[HN Gopher] Clifford Stoll beat the Russians, then made useless,...
___________________________________________________________________
Clifford Stoll beat the Russians, then made useless, wondrous
objects (2016)
Author : Michelangelo11
Score : 323 points
Date : 2023-03-21 00:37 UTC (22 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (alumni.berkeley.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (alumni.berkeley.edu)
| hhh wrote:
| I read The Cuckoo's Egg at 18 (almost 7 years ago now...) and
| have found Cliff (Mr. Stoll sounds too formal) to be a
| spectacular source of inspiration in my life. From all the
| Numberphile videos to the talk about teaching in middle school
| I've always found his energy exciting and try to approach
| everything with that much enthusiasm.
|
| I need to buy a bottle as a token to have something to remind me
| of those things long past when my memory alone can do it.
| jgerrish wrote:
| The article mentions one of the things I remember most about The
| Cuckoo's Egg. It was Stoll's use of simple tech, a printer, to
| securely log the activities of the intruder.
|
| No worrying about tampered logs, or any of that.
|
| Of course, he had physical security at Lawrence Berkeley Lab.
|
| I wouldn't want to play that game if I was in an insecure
| location. It's just not fun.
|
| Still, good book. Formative in my youth.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Partly because, as a physicist and a ham, it was way easier to
| solder and clip lead some RS232 wires than to reprogram a tty
| daemon.
| ibestvina wrote:
| What an amazing person. I first learned about Clifford when he
| did his TED talk, and I was immediately a fan. The quote from the
| Hayes Hall Bell Tower resonated, and stayed with me, for all the
| years since. I'm deeply grateful that people like him exist,
| sharing their experiences and knowledge while still being simply
| kind and approachable. If you're reading this, thank you!
| CliffStoll wrote:
| At 2AM on a rainy Oakland night, thank you very much, BestV.
|
| That TED talk was a bit strange for me - I'd prepared a 1 hour
| talk: just before going onstage, they told me that I had only
| 18 minutes.
|
| So I did what I learned in grad school: talk fast and don't
| give 'em a standing target.
|
| And the chase across campus? Yep happened petty much as I told
| it. Even now, in the middle of the night, tapping on an iPad, I
| can remember: All truth is one. In this light . . .
|
| Again, thank you.
| ibestvina wrote:
| Thank you for the information. I'm sure there are a lot of
| people who'd be interested in the full 1 hour talk, if you
| ever find time to film it.
| manv1 wrote:
| "I realized that the trouble with bong makers is that they're
| also bong users." - classic!
| Claudus wrote:
| I remember searching my library for every book I could find on
| computers and hacking, there weren't many, but I somehow stumbled
| upon The Cuckoos Egg while flipping through the ancient wooden
| drawers of the card catalog in my local library. It really was
| one of the most magical books I've ever read. Since then I've had
| many exciting experiences of my own in the digital world, and I
| owe that in part to Clifford Stoll for painting such a vivid an
| exciting view of his own experiences that helped shape my own
| imagination.
| nxpnsv wrote:
| I bought some Klein bottles from Cliff. The single best buying
| anything online experience I've ever had. AND he's a legend.
| flaschenoeffner wrote:
| I was an exchange student in Germany when the wall came down. I
| was a computer science major, and a friend sent me a copy of the
| Cuckoo's Egg. That book made me feel excited about my future
| profession and opened my eyes to a world that I was largely
| unaware of. It also convinced me that grad school was something I
| had to experience. The book altered the path my life was on in a
| very good way. Thank you, Cliff!
| CliffStoll wrote:
| My happy greetings back to you!
|
| Those times opened my eyes as well. It marked a watershed
| between days of computing innocence (an academic playground)
| and the era of a global commercial system with deep
| implications of security.
| phist_mcgee wrote:
| I was the only student in my CS class who actually read the
| Cuckoo's Egg as part of our operating systems unit (everyone else
| just looked up a synopsis on wikipedia). So glad I did, it was
| such a fun read. Greetings from Australia!
|
| Just purchased a klein bottle as well!
| RigelKentaurus wrote:
| I wasn't familiar with Dr Stoll or Klein bottles. It was great to
| read this. As a Cal alum, the sheer number of
| awesome/weird/creative people associated with the university and
| city continues to inspire and astonish me. Fiat lux!
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Luis Alvarez used to have a weekly physics seminar at his
| house, just north of campus (on Cedar Street). I was honored to
| do one of the Tuesday evening talks and get flak from all the
| physics jocks. Berekeley in the 1980's.
| pie314isi wrote:
| I have once of his Klein bottles. It came in the most amazing
| personally decorated package that I've kept that too, and value
| it almost as highly as the glassware.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Once, a postal letter-carrier asked me why I scribbled
| "nonorientable" on my package. I began to tell her the
| mathematical meanings of the word, and she interrupted me to
| say that she knew its meaning - she wanted to know what kind of
| topological shape was in the box. Wow: she knew topology!
|
| Since then, I scribble it on every box I mail, in honor of her.
| 31337Logic wrote:
| Any previous doubts I may have had regarding the authenticity
| of this "CliffStoll" account have now evaporated. ;-)
|
| Thank you, Cliff, for all that you've done. Clearly, you've
| left a mark on many souls... and we're all the better for it.
| :-)
| robbiet480 wrote:
| I've been meaning to buy an Acme Klein bottle for years now,
| especially because I live near Cliff in Oakland so it's not like
| he's far away!
|
| Maybe this weekend...
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Colby Street, near college & alcatraz. But call first --
| several houseguests this week!
| FeepingCreature wrote:
| I still type `ps ax` because that's the syntax I picked up from
| Cuckoo's Egg. Learnt that command several years before I
| installed Linux for the first time. <3
|
| IMO, the second lesson of Google is to never trust the first
| Google hit, or the second or the third... the Internet doesn't
| really teach you how to investigate questions on your own - then
| again, what does but experience - but it does teach you the art
| of detecting bullshit. Even on sites like Stack Overflow, I find
| myself looking at the top answer, going "no, that's obviously
| wrong, next, next, next... ah, this answer added two years late
| at zero votes looks promising." If you just follow the first
| thing Google tells you, you'll fall on your face pretty reliably.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| My fingers, too, were trained so long ago. The ls command?
| -lastF no matter what version. Still find myself using /more/
| rather than /less/ or any of the more modern versions. Yep,
| there are still a few dinosaurs left...
|
| Behind a pi-hole, those first google hits tend to be blocked
| ads, so some people follow follow your advice by default.
| hyperman1 wrote:
| I got your book before I got my first 80386 based computer. I
| upgrade from ps ax to ps axu, but apart from that, you
| learned me some UNIX before I got a computer.
|
| What I remember most of the book is the talks with Luis
| Alvarez, and the influence it had on how you examined the
| attacker. So while you didn't turn me into a (professional)
| astronomer, you might have managed to turn me into a
| scientist.
|
| BTW, even if the computer stuff is completely outdated, the
| problem solving attitude that speaks out of the book is a
| reason why I still recommend it to youngsters. I recently
| bought an English edition to read it in the original
| language, too.
|
| BTW2, regarding dinosaurs, my old professor could never get
| the hang of this new-fangled windows stuff. We always saw him
| struggling with notepad, typing stuff like :wq in it and
| cursing when it didnt work. One day, we took pity on him and
| installed cygwin and a windows-compatible vi. Good times ;-)
| h0l0cube wrote:
| Recently the Malicious Life podcast has been covering the
| Lawrence Berkeley hack in depth
|
| https://malicious.life/episode/episode-210/
| csours wrote:
| Cuckoo's Egg is so much more than a hacking story. It's a history
| of a time when the internet was tiny and people assumed good
| faith. It's a history of a time when very few people were
| interested in or believed that computer crime was real or had any
| impact.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| It was long ago, when almost nobody had a 2400 baud modem,
| hardly anyone knew of the Arpanet, and pocket pagers were a
| rarity.
|
| Everything's changed: today, almost nobody has a 2400 baud
| modem, hardly anyone knows of the Arpanet, and pocket pagers
| are a rarity.
| zabzonk wrote:
| Weren't they 2800, not 2400? I always liked the sounds they
| made when they were dialling up.
|
| Nobody will ever miss pagers, IMHO. I used to have to carry
| one to support a trading server at a bank (Credit Suisse,
| somewhat topically) and I used to dread it going off in the
| middle of the night because something had gone horribly wrong
| in Hong Kong. We eventually re-wrote the server so it was
| trivial to restart & managed to shuffle off responsibility
| for it to the locals. Bye-bye pager and good riddance!
|
| Liked your books, BTW!
| bb88 wrote:
| 110. Then 300. Then 600. Then 1200. Then 2400. Then 4800.
| Then 9600. Then 14.4k. Then 28.8k. Then 33.6k. Then 56k.
| wrigby wrote:
| Perhaps you're thinking of the considerably faster 28800
| modems?
| zabzonk wrote:
| probably so - my bad
| JanneVee wrote:
| I remember that humor from Silicon Snake Oil, it was a
| wonderful book. I think back to it when working in an
| industry where everyone takes a tractable problem and makes
| it intractable for "job security".
| Freewoll wrote:
| After I read The Cuckoo's Egg many years ago, I sent you a
| goofy fan email and you replied! Totally amazed by this whole
| instant world connectivity thing. 1 1 was a race horse...
| Still got a dot matrix printout of it somewheres... :)
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| > pocket pagers are a rarity.
|
| Unless you're a retained or volunteer firefighter, he said,
| looking at the box of a thousand pagers that need programmed
| up and sent out.
| zafka wrote:
| Hi Cliff, Just want to say how much it brightens my day to see
| you here. Quite a while I bought a few Klein bottles ( and loved
| the package inserts ) I work at "big-corp" and every week i host
| the mental health diplomats "TED talk" A few weeks ago I played
| your talk "The Call to Learn" for the second time. You are quite
| the inspiration.
| TexanFeller wrote:
| I bought one of his klein bottles expecting only a klein bottle.
| Much to my surprise even the cardboard box it came in was hand
| decorated with drawings made in marker. Inside there was a packet
| of information about klein bottles stuffed to the gills with
| witty humor about topology and science and signed by Cliff. Every
| detail made me laugh and smile. This is so clearly a labor of
| love for him, I've never seen anyone else put this much effort
| into bringing joy into the world.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Indeed, my friend from Texas -- if you wish to teach math, it
| takes a bit of effort and humor.
|
| Same with computing - you put yourself in the shoes of your
| student.
| donatj wrote:
| Cliff Stoll is a super interesting character. His Numberphile
| videos are amongst my favorites.
|
| I actually ran into him on Reddit of all places a couple weeks
| ago. I was looking into air filters for my Mac Studio and I found
| a post where he had built a special stand with a cut up furnace
| filter to help protect his Mac Studio from dust. I recognized his
| garage from Numberphile and asked if it was him, sure enough.
|
| I mean to actually build something like his contraption. My old
| house collects so much dust.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Thank you Donat -- your happy note brings a smile to this tired
| astronomer's face,
|
| We have two wonderful cats who enjoy shedding cat hair around
| my desk. The new Mac Studio draws cooling air from the tabletop
| ,resulting cat fluff clogging the air passages. As you saw,
| it's a chance to research how filter media work, and to home
| brew a solution that keeps everyone happy: computer, Cliff, and
| cats.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| Haven't seen anyone mention the 1990 documentary:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGv5BqNL164
|
| It's amazing to see how little he's changed.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| A third of a century, two kids, and several turns in the road.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| I suspect you wouldn't be as quick cycling up that hill at
| the start of that film.
| inconceivable wrote:
| i bought one of his bottles during the pandemic because i needed
| to gussy the place up a bit for spending more time in. highly
| recommended. i think i have his handwritten note ... somewhere
| around here ...
| CliffStoll wrote:
| If you can't find that handscribbled note, you can substitute
| this finger-poked reply, Inconcee. I do try to write something
| on each kleinbottle order -- indeed, I try to have fun with my
| zero-volume business.
| inconceivable wrote:
| thanks cliff!
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| The quote from his 1995 book is weird:
|
| > Give the kid a diet of Google
|
| Google was founded in 1998, this quote must be from a later
| edition of the book.
| creiht wrote:
| I rarely comment on HN, but I appreciate these moments that
| remind me that the internet can still be a beautiful place.
| Cliff, watching the Nova special (and later reading the book),
| was very formative in deciding to pursue a CS degree, and it has
| been a blessing to see your humble replies here. Keep doing what
| you do, and one day I will be able to mark off a bucket list item
| of being able to stop by and purchase a Klein bottle in person!
| Enderboi wrote:
| Every few months I keep telling myself I need to buy one of
| Cliff's Klein bottles to go alongside my (very dogeared)
| paperback copy of The Cuckoo's Egg :)
|
| Learning all the default VMS passwords definately didn't get me
| in trouble during High School with the state's herd of Vaxen... I
| mean the book was right there, in the library! Wink wink :P
| CliffStoll wrote:
| You used VMS in high school? You must be old enough to vote!
|
| Blushing slightly, my high school had an IBM 1620, where I
| learned machine coding, assembler, and that most modern
| language, Fortran. 1965: punch-cards and blinking panel lights.
|
| Yep, I feel like a fossil.
| jacknews wrote:
| Bah they forgot to mention the best bit.
|
| He keeps already-made klein bottles in the crawlspace under his
| house, and built a remote controlled fpv mini-forklift to
| retrieve them on demand:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k3mVnRlQLU
| qikInNdOutReply wrote:
| The longer i think about projects such as this, the more
| convinced i am that a small rail system such as it is for
| hollywood, and little wagons with containers would be ideal for
| such a house storage space. Just one motor and a linear
| distance index and you can turn that space into a storage on
| rail.
| qikInNdOutReply wrote:
| And come to think of it, that rail system could fit
| anywhere.. have old AC ducts? Rail Storage. High Rooms? Rail
| Storage behind a drop ceiling! Garagespace? But rails on a
| rack..
|
| Have rubys in a mine? Goto put it on rails. Idea runaway
| exception thrown..
| CliffStoll wrote:
| A problem that recurs in my little storage system is precise
| 4 degree-of-freedom positioning in a complex environment.
| Locating the forklift to centimeter accuracy (X,Y, Z and
| theta) has been a programming challenge, as well as properly
| handling palletized boxes. Much fun to figure out, but it's
| still way more efficient to guide the forklift using cameras
| and remote hand-control.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Sigh -- for all the time it saves me in carrying boxes from the
| crawlspace under our house ... I probably spend as much time
| fixing, maintaining and improving the thing. Much fun, of
| course -- I've built a line following device for it and played
| with PyTorch to get it to semiautomaticly pick boxes from
| stock. Yep - every minute it saves me goes right back into
| fooling around with the three-wheeled beast.
| jacknews wrote:
| You're doing extremely well if you're breaking even!
|
| I think sometimes it's all about the journey, not the
| destination.
| taylorius wrote:
| "You're doing extremely well if you're breaking even!"
|
| The automater's slightly underwhelming battle cry! :-D
| sanderjd wrote:
| Classic: https://xkcd.com/1319/ ("Automation").
| stavros wrote:
| Yeah, but building a robot is fun in the way that moving
| bottles is not, so the time costs on each are very different!
| adityaathalye wrote:
| Well I happen to think that's a good general strategy to live
| life. Replace non-fun labour and time with fun labour and
| time. No matter then, if the fun version is all about
| automating the non-fun version (or vice versa)!
| bb88 wrote:
| There's a book called "Automate the boring stuff with
| python."
|
| https://automatetheboringstuff.com/
| godtoldmetodoit wrote:
| Cliff, I just wanted to take a moment to say that The
| Cuckoo's Egg was formative in my youth and was definitely one
| of things that led me into getting into IT and programming.
| You just seem like such a nice, wonderful, fascinating human.
| Hope you have a great day!
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Thanks to you, GTMTDI! May your career be as satisfying
| (but hopefully less interesting) than mine.
|
| My day? Oh, it looks like I'll be sending out Klein bottles
| (thanks to Hacker News people!). I suspect that I'm the
| only shipping clerk in Northern California with a degree in
| planetary physics.
| l-albertovich wrote:
| Oh boy! Ever since I listened to The cuckoo's egg I wanted to
| reach out to tell you how much I loved it, I enjoyed ever
| single minute out of the almost 13 hours so thank you very
| much for it.
|
| I'm looking forward to reading or listening to Silicon snake
| oil and High tech heretic but those are not available in
| Storytel so I'll have to wait until I have time to read them
| in paper.
| jacknews wrote:
| +1 I think I was gifted a copy of the book when it came
| out.
|
| It sat on a shelf for a few months, and then I casually
| picked it up late one workday evening ... and didn't put it
| down again until the last page.
|
| Just in time to leave for work the following morning, lol.
| l-albertovich wrote:
| Yeah, not only the story was really interesting from a
| technical point of view but the storytelling and the
| social aspects of his relationship with his SO and their
| social circle were really enjoyable.
|
| I even chuckled when he got mad and went to the garage to
| sand stuff (I won't spoil the rest) because of how close
| to home the entire thing hit.
| jjkaczor wrote:
| Heh - it's a "project" - myself, between learning to do 3d
| printing, in order to build parts/widgets to get my diode
| laser running for etching/engraving/cutting, it is an endless
| stream of tweaking this or that. OTOH, I am able to
| repair/replace things that would have been junk. (For
| example, I have a keyboard slider tray, where during a move,
| I lost the plastic sliders - those little parts paid for the
| cost of the 3d printer)
|
| Go next level - implement a QR code label and recognition
| system, so it can find the correct box automatically. (Sorry,
| couldn't resist)
|
| Also - thank-you for your books, I read "The Cuckoo's Egg"
| when I was 18 and it was one of the most amazing things I had
| read to that point. (I also loved "Silicon Snake Oil" - but
| missed "High-Tech Herectic")
| xenolithis wrote:
| Cliff in here responding to so many comments is the best thing
| I've seen so far this year. Great to see someone who shares
| experience and nurtures the tech community still so involved.
| Thanks for all you do!
| woolion wrote:
| The Cuckoo's egg is part of 'history of hackers' literature that
| fascinated me when I got into computer science. At the time I was
| spending my time with algorithms, so computers were paper
| theoretical devices on one side, and media devices on the other.
| There another hidden world with some people that were driven by
| an enormous thirst for knowledge that could do fantastic things.
|
| One thing that humans don't really manage well is understand how
| much an activity will change you in the process. It's a cliche,
| if you fight a monster you become a monster, because you're
| forced to use some methods that will have an impact on your
| psyche. The book delves in how the chase of this hacker bled into
| the author's personal life, and how his simplistic worldview was
| not enough to manage the different conflicts that were at play.
| Yet the direction into which he was pulled was so opposite to his
| own inclinations that it forced him to reflect on it in a more
| conscious manner. This thought process was both interesting,
| relatable, and illuminating.
|
| I don't see that mentioned anywhere but that left a strong
| impression on me (hopefully I'm not wrong, this was more than 15
| years ago...).
| ggerules wrote:
| Yes, "The Cuckoo's Egg", also left a big impression on me, for
| my 20ish year old self. It was one of the books that lead me to
| get a Ph.D. and pursue math and computer science. Thanks!
| CliffStoll wrote:
| You're very welcome! Your work in computing and math will
| change our world; may it be for the better.
| yenda wrote:
| I worked for a year for Pengu, one of the hackers. I never
| dared to ask about that part of his path. He had a custom
| arcade game running the game in the office, that was the
| closest thing to the topic. He really moved on with his life.
|
| If you wonder, at the time, the company was doing claims
| processing for a big insurance company in the US
| justanother wrote:
| I met up with Hans on X.25 just a couple years after the book
| came out, when he was at Artcom. I found him to be incredibly
| nice, and he even ran a small BBS and was helping me get a
| VAX account to explore VMS a bit. I don't recall why, but we
| eventually lost touch. This year I noticed him on Github
| doing some hardware-related stuff though.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Whew!
|
| You said it. I hadn't thought about who I was or anything
| beyond my techy life in Berkeley. I figured that I was an
| apolitical Berkeley longhair, attending Dead concerts and
| biking along verdant streets.
|
| It took a directed attack against my systems, my colleagues,
| and my community, to wake me up.
| revomatrix wrote:
| whoa ..this is Cliff Stoll.
|
| I'm still reading that yellow book The Cuckoo's Egg btw
| ..totally amazed me ..
| sanderjd wrote:
| This is the dynamic that blew my mind and made me love Ender's
| Game (and a few of its sequels).
| woolion wrote:
| It's the third time this month I see a mention of this book,
| and every time it seems interesting. I'll try to read it
| soon!
| ddulaney wrote:
| Ender's Game is quite good, though the sequels get mixed
| reviews. You should be aware going in that the author
| really dislikes gay people. This doesn't come up much in
| Ender's Game, but it does tinge things and is a real theme
| in his other books.
| sanderjd wrote:
| Yep, I definitely don't universally vouch for Card, but I
| do still have very warm feelings toward Ender's Game, and
| also find a lot to value in the sequels, despite them
| being more hit or miss.
| effingwewt wrote:
| 'Tinge things'?
|
| If an author's personal political and morality views
| change your enjoyment of books you'd only be able to read
| things from the last decade.
|
| As far as I remember homosexuality didn't even really
| come up in Ender's Game, its prequels mor sequels.
|
| I read Songmaster by OSC as a teenager, and that wasn't
| what I took away from it.
|
| There was a gay relationship that was at times hard to
| read for me as it went into such detail.
|
| Being straight it helped me see things' from the other
| side' so to speak.
|
| It wasn't until I was a grown adult and had already read
| everything OSC had written that I found out he was a
| conservative Mormon.
| ddulaney wrote:
| > If an author's personal political and morality views
| change your enjoyment of books you'd only be able to read
| things from the last decade.
|
| Not necessarily enjoyment, but they definitely change my
| perspective on the books. I read them, I sometimes love
| them, but I read them differently knowing what I do about
| the author. I don't need or want to agree with every view
| an author has. But I do want to read their writing in
| context, including historical context. You should still
| read Ender's Game, and you can definitely still like it
| (I know I do!).
|
| > homosexuality didn't even really come up in Ender's
| Game
|
| Yeah, that's fair. Lots of adjacent things did though:
| masculinity, sexuality, and violence in that context (for
| example, in the shower fight scene). I think his views on
| homosexuality are reflected in how he addresses those
| topics, even though it's not the main idea of the book.
| So yes: tinged. Not ruined, or unreadable, or canceled.
| But definitely there.
| effingwewt wrote:
| Adjacent to homosexuality?
|
| I mean no offense I just honestly do not understand.
|
| I've read the entire series and EG in particular more
| times over than I can remember- more than any other books
| and I just don't see what you do, but I guess reading a
| story is a personal journey we all take alone.
|
| Could be that what colors the glasses we view the stories
| through are our own personal experiences.
|
| Appreciate you taking the time to help me understand.
| evanb wrote:
| CliffStoll, can you tell Brady from Numberphile that it's an
| internet crime to sit on a Numberphile video with you in it for
| 2+ years?!
|
| I loved the most recent small-business-oriented Numberphile, by
| the way :)
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Those Numberphile videos? It's way fun when Brady stops by my
| house. I try to have two or three ideas somewhat organized.
| Some are simple flops or stumbles; others just seem to click.
| Like any improv performance.
|
| Thanks, of course for your smile about that recent video - yep,
| I did it offhand a couple years ago; I'd pretty much forgotten
| about it when -zooks- suddenly I'm staring at 3 dozen Klein
| bottle orders to send out.
|
| Brady Haran, incidentally, is a terrific interviewer and
| producer. It's a joy to work with him.
| pbh101 wrote:
| My grandfather gave me a worn copy of 'The Cuckoo's Egg' for our
| 12+-hour road trip back home after visiting them for the summer
| when I was in middle school. Fastest ride home ever, and I had
| nearly finished it by the time we arrived. Had a big influence on
| my career path. Thanks, Cliff!
| CliffStoll wrote:
| My happy greetings back to you, PBH. Not sure if I'd meant to
| influence your career (hadn't thought of that when I wrote the
| book); I'm astonished at how it turned out.
| ahoya wrote:
| I ordered one of these as a gift recently and his email as well
| as the extensive paperwork that comes with the bottle or
| fantastic works of science fiction in and of themselves. Didn't
| realize he wrote the cuckoos egg
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Thank you, indeed -- hadn't thought of my topological
| propaganda as exactly science fiction, but I guess you're
| right. Same with my dissertation on Jupiter's atmosphere, but
| for slightly different reasons.
| user3939382 wrote:
| I'm all filled up on anti-Russian sentiment for about 10-15
| years, thanks.
|
| We don't need any more headlines about "beating the Russians"
| right now. Especially not from cogs of The Machine like Berkeley.
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| > Sure enough, the perpetrator bit--and stayed on the line long
| enough for Deutsche Bundespost to locate him at his home in
| Hanover, West Germany.
|
| We need details on how this was accomplished.
| yodon wrote:
| > We need details on how this was accomplished
|
| The book he wrote on it [0] is a great read
|
| [0]https://www.amazon.com/CUCKOOS-EGG-Clifford-Stoll-
| ebook/dp/B...
| CliffStoll wrote:
| And for every copy you purchase, almost a nickel directly
| goes into my kids' tuition and/or bail fund.
| WelcomeShorty wrote:
| > my kids' tuition and/or bail fund.
|
| You made me spill my coffee :) Will certainly use that in
| front of my kids.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Why are drinking coffee at 2AM ?
|
| (Insomniac Cliff in Oakland,California)
| peterfirefly wrote:
| I bought it in Denmark either in late '89 or early '90 --
| can't remember.
|
| The Central Station in Copenhagen had bookstore that sold
| "airport literature" but for trains -- I think I bought it
| there.
|
| Thank you for a good read!
| pengaru wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cuckoo%27s_Egg_(book)
| thaumaturgy wrote:
| To his unpopular commentary on the impacts of computing and
| electronics on daily life, I'm agreeing with him more and more as
| I get older. I don't _think_ it 's early-onset curmudgeoness,
| although I'm not sure I'd know if it was.
|
| Still, I grew up at a time just before computers were a normal
| part of everyone's life, and now they dominate my time and
| attention and other resources in a way I don't think _anyone_
| could have imagined circa 1985. We see enough articles on this
| site about the consequences of ...excessive computing (?) on
| sleep and mental health and physical health, we should be able to
| agree generally that there are some negative effects, as with all
| technologies. From there, it 's only another step to start to
| find some common ground with Mr. Stoll's views on it, and I hope
| he sees that happen.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| > "The coolest thing about being human is to learn, but you don't
| learn things by looking it up; you learn by figuring it out."
|
| Wisdom.
| aanet wrote:
| Oh wait, Cliff Stoll is in the house?? Wow. Whoda thunk.
|
| Dr Stoll -- if you're reading this -- your book _The Cuckoo's
| Egg_ made _such_ a lasting impression on this young, precocious
| teen, who read everything in he could lay his hands on. This is
| the very late 80s or early 90s - and I had read some excerpts in
| _Reader 's Digest_, out in the middle of nowhere, in a village in
| India. It (among other books) inspired me to study computer
| networking in my undergrad (thank the IITs) and started my career
| in the networking industry.
|
| When I found myself in the US in the mid-90s, with barely a few
| dollars in my wallet, yours was the _first_ book I purchased from
| that lonely bookstore in the strip mall in Los Angeles. I was so
| poor that I had to choose between getting _my_ copy of the book,
| or a half-a-week 's worth of dinner. I chose the former, and it
| made all the difference. It still sits here on my shelf, now
| accompanied by a few hundred other books, but it will always have
| a special place in my heart.
|
| To be honest, I contemplated a career in security, but other
| fields called my name. FWIW, I now work on autonomous vehicles.
| Yours is a book I gift any one of my friends/nephews/nieces who I
| think has the potential to be inspired. So far, I've given it to
| about half a dozen people.
|
| FWIW, when I read the _Silicon Snake Oil_, I wasn't impressed as
| much.. But over the years I have come to respect the sentiments
| behind it. Life is better, far richer, outside, and with a few
| loved ones, than in front of the computer, whatever form it may
| have taken. I believe a lot of people have come to the same
| conclusion, with or without agreeing with your theses.
|
| Now that I am in the Bay Area (twists of fortune), I would love
| to get myself one of your Klein Bottles.
|
| <3
| andreareina wrote:
| Mentions, mentions everywhere / nor a link to click
|
| https://www.kleinbottle.com/
| thanatos519 wrote:
| Many years ago Cliff would only charge for the prime-numbered
| bottles in your order, so I got a group of friends together and
| we ordered 16 to save money by only paying for 7. I don't see
| that offer on the website anymore!
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Wow! You're right! 25 years ago, when I startedAcme Klein
| Bottle, I wondered how to properly do quantity discounts.
|
| Short story: Around 1996, my wife laughed at me when I told
| her that I was ordering 25 Klein bottles. "You'll never sell
| that many," she said. "Hardly anyone knows what these are,
| and nobody needs one. You'll take most of 'em to the dump."
|
| Thank you, Thanatos for helping prove her wrong.
| netfortius wrote:
| Read his book in the early 90s, as result of a presentation he's
| given in Chicago. Working on SUN Sparcstations running Solaris,
| at the time, made his entire story extraordinarily exciting for
| the much younger me, and was one of the deciding factors to drop
| all that I was doing (had a PhD in engineering, and was using the
| computers for math modeling of fluid dynamics), go back to
| school, get my CS degree and move onto a completely different
| professional world. Thank you, Cliff!
|
| Note: never liked his Silicon Snake Oil book :(
| CliffStoll wrote:
| And you're very welcome, NetFort. Sparcstations? Oh my - zippy
| little guys that outgrew the VME crates of earlier Sun boxes.
| Like you, I loved the astonishing speeds of new computers - 25,
| 50, even 100MHz clocks. And in such small packages -- why all
| that power could fit in an office!
| YoooThere wrote:
| I bought one of Cliff's Klein bottles years ago and it still has
| pride of place on one of my bookshelves. I cannot describe how
| excited I was to find someone actually making them and that they
| were affordable!
| beej71 wrote:
| I have one of his bottles on my desk. We paid him a visit once
| afternoon and can confirm he's just the nicest geek you've ever
| met. Plus a chance to meet one of my childhood heroes in
| person...
|
| I don't know if he still encourages visitors, but if he does, I
| highly recommend it.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| My happy greetings to you, BJee. I certainly appreciate your
| kind note, not to mention your help with m'kid's tuition. Math
| & Computing folk do continue to visit, perhaps encouraged by
| the free admission to the East Bay (we charge $7 to get out, by
| way of the Bay bridge)
| reidjs wrote:
| It's $7 to go back :p
| 31337Logic wrote:
| I love how a simple mention of Cliff Still in 2023 can still
| generate over 100 lovely comments in a handful of hours.
|
| Thanks for being a truly good person, Cliff. ;-)
| davidw wrote:
| The first time I lived in Italy, in the mid-90ies, the internet
| was not the ubiquitous thing that it is now so I was not very
| well connected with the rest of the world, and getting English
| language books was not so easy. I had a copy of that book that I
| think I read 5 times. I was also getting into Linux, so the whole
| thing was super cool and motivational.
|
| Mr. Stoll occasionally drops by this site (
| https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=CliffStoll ), so if he
| sees this: thanks!
| CliffStoll wrote:
| And my warm greetings back to you David -- it sends me back a
| few decades too!
| vintagedave wrote:
| I bought something like eight Klein bottles in one go from him a
| couple of years ago, as a thankyou gift to various members of my
| team at work for a new software release. Not sure if he knew this
| but I had a spreadsheet tracking what kind of bottle (eg a wine-
| loving teammate got a Wine Klein, a teammate I've gone for beers
| with got a Klein Stein, etc), plus the countries they had to go
| to because many of us work remotely! Germany, Estonia, Chile,
| California...
|
| Dr Stoll was _incredibly_ friendly during the process of buying
| all of these (I tried to keep it organised but I did ask him to
| send eight different packages to something like eight different
| locations!) and I bought his smallest-model Klein bottle for
| myself at the same time. It and its accompanying propaganda is
| one of my prized possessions, sitting on a shelf next to a wild
| boar's tusk, a 1920s brass charting compass, and other Really
| Cool Things.
|
| If you read this and happen to remember me, Dr Stoll, I'm very
| grateful -- plus, I have no idea how to top that gift for my team
| next time we have a new release out. The next one is later this
| year. How can I do better than that? I genuinely don't know what
| to get them next :)
|
| If you're interested, this is his website:
| https://www.kleinbottle.com/ It has far more than just normal
| Klein bottles. There are Klein hats. Klein earrings. Klein
| Erlenmeyer flasks...
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> If you read this and happen to remember me, Dr Stoll_
|
| I know he has an HN ID, and has chimed in, from time to time.
|
| I've always enjoyed sharing this planet with him. He's an
| oddball, but a wonderful one.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| An oddball? Yep - not sure how I wound up this way. I never
| could follow the outlines when drawing in kindergarten. And
| the blursed change from /cmp/ to /key/ from Python 2.7 to 3.n
| really baked that oddballness into me. I've had to add even
| more vanilla to my chocolate chip cookies.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I know how I wound up one. Long story. Get your hanky.
|
| Cheers, and carry on the Wonderful!
| akiselev wrote:
| Do you use vanilla bean extract or the imitation stuff?
| WorldMaker wrote:
| A fun suggestion for cookies is to add a shot of a good,
| but cheap bourbon to add extra vanilla taste (via oak
| wood's vanillin). The alcohol bakes out at a different
| rate than other liquid ingredients adding extra texture
| ("fluffiness") and leaves behind an earthy vanilla that
| most people can't seem to place until you tell them it
| was bourbon.
|
| A company called Bourbon Barrel Foods also sometimes
| sells bourbon-barrel aged, lightly smoked sugars which
| are another fun way to do it (though volume for taste
| much more expensive than a cheap shot of bourbon).
| bberenberg wrote:
| > It and its accompanying propaganda is one of my prized
| possessions, sitting on a shelf
|
| I bought a Klein mug and agree wholeheartedly. Both the mug
| itself, and the propoganda is on the \shelf of cool stuff\\.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Memo to self: try to stay on the "shelf of cool stuff".
| dllthomas wrote:
| My bottle likewise sits atop its papers on my shelf of cool
| stuff. Most of the rest of the stuff is books.
| Legion wrote:
| That website design is triggering some deep '90s Web nostalgia
| for me.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Oh! I remember, Dave! You had people working all around the
| globe, from Santa Cruz all the way up to Scotts Valley. (by way
| of Estonia, Germany, and lord-knows-where-else). A fun way to
| learn about customs forms!
| winocm wrote:
| Cliff, I truly love your enthusiasm and it's inspiring.
| vintagedave wrote:
| I have to say, "a fun way to learn about customs forms" is
| the most wholesome way I can think of to respond to something
| that may have taken you some effort. And I am truly grateful
| for your assistance in getting those gifts for everyone.
| rjbwork wrote:
| Gods, HN is so freakin' cool.
|
| Cliff, very unrelated, but your book "The Cuckoo's Egg" was
| assigned reading during my junior year of HS in my AP
| Computer Science class. It got me so excited about the
| material and industry, and here I am nearly 20 years later as
| a professional software engineer. I really appreciate the
| impact you had on me!
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Thank you, RJB - the effect is bidirectional. The work of
| so many people, building cool things, continues to have a
| real impact on my life.
|
| Who'd've thought...
| agingllama wrote:
| Wow, I had to take this chance to let you know how much
| your book impacted me as well. What I loved so much about
| "The Cuckoo's Egg" is that it blends a great story,
| technical details, and personal growth. I've never read
| anything else like it.
|
| From all the other comments, it seems many people got as
| much out of it as I did. I especially liked your
| description of the Emacs bug that allowed outside access
| to Berkeley's computers. It brought out my great
| fascination with finding and fixing security holes. Thank
| you so much for this!
|
| Cliff, if you read this comment, are there any books that
| impacted you as much as your book impacted all of us?
| Since reading The Cuckoo's Egg, I've searched for similar
| books but have yet to find any that feel just as
| enjoyable. I'm open to recommendations from everyone else
| as well. :)
| empthought wrote:
| The book is probably the most important influence on my career in
| software. I read it when I was about 11, and it was a very
| reassuring narrative from the point of view of an intelligent and
| curious person -- who wasn't already an expert in what he found
| himself working on.
|
| His explanations of the inner workings of networks and computer
| operating systems both moved the story along, and helped bridge
| the gap between Logo and BASIC programming and the impenetrable
| technical manuals for the computers I was using at the time.
|
| It also helped that the commands he listed in the book worked on
| my school's A/UX computers.
|
| I think reading all of that strengthened my confidence to explore
| programming and systems without either feeling overwhelmed by
| information, or restricted to narrow specializations.
| deltarholamda wrote:
| His "Silicon Snake Oil" was equally important to me in the
| mid-90s. As a computer guy who was running as fast as I could
| into everything Internet, it was a real eye opener. It made me
| look at what I was doing and flip it around. I still ask "is
| what I'm doing really an improvement, or am I just making a box
| go 'bing' in a new way?"
|
| It's easy to forget all the nerd stuff we do is supposed to be
| serving the interests of society, mankind, real people, however
| you want to think of it. And, sometimes, the question that
| should be asked is not "can we do it?" but "should we do it?"
| Social media, for example, should probably have done a bit more
| introspection before turning us into click-farmers.
| ok123456 wrote:
| I remember their being a negative backlash against that book.
|
| Most of the Stoll fans on the early internet were expecting
| some futurist pablum, which he certainly could have sold out
| and done, but instead offered a polemic.
|
| I read both "The Cuckoo's Egg" and "Silicon Snake Oil" as a
| young teen and it shaped and tempered my view of technology.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| You betcha, OKserialdigits -- and thank you.
|
| When I wrote a critique of the early internet, my sister
| warned me of the costs: Nobody thanks Cassandra.
|
| But -as techies- I believe it's our responsibility to speak
| against thick hyperbole and unrealistic projections.
| Progress grows from realistic evaluations and honest
| criticisms.
| sillyfluke wrote:
| >Okserialdigits
|
| I like how this contains more characters than ok123456
| deltarholamda wrote:
| I don't keep a lot of computer books, but I still have
| "Silicon Snake Oil" and Jaron Lanier's "You Are Not A
| Gadget".
| mc32 wrote:
| "I was asking what I thought were reasonable questions: Is the
| electronic classroom an improvement? Does a computer help a
| student learn? Yes, but what it teaches you is to go to the
| computer whenever you have a question, rather than relying on
| yourself. Suppose I was an evil person and wanted to eliminate
| the curiosity of children. Give the kid a diet of Google, and
| pretty soon the child learns that every question he has is
| answered instantly. The coolest thing about being human is to
| learn, but you don't learn things by looking it up; you learn by
| figuring it out."
|
| The question is coming up yet again with current LLMs and other
| AI. The previous waves displaced some people but generally
| modernized by automation many manual processes. Will this wave or
| the next or the next one after that be the one that displaces the
| need to learn altogether such that we are totally dependent on
| the machine and find ourselves unable to proceed without it
| having lost our aptitude to lean? Of course there will be people
| who keep on learning because of momentum or because they have an
| affinity for the old ways, just as we have hose riders, despite
| modern transportation, but not enough to sustain the system were
| the future generation of AI to fail (for whatever catastrophic
| reason like solar blast, etc.)
| beefield wrote:
| Your comment made me think a future world where AI is powerful
| but capped to the limits of human knowledge. In that world AI
| makes almost all people (economically) worthless. The exception
| are the people who take the challenge and study, work and
| research to expand the human knowledge. Whether this is an
| utopia or dystopia, I guess depends on how the relationship of
| these two groups work out.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Oh, but your note resonates with me -- we've slowly changed our
| what we expect of a learned person. Once, understanding was
| central. Increasingly, we mainly care about getting the right
| answer. Or, in the case of AI, something that looks and feels
| like the right answer.
| hypertexthero wrote:
| This and the Large Language Model AI stuff reminds me of
| Feynman's experience teaching in Brazil:
|
| "After a lot of investigation, I finally figured out that the
| students had memorized everything, but they didn't know what
| anything meant."
|
| --http://v.cx/2010/04/feynman-brazil-education
|
| I hope curiosity, genuine understanding, and joy remain
| central for our species.
|
| Thank you for your wonderful work and inspiration, Mr. Stoll!
| zekyl314 wrote:
| I recall back in 1990 when PBS aired, "The KGB, the Computer, and
| Me". I was a freshman in high school and immediately fell in love
| with the documentary. I recorded it on VHS and watched it
| numerous times. I was already into computers, we had an IBM PC jr
| and I was fascinated by it. This story made me want to learn more
| and dive into technology even more.
|
| I recently, within last few years finally picked up the book and
| read it. It is just a great story. I feel like everything Cliff
| said, in certain aspects, we still deal with today. I highly
| recommend the book and watching the documentary.
| AndyMcConachie wrote:
| The KGB, the Computer, and Me.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGv5BqNL164
| fudgy wrote:
| Reading the Cuckoo's Nest certainly got me into Unix, networking
| and security!
|
| Thanks CliffStoll!
| CliffStoll wrote:
| You're quite welcome, Fudgee. Now the torch is in your hand, to
| make the internet a better place.
| justin66 wrote:
| "Useless?" That's some pretty one-dimensional thinking.
| causi wrote:
| _short for President Reagan's controversial Strategic Defense
| Initiative program, a proposed "missile shield" that threatened
| to further destabilize an already tenuous nuclear detente_
|
| Not that SDI was going to work, but I will never understand this
| "we shouldn't build anti-nuke defenses because it might make the
| people pointing nukes at us angry" attitude.
| sophacles wrote:
| A wierd consequence of mutually assured destruction is that you
| need your adversary to be roughly on par with you. If one side
| gains a major advantage they may decide to attack knowing that
| you'll have the worst of it. The weaker side may be more likely
| to use thier ultimate out of desperation and "nothing left to
| lose" type thinking.
|
| Further, the way to deal with anti-nuke defenses is to just
| send more nukes and/or lots of dummies too. Things like iron
| dome are 90% effective (reportedly, some think that number is
| too high and has a significant propaganda element)... You dont
| need a huge success rate for your nukes to be effective.
| Besides the consequences of a destroyed nuke are not great
| either, there's still a lot of uranium and plutonium getting
| dumped into the atmosphere.
|
| If your goal is to end nuclear proliferation, things that
| increase said proliferation are not ok.
| causi wrote:
| _If one side gains a major advantage they may decide to
| attack knowing that you 'll have the worst of it. The weaker
| side may be more likely to use thier ultimate out of
| desperation and "nothing left to lose" type thinking._
|
| The US is already at a significant disadvantage. Russia's
| nuke-based nuclear interceptor missiles are an order of
| magnitude more effective than America's explosive and
| kinetic-based interceptors.
| thrwawat36 wrote:
| I'm not a politician, but it could lead to an escalating arms
| race that is expensive and benefits nobody.
|
| If Reagan finished SDI, other nations like China/Russia could
| feel the need to develop a similar program. They would at a
| minimum start researching ways to work around the insanely
| expensive SDI program, which would cause it to be obsolete.
|
| The cycle continues and everyone loses money and resources that
| could be spent on other problems.
| 3pt14159 wrote:
| If you would like to understand the arguments they're out
| there. Arms Control Wonk blog and podcast.
|
| My personal view is that we should build them to shield from
| states like the DPRK, but the contrasting view is that it
| destabilizes Mutually Assured Destruction. We don't know how
| many of their missiles we'll be able to intercept in the event
| of a mass strike, so it could make our leaders overly confident
| to take actions that would escalate. That's the critique, and I
| think it has some merit, but I also think that there are people
| that I admire, like Jeffery Lewis, that hold that view or
| something similar to it.
|
| For whatever it is worth, I've personally worked on arms
| control and in intelligence, so this opinion is not coming out
| of the blue.
| sbarre wrote:
| Honest question: were you alive during the cold war days?
|
| It was different times, and the overwhelming desire to not
| escalate or provoke was very real, in a way that just doesn't
| exist anymore today.
| bjornsing wrote:
| I have a vague memory of reading his book (or a similar account).
| The one specific thing I remember is a philosophical rant about
| how you can never be sure that a hacker will leave a trace within
| the digital inner world of a computer that they control. For
| example log files can be edited to remove suspicious activity. So
| he set up the system so it would log straight to a printer. Much
| harder to redact paper logs. :)
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Not to mention that it was way easier to use clipleads to
| connect teletypes and printers to incoming lines. And since the
| intruders had root access, how do you hide an OS based logger?
| pvillano wrote:
| The original append-only
| [deleted]
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