About:
The Cuckoo’s Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage by Cliff Stoll is a memoir by the astronomer turned spy-catcher. Mr. Stoll’s book wrote this book in 1989, and it is now in the pantheon of cybersecurity books.
- 326 pages
- Publisher : Doubleday
- Language : English
- ISBN-10 : 0385249462
My rating for The Cuckoo’s Egg — 5
BuyThe Cuckoo’s Egg from Amazon.com*
More Books by Cliff Stoll*
Thoughts:
I have heard about Mr. Stoll’s amusing journey for years. Almost every history of computers / cybersecurity book mentions it, and I finally had a chance to read it.
The Cuckoo’s Egg by Cliff Stoll is still a gripping and engrossing book, almost 35 years later. At the time cybercriminals weren’t really worried about masking their identities, and anyway, it wasn’t really a “crime”.
Mr. Stoll, an astronomer working at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab was asked to find a 75 cent discrepancy in the computer billing time. As he started to turn over certain digital rocks to find out whether it was a mistake or not he discovered an intruder traveling through the university’s network intending on compromising government and military networks.
Throughout the book, Mr. Stoll elaborates on computer security issues which are still relevant in today’s world, as well as a history of the internet and the Unix OS. When he reports his findings to law enforcement and federal agencies, he’s surprised to find out that none of them are taking the threat to national security seriously. Not to mention his fear of being found out by his fellow academics of working with “the feds”.
In due time, Mr. Stoll with credit to his girlfriend, now wife, Martha create the first intrusion detection system, and the first honeypot computer trap. In today’s world, the author would be considered a cybersecurity legend, but not a technical genius. In hunting the hacker over three decades ago, he pioneered ways that would later become standard, and to us obvious, practices.
And the hacker, the one none of the intelligence agencies wanted to have anything to do with?
Well, he turned out to be Markus Hess, a German recruited by the KGB.
BuyThe Cuckoo’s Egg from Amazon.com*
More Books by Cliff Stoll*
Zohar — Man of la Book
Disclaimer: I bought this book.
*Amazon links point to an affiliate account, the money is usually spent on books
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