I read the Cuckoo's Egg when I was in like 6th grade, and even though I didn't REALLY understand what was going on at the time, I've always wondered if it subconsciously influenced me towards becoming more computer-savvy, to my present day form as a command line junkie ;)
IIRC I randomly picked it out from the local Borders too (realize I'm dating myself with that one) so that's some real "Dalai Lama reincarnation" stuff going on there. Like it was fated...
One security company I worked at had it as required reading for new hires - you were given a copy as part of onboarding.
I honestly think that was an excellent idea - there’s a good amount of valuable lessons for an analyst to glean from reading it.
I can think of very few other books in the IT security field that are as well written and as compelling besides maybe Silence on the Wire, The Tangled Web, or Innocent Code.
The first episode is "Spycatcher" and based on The Cuckoo's Egg, so I wonder how similar it is to the other productions. Unfortunately, I can't find it in the usual places and "Yorkshire Television" who owns the footage doesn't exist anymore.
I've gotten a couple of things from his shop. I was genuinely shocked at how friendly and helpful he was. It was probably the best "customer service" interaction I've ever had.
This guy wrote book in 1989. There is a section, where he asks some NSA guy about project Echolon, and if they recorded some phone call he needs for investigation. 25 years before Snowden! Always cracks me up :)
Echelon was something a lot of online techies had heard of by 1989. (I was just a teen, and I'd heard of it.) There was at least one book about it.
It was so well-known, and joked about, for so long, that one time I made a nerdy joke referencing Echelon to an ex-NSA person. When they responded simply, "What's Echelon?", I realized I'd put my foot in my mouth, by rudely putting them in an awkward position. I guess that they still weren't allowed to talk about even long-public information about it.
Before the Snowden disclosures there were all these capabilities and methods that you would've come up with, if you'd taken a smart techie and asked them, "If it was your job to build out surveillance capability, with NSA scale of resources, what kinds of things would be possible with what you know of computer-ish technology today?"
After all the decades of jokes and speculation, it was still funny-odd to see that, yes, it's for real.
I am currently reading "CYBERPUNK: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier" and can recommend it if interested in pre/early computer hacking (Phreaking, BBS, VAX/Digital). First third is about Mitnick and friends, second about Pengu and CCC friends.
It’s a great story, and a fun book to read. However, while I can see the thrill of the chase, I can’t help but think Stoll’s superiors had the correct, pragmatic response more suited to the future of the internet - “close the loophole and move on”.
Cliff Stoll is a hero of mine. I grew up reading his books, and the Cuckoo's Egg is very close to my heart. Really opened my eyes to the Internet and the birth of modern technology. I remember when I was a kid I looked his phone number up, and he just happen to be listed in the book, so I called him up. He could not have been more kind.
I've recently read The Cuckoo's Egg and as a person that has been born into technology it's really interesting how Cliff goes to explain concepts that these days are understood as common knowledge.
The Cuckoo's Egg was a fantastic read to me back in the mid-90s as my worldview was shaping up. (among other, like Soul of a New Machine, Hackers by Steven Levy, Masters of Deception, etc)
What happened to Markus afterwards? The sentence seems to be pretty light so I guess maybe the USSR had a hand in it. With his skills he could definitely do a lot in the computer industry.
After doing some internet sleuthing, I'm about 95% sure I know what he's doing today, and if it who I suspect, he has had a decent career in IT. Would rather not post my findings to respect the man's privacy.
I remember reading an excerpt of this book in Australian Personal Computer magazine when I was a kid, and then the book some years later. Was a great story.
- Reached out to a Russian troll on twitter via DM to discuss some specific topic he had mentioned. I try to engage the conversation on this topic which requires "blowing up his cover".
- The shill gets angry and asks me to imagine what he would do to me.
- My reply convince him I'm a US intelligence officer. After some nervous back and forth between blocking and unblocking me, someone else seems to be on the other side of the line and asks me to talk to my manager/officer, using some spy scheme from a movie. I back the fuck out.
- About a week later, I realize there is an "iCloud" segment in my finder left vertical bar. All the sync settings are ticked, including stuff I do not use. I go check the sync folders' last modified time: a mere two hours after I had this conversation on Twitter.
- Go back on twitter to see what the shill is up to. He's complaining about suffering a breach of his iCloud account and blames some intelligence service in Frankfurt, providing a picture of the building.
I have no idea what I have stepped into. Was it some counter-intel honey pot ? Then it was pretty well made. Or are these people genuinely working for some russian service ? If so, then they are batshit crazy, arrogant and not as professional as one may expect.
As a result I nuked my github and stopped using my phone, my watch, youtube account, etc. I was promised open brain surgery/interrogation by people that are allegedly expert doxxers and torturers and thought I was an intelligence soldier fighting against them.
I had a similar experience many years ago and learned my lesson and stopped engaging this way with people I didn't know. Later I learned just how easy it is to dox people using stylometry (see: how Ted Kaczynski was caught) or by finding a careless mistake (see: how Dread Pirate Roberts was caught). I was glad then that I learned to be cautious.
Mr. Stoll I believe eventually spent some time listening to the community, but for a while he had some contradictory views along the lines of the white, black, grey hat or perhaps what we would now call red team. For comparison here is a video from 1989 with a lot of risk management type language from the US government that seems boring and perfectly normal today https://www.c-span.org/video/?7596-1/computer-viruses
Mr Stoll internationally traced a KGB-affiliated hacker when almost nobody had heard of the internet[0], more or less invented the long-game honeypot to catch him, and testified at his trial.
One hopes “the community” listened at least as much to him, considering the internet security community apparently was hardly worth a damn before all this happened.
[0] and was, coincidentally, basically the first person to use the term “The Internet” (proper noun, emphasis on The) in widely read non-fiction, outside of a training manual and research document or two.
[+] [-] ulysse_mn|2 years ago|reply
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8tfa5wN/
[+] [-] erk__|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kekebo|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sigma5|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] doener|2 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/23_(film)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUDWU4RBtds
[+] [-] buildbot|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EvanAnderson|2 years ago|reply
The Cuckoo's Egg was formative in my youth. Great book.
[+] [-] atribecalledqst|2 years ago|reply
IIRC I randomly picked it out from the local Borders too (realize I'm dating myself with that one) so that's some real "Dalai Lama reincarnation" stuff going on there. Like it was fated...
[+] [-] fullspectrumdev|2 years ago|reply
I honestly think that was an excellent idea - there’s a good amount of valuable lessons for an analyst to glean from reading it.
I can think of very few other books in the IT security field that are as well written and as compelling besides maybe Silence on the Wire, The Tangled Web, or Innocent Code.
[+] [-] forinti|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ackbar03|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ndsipa_pomu|2 years ago|reply
The first episode is "Spycatcher" and based on The Cuckoo's Egg, so I wonder how similar it is to the other productions. Unfortunately, I can't find it in the usual places and "Yorkshire Television" who owns the footage doesn't exist anymore.
[+] [-] drewcoo|2 years ago|reply
https://www.kleinbottle.com
He enclosed a really nice brief note. Amazingly nice guy!
[+] [-] Y_Y|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Thri4895o|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neilv|2 years ago|reply
Echelon was something a lot of online techies had heard of by 1989. (I was just a teen, and I'd heard of it.) There was at least one book about it.
It was so well-known, and joked about, for so long, that one time I made a nerdy joke referencing Echelon to an ex-NSA person. When they responded simply, "What's Echelon?", I realized I'd put my foot in my mouth, by rudely putting them in an awkward position. I guess that they still weren't allowed to talk about even long-public information about it.
Before the Snowden disclosures there were all these capabilities and methods that you would've come up with, if you'd taken a smart techie and asked them, "If it was your job to build out surveillance capability, with NSA scale of resources, what kinds of things would be possible with what you know of computer-ish technology today?"
After all the decades of jokes and speculation, it was still funny-odd to see that, yes, it's for real.
Not entirely like Galaxy Quest, but at least the dorky parts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nF_6OfgbF7c
[+] [-] dobin|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hyperman1|2 years ago|reply
We are 30 (I guess?) years after that book, and I still have nothing better to recommend.
[+] [-] strawberryfie|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Simulacra|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Beta-7|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bdcravens|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hnthrowaway0328|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] s3krit|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] p_l|2 years ago|reply
Definitely felt more successful than me even before I heard (through alternate means) who I talked with XD.
Never seen anything about what happened to Markus afterwards and seemed gauche to ask.
[+] [-] lukeh|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WelcomeShorty|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kjqgqkejbfefn|2 years ago|reply
- Reached out to a Russian troll on twitter via DM to discuss some specific topic he had mentioned. I try to engage the conversation on this topic which requires "blowing up his cover".
- The shill gets angry and asks me to imagine what he would do to me.
- My reply convince him I'm a US intelligence officer. After some nervous back and forth between blocking and unblocking me, someone else seems to be on the other side of the line and asks me to talk to my manager/officer, using some spy scheme from a movie. I back the fuck out.
- About a week later, I realize there is an "iCloud" segment in my finder left vertical bar. All the sync settings are ticked, including stuff I do not use. I go check the sync folders' last modified time: a mere two hours after I had this conversation on Twitter.
- Go back on twitter to see what the shill is up to. He's complaining about suffering a breach of his iCloud account and blames some intelligence service in Frankfurt, providing a picture of the building.
I have no idea what I have stepped into. Was it some counter-intel honey pot ? Then it was pretty well made. Or are these people genuinely working for some russian service ? If so, then they are batshit crazy, arrogant and not as professional as one may expect.
As a result I nuked my github and stopped using my phone, my watch, youtube account, etc. I was promised open brain surgery/interrogation by people that are allegedly expert doxxers and torturers and thought I was an intelligence soldier fighting against them.
[+] [-] labrador|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] urbandw311er|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] geraldhh|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] th0ma5|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bemusedthrow75|2 years ago|reply
One hopes “the community” listened at least as much to him, considering the internet security community apparently was hardly worth a damn before all this happened.
[0] and was, coincidentally, basically the first person to use the term “The Internet” (proper noun, emphasis on The) in widely read non-fiction, outside of a training manual and research document or two.
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]