The Cuckoo's Egg Audiobook By Cliff Stoll cover art

The Cuckoo's Egg

Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage

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The Cuckoo's Egg

By: Cliff Stoll
Narrated by: Will Damron
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Before the internet became widely known as a global tool for terrorists, one perceptive US citizen recognized its ominous potential. Armed with clear evidence of computer espionage, he began a highly personal quest to expose a hidden network of spies that threatened national security. But would the authorities back him up? Cliff Stoll's dramatic firsthand account is "a computer-age detective story, instantly fascinating [and] astonishingly gripping" - Smithsonian.

Cliff Stoll was an astronomer turned systems manager at Lawrence Berkeley Lab when a 75 cent accounting error alerted him to the presence of an unauthorized user on his system. The hacker's code name was "Hunter" - a mysterious invader who managed to break into US computer systems and steal sensitive military and security information. Stoll began a one-man hunt of his own: spying on the spy. It was a dangerous game of deception, broken codes, satellites, and missile bases - a one-man sting operation that finally gained the attention of the CIA...and ultimately trapped an international spy ring fueled by cash, cocaine, and the KGB.

©1989 Clifford Stoll (P)2020 Tantor Espionage Freedom & Security Politics & Government Security & Encryption Terrorism True Crime War & Crisis Technology Military Exciting Computer Security
Captivating Thriller • Fascinating History • Engaging Narration • Technical Accessibility • Engaging Detective Story
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Well written and choc-full of details, will delight even if not a techie. great story.

riveting!

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Story about how a small 75 cent in billing what turned out to be a rabbit deep within network. Talks about how his year long tracking of this culprit lead to his bosses wanting to stop the trace due to lack of support from government for prosecution to multiple 3 letter agencies wanting him to pursue the trace and probably the hundreds of pages he had printed out showing the hacker moves through the network all just to find out that the person behind it can't even be punish due to foreign state laws are lacking during this time. Even though this story is dated, its still relevant to an extent to today's internet and cyber criminals.

True Story cyber hunt

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Starts really well, gets a bit dry and finishes somewhat lamely, but it's all real and gives insight into how computer networks used to be (and still are)

Overall good book

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Good performance, sometimes a bit verbose when reading computer screen output, but a great story overall about the early years of cyber security that a lot of people can still learn something from.

A Real Story About Computer Security

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Great narration, story could have left out much of the repetitive middle section (hacked, traced, hacked, traced). Long, long buildup to a ho-hum ending. Epilogue is a more exciting than the main story. Still, not a bad tale and it's cyber canon.

Classic cyber tale but longwinded

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the writing was so vivid you can see the image clearly in front of you.

just can't stop listening

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Excellent storytelling about real events. Funny thing is over 30yrs later these same issues, lateral movement, are still a thing.

Accurate

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I read this book when it came out 35+ years ago and was wondering how it had aged. The answer is that it has aged quite well. It's still enjoyable and still relevant given the seemingly non-stop stories of Chinese and Russian hackers finding their ways into pretty much every US network as of this writing. If you know technology, then you'll enjoy the quaintness of the state of the then cutting-edge networking in the 80s. If you are unfamiliar with such things, then you'll enjoy Stoll's explanation of them. Either way, it's a worthy listen and there is so much to like about Stoll's determination to solve the case. The only thing that doesn't age well is the naive attitudes exhibited by Stoll's friends and roommates with regard to his helping the "establishment" and that maybe we'd be better off letting a hacker roam through all of our country's military networks than to help "the man" -- definitely naive. But Stoll takes offense by the hacker's breaking the trust inherent in connecting computers and does what no one else seems to be willing to do and continue the hunt to its conclusion. I think my favorite part of the cat and mouse caper is the "Macgyver" manner that Stoll looks up printers, pagers, etc to track the activities of his prey.

Classic Book Still Relevant

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This was a fascinating trip through the origins of computer hacking complete with international espionage and bureaucratic rat mazes.

Journeys through the wires

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So glad this finally came out in audiobook format. It is one of the best books written on computer hacking out there.

Cannot put this thing down!

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