Cliff Stoll, the mad scientist who wrote the book on how to hunt hackers (2019)
Cliff Stoll is also an HN user and well-known nonorientablesurfacemonger. You can read him in action most recently here:
Cliff Stoll also operates kleinbottle.com selling Klein bottles.
I bought one and he included a personalized note and all sorts of fun material. I’ve never shopped from a store where I felt the owner loved his product as much.
And he blogs about how he automates the inventory process. What an interesting story and how I imagine all old programmers ending up.
I read Silicon Snakeoil when I was much younger in the internet's infancy and though it was completely out of touch. I think even he has admitted it didn't pan out has he predicted.
Now that the internet is reaching its final form I'm not so sure anymore
Definitely read his book The Cuckoo's Egg. Terrific story and prose.
Then check out the old Nova documentary about the story: The KGB, The Computer, and Me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGv5BqNL164
Cliff Stoll has been a frequent guest on youtube's Numberphile [0] - what an amazing personality. Quesera's comment that he has an "outsized curiosity" seems apt!
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLt5AfwLFPxWJeBhzCJ_JX...
@CliffStoll is one of my childhood heroes. I ordered a Klein bottle and he drew a picture on the invoice and it melted my heart. It is now a prized possession framed on a wall next to Kevin Mitnick's business card.
The Cuckoo's Egg - Really enjoyed reading it when I was growing up. Required reading for everyone.
When I had my little ISP here in Arizona back in the early 90s, I gave every new customer a copy of the Cuckoo's Egg.
Important life lesson everyone should watch: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9yUZTTLpDtk
I read the hacker hunting story of Cliff Stoll 35 years ago from a Thai computer magazine when I'm 12. I think he is a fairly good looking person from the photo in that monotone magazine. And I thought he must have a sage like personality.
I remember his name and search for him on the internet out of curiosity when I'm in my thirties. Whoa, he is indeed a mad scientist. :)
(2019)
Some more discussion then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21830277
One of my life's highlights was getting to meet him when I went to his house to buy a Klein bottle. Such a great and admirable human being.
Cliff's book was my first introduction to cybersecurity - a fantastic read with principles that hold true today. Stealing the Network: The Complete Series Collector's Edition and Kevin Mitnick's books are also great.
Stoll found a microscopic discrepancy in the accounting of a computer he was in charge of, and he got curious what might be the root cause.
He (a FORTH-programming raido astronomer) than discovered that a hacker was in "his" computer, and he followed him around the world (through the network).
The hacker, a person with links to communism from Germany, later committed suicide.
God, I just saw his name on HN, and was afraid he'd died.
Whenever this story comes up I think of this movie, called 23, that's tells the story from the hackers perspective.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/23_(film)
Both stories are fascinating.
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Cliff Stoll told all of the adults in my life constantly on television that home computers were creating criminals and that you should be suspect of anyone in life that isn't professional that seems to know too much about computers. This rhetoric is apparent in this clip: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C2gujnjLrQG/ His premise was that only those who were working for the government or working on real computers at big companies should be trusted with their immense power. And this was sort of a second act to try to keep being invited on to TV shows or something. I'm glad he is inspiring but I just can't forgive him for this. My school system talked about getting rid of all of our computers pretty much solely because of the fear of hackers he spread.
Cliff Stoll was an unwelcome demonstration that not all adults are as clueless as they appear to disaffected, smarter-than-thou teenagers.
Cliff showed that a smart adult with an outsized curiosity and more than a bit of persistence, could keep up -- and even marshal resources to reassert the dominance of order and adulthood.
This was a good lesson, at the right time, for many people!
Also, Cuckoo's Egg is an entertaining story. I read it again a few years ago, and I enjoyed it more this time than I did when it was published. :)