egg, and my local library carried it. It's still, to this day, the only book I've devoured in just over one day - and probably the only time I've ever hit flow state while reading. It was an amazing read - thank you, Cliff!

Wholesome :) What a great teacher!

Lessons from the Cuckoo's Egg - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22027709 - Jan 2020 (7 comments)

The KGB Hack: 30 Years Later [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21898811 - Dec 2019 (10 comments)

Cliff Stoll, the mad scientist who invented the art of hunting hackers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21830277 - Dec 2019 (149 comments)

The Cuckoo's Egg - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19029592 - Jan 2019 (10 comments)

Clifford Stoll: The KGB, the Computer, and Me (1990) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3164163 - Oct 2011 (1 comment)

Cooking the Cuckoo's Egg - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2452853 - April 2011 (4 comments)

Others? I thought there would be more...

This user might have some ideas:

https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=CliffStoll

this account of how the book came to be is gold:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29387116

and here is another thread discussing the book:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27685986

Well, I"m a little late to the party, but yep, I may have some ideas...

Best wishes, -Cliff

Cliff Stoll is a real character. I remember attending an author event for him at Computer Literacy in Sunnyvale, for his subsequent book “Silicon Snake Oil”. This would have been 1995 or so. The place was packed. He talked about the book a little bit, but he basically told stories nonstop for about two hours.

I forget most of the stories, but one was about a grandfather clock (a tall pendulum clock) that was being thrown out because somebody thought it was useless —- it ran fast by four minutes a day. But the clock had been set that way deliberately. Why? Clue: the clock was found near the astronomy department.

Gur craqhyhz jnf nqwhfgrq fb gung gur pybpx xrcg fvqrerny gvzr.

It was an incredibly fun and extremely nerdy event.

Indeed - and the mandatory reference is a link to his Acme Klein Bottle store: https://www.kleinbottle.com/

True story - they threw out a very nice mechanical clock because it didn't keep good time. Off by 4 minutes a day.

Today, it's in my dining room -- followed me around about 50 years.

https://www.dcode.fr/caesar-cipher

It is the same mystery that Grote Reber found while inventing radio astronomy.

Oh you should've rot13'd the clue too, too easy! :P

Don’t forget the 1990 Nova special “The KGB, the Computer, and Me”

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PGv5BqNL164

Totally recommended. Although it's a bit weird they included this part: https://youtu.be/8M0sCfsGYbg?t=33

It's central to the story!

featuring clifford stoll himself.

it's also on archive.org: https://archive.org/details/The_KGB_The_Computer_and_Me_1990

Stoll runs kleinbottle.com and sells glass Klein bottles. The site is great and full of descriptions of his hacks and automations for his business.

I bought a bottle and it came with free stickers and a wonderful set of instructions full of all the topological puns I could want.

The obligatory reminder that there is a movie which depicts a (fictionalized) account of the 'other side' of the story: https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/23_%E2%80%93_Nichts_ist_so_w...

When I had my little ISP on Phoenix, AZ back in '93, EVERY new customer received a softcover copy of the Cuckoo's Egg.

Thanks, mixer of cows.

At 12 cents royalty per copy, you helped me with several cups of coffee!

That's intriguing; did any of them comment on it?

This book was mandatory reading on the MSc in Information Security at Royal Holloway back in the 2000s.

It's also an amazing and gripping true story. Well worth the time for anyone to read, whether they work in security or not.

While it’s no longer mandatory, I can assure you RoHo infosec students still read this book, as I did :).

FYI - Cliff Stoll is active on HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31575753

And was sadly the victim of another cybersecurity breach recently:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27684807

For people looking to get started in infosec or looking to broaden out some core competencies that are a bit abstracted by all the security vendors now, for what it’s worth this book still holds weight. Describes how he invented via scientific method cornerstone approaches of the field today.

it is hard not to mention the fine WGBH produced re-enactment [1] version of this story any time this book is mentioned. there's also a german film from the POV of the other side of cliff's story [2]

[1] https://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_173A6CB5E5234750BEFB591...

[1] https://youtu.be/PGv5BqNL164

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/23_(film)

I highly enjoyed reading this book - does anyone else have recommendations for similar reads?

Masters of Doom was another great one.

Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier - Katie Hafner & John Markoff[1]

This book was really my entry point into the world of "hacking" as "breaking into things" and computer security, and the computer underground scene. It's broken into three sections:

1. A recounting of Kevin Mitnick's early days out in LA

2. A stripped down re-telling of the German hackers story (as recounted at greater length and in first-person in The Cuckoo's Egg)

3. A section on Robert Morris and the "Morris Worm" events

There are some questions about the veracity of parts of this book, especially the sections on Mitnick, but I think it's still worth a read. But if you're into this sort of thing, I'd suggest also reading other books on Mitnick (particularly his auto-biographical book Ghost In The Wires[2]) to get a more balanced view of his story - as well as more of what happened later in Mitnick's life.

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/CYBERPUNK-Outlaws-Hackers-Computer-Fr...

[2]: https://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Wires-Adventures-Worlds-Wanted/...*

Style and subject: Ghost in the Wires, Kevin Mitnick

Subject: Worm, Mark Bowden Countdown to Zero Day, Kim Zetter

Style: The Soul of a New Machine, Tracy Kidder All the President's Men, Woodward & Bernstein

I think I read Soul Of A New Machine in the same year I read The Cuckoo's Egg. Both books left a deep impression on me.

Stoll was a deadhead, right? He used to go to see the Dead at the Greek?

Not really a deadhead -- I used to go to the Greek for Dead concerts (hey, it's Berkeley), but I didn't follow them around the country or analyze X-Factors.

Anyways, when the Greek Theater is a 10 minute downhill walk from your lab, how could you not go? (those days seem so long-ago...)

Most Secret War, a tale of the Battle of the Beams and the nascent technical intelligence groups that set the context for the Battle of Britain.

In the hacker true crime genre you have The Hacker Crackdown, Takedown, and Masters of Deception.

I listened to this as an audiobook last year. The thing that struck me was how weak security was (which this article points out) such as hooking up systems to the open networks with default passwords still set up. And exploiting emacs being one of the ways they’d escalate privileges. Here’s an excerpt I found talking about that.

https://faculty.kutztown.edu/rieksts/111-F13/lectures/egg.ht...

It was a more innocent time.

to say the least: Vax/VMS systems came with default name/pw of SYSADM/SYSADM. Guest logins without passwords were commonplace on Unix systems. This was way back when computing - and the Arpanet - were considered playgrounds for academics.

Long way back!

I remember reading this while driving from LA to Vegas for CES in 2005 or so. I don't think I looked out the window of the car once for the entire drive - this book is a page turner for sure.

Uh...

should note I was a passenger =)

FSD FTW.

Obligatory mention of his Klein bottle business and absolute willingness to meet and converse with guests. It’s a dream of mine to visit him with my son and hope to someday; reports of his kindness are legendary.

Cliff wanted to use my knot diagrams in a math exhibit, so I got to meet him in his home, he is indeed the kindest and most dynamic gentleman I've ever met.

I'm also a fan of Cuckoo's Nest, and I recall seeing him on the PBS News Hour when I was a kid, they'd interview him for computer-related topics.

// blush //

I ran into him at the post office in rockridge/temescal. I asked him if he was indeed Cliff. We stepped outside and chatted for about half an hour. It was an incredibly good conversation.

Yikes! I remember that!

Smiles, -Cliff

Interesting, didn’t realize that’s Cliff.

- Related Numberphile:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AAsICMPwGPY&list=PLt5AfwLFPxWI...

- Direct link to his Klein bottle website:

https://www.kleinbottle.com/

The Cuckoo's Egg is the book that got me interested in computers and decide to learn programming. It will always have a special place in my heart.

I came to The Cuckoo's Egg in somewhat indirect fashion - it was mentioned in Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier by Markoff and Haffner, which was one of the first books that got me interested in computing. Not the very first mind you (I think that would be The Soul of a New Machine) but certainly one of the first. And so of course I immediately had to go out and find a copy of The Cuckoo's Egg after reading Cyberpunk and things just carried on from there.

Next thing you know I'm beige-boxing COCOT's at remote rural gas stations at 2:00am to call into the Hacker's Haven BBS to download Tone-Loc and other nifty programs, and newsletters by groups with names like "Cult of the Dead Cow" and "Phone Losers of America", etc.. Aaaah, the good old days. :-)

I was on deployment in the Navy when I read "The Cuckoo's Egg". It was simply fascinating to read, and changed the course of my career.

Did you know: Paul Graham is in the book!

I remember Robert Moore in the epilogue. Where was Paul Graham?

Yes, Paul was mentioned in the context of Robert’s worm in the book, specifically:

>> Whatever his purposes were, I don't believe he was in cahoots with his father. Rumors have it that he worked with a friend or two at Harvard's computing department (Harvard student Paul Graham sent him mail asking for "Any news on the brilliant project"), but I doubt his father would encourage anyone to create a virus. As Bob Morris, Sr., said, "This isn't exactly a good mark for a career at NSA."

From Wikipedia: “The Morris worm or Internet worm of November 2, 1988, was one of the oldest computer worms distributed via the Internet, and the first to gain significant mainstream media attention. It also resulted in the first felony conviction in the US under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. It was written by a graduate student at Cornell University, Robert Tappan Morris, and launched on November 2, 1988, from the computer systems of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. [1] He went on to cofound the online store Viaweb, one of the first web applications, and later the venture capital funding firm Y Combinator, both with Paul Graham. [2] ”

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_worm

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Tappan_Morris

Paul Graham is implied to have known about Robert Morris's Morris Worm before its deployment

One my favorite books. I’ve read it several times now. My copy is getting a little worn at this point. It was required reading in college, and it easily stands as the single best school book I’ve ever encountered.

Please buy a new copy of Cuckoo's Egg ... I'll use the royalty to pay the first gulp of tomorrow's coffee.

Discovered this book in my elementary school's library when I was a kid in the mid-1990s. It became my favorite book, and it remains so to this day: I absolutely love it!

His efforts led to the creation of a sub-industry: Network Security Monitoring. Also the "operation showerhead" is one of the earlier honeypots I am aware of.

(2015)

Added. Thanks!

I read it back in the day. The Russian agent committed suicide in an unusual way, he poured gasoline on himself in a remote field.

Cuckoo's Egg, In the Beginning there was the Command Line, The Hacker Crackdown...

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