In 1990 I was reading the Reader’s Digest, one of my favorite magazines when I came across an article by the name of the “Hunt for the Hacker Spy”. It was a featured article of around 35 pages long which turned out to be a summary of a book, a true crime novel by the name “Cuckoo’s Egg” written by Cliff Stoll in 1989. The article truly grabbed my attention, it got me so excited and my imagination went ballistic, so much so that I ended buying the book. I rarely do read true life fiction books, but this is one of the few fiction books that I ended up reading several times over in the past few years. It’s also one of the few technical fiction books that stood the test of time, and I am sure it is just as thrilling to read it today as it was reading it back then.
The book is the story of Cliff Stool (the author of the book) who is an astronomer and researcher by profession, but ended up managing some computer mainframes at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California because his research funding for telescope optics has dried out. One day his boss asked him to resolve a $0.75 US accounting discrepancy in one of the computer’s usage account. Disgruntled at the request, it’s not like someone stole $1,000, it was a measly 75 cents, who cared. Writing a few scripts and a couple of programs to verify the accounting system was working properly, Cliff thought he would have the problem solved quickly. What ensued after finding the little discrepancy was a game of cat and mouse that spanned over a 10 month period trying to catch an elusive international hacker. Eventually the FBI, CIA, and Air Force were involved, until the hacker was traced to Germany. It turned out that the hacker was KGB agent trying to sell state secrets. When KGB agent was finally apprehended by the German authorities Mr. Cliff Stoll had to fly to Hanover to testify against them in court, and put them in jail.
Even though it’s an old book the story is addictive, inspiring, and leaves you thirsty to know and learn more. Once you start reading it, it’s hard to drop the book, It’s a must read story for all those interested in computer security and hacking.
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