Rating: 
Summary: Boring
Review: The Cuckoo's Egg, which is 399 pages long, is 360 pages of redundant boredom. The author narates the story of a hacker breaking into the Berkley system while the author follows the hacker's every and I mean every move. This drones on like an endless loop that culminates into an uneventfull catching of the guilty parties. Deceptively, the book jacket carries reviews of "fascinating, intriguing and gripping." Perhaps, if you never leave your house.
Rating: 
Summary: Could not put it down
Review: Once you get into it, you'll want to know what happens. Absolutely spellbinding and interesting.The events could happen today!!
Rating:
Summary: One of the greatest hacker books ever writen.
Review: In 9th grade back in the early ninties, I happened upon this book in our high school library. I had no idea what it was about, but since I was so interested in computers at the time I decided to take it home and check it out. I believe I read the book in 2 sittings. It was absolutely enthralling. You could tell Clifford was not a writer, but a scientist who enjoyed telling a story. I still pick this book up every couple of years and read through it a couple of times. It's just that good.
Rating:
Summary: Engrossing from first sentence !
Review: Generally, I don't have much time reading many novels because I'm normally busy reading many textbooks and evaluating them. But somehow this paperback came by my path by pure chance. I'll even admit that if this paperback spy thriller hadn't been given to me, I probably wouldn't have purchased it because my reading focus is elsewhere and I don't have a lot of extra time. In the back of my head I also thought that this novel's title implied lots of technical dense jargon that would be hard to wade through. But here is where author Cliff Stoll surprised the heck out of me: he anticiapated the reader's concern and understood that he had to properly explain all new technical computer / telecom concepts as he broached them. I believe that's what kept my interest to such a sustained high degree. Early on, I began getting the impression author Cliff Stoll was not going to leave any reader behind due to some stuffy techie jargon. Along the way, I even got the feeling that Stoll clearly loves to communicate with all his reader deep down. Perhaps Stoll has almost a burning passion with really communicaitng: i.e., taking things that are arcane and make readers quickly understand. For example, early on, Stoll used the analogy of an "apartment building" having been designed and built with thin, transparent, porous walls. Stoll then alerts the inexperienced reader that is how the original military networks systems were designed to operate -- sharing all kinds of research data easily among scientists in the '70s. With this type of porous computer network philosophy a good hacker would have at his disposal all kinds of important user files and their email to poke around and read or even erase. Thus, a KGB spy or some other sinister person could quickly penetrate any legitimate user's files he wished tamper with. Stoll is always ready to give his readers understandable analogies retrieved from his vast personal experiences or from his astronomy work experiences -- which he kept telling readers was his first true love... until he got laid off in astronomy department and then got transferred to become a computer programming geek. One of the first computer job he got was to look at an Accounting system computer file that showed an small but irritating money discrepancy. Stoll spotted a $0.75 discrepancy. Stoll tells his readers the money was nothing to get excited about but as he penetrated the hardware and software he began spotting something very strange in Denmark. Stoll is very comfortable making explanations so as to achive crsytal clear understanding by his precious readers. I can easily tell Stoll truly comfortable ahving a wide range of readers; and he seems always ready to be at their "service" prodding them to keep up with him and all that arcane techie stuff he uncovers from "Hunter", the main spy hacker. This is a very unusal writing attitude for a techie to possess because most techies are brainwashed right from their college days to be arcane as possible -- probably hoping to impress other techies or impress management to cough over lots of research dollars! (As a textbook evaluator I write about this sort of inherent problem with techies.) Thus I think Cliff Stall easily broke away from this awful traditional techie mold. In so doing, Stoll has achieved incredible success with his millions of readers who not only enjoyed a spy thriller story but got well educated along the tortuous journey in flushing out the sinister hacker "Hunter". What a great combiantion to give his many readers! Gerard Sagliocca, P.E. ...
Rating:
Summary: OK it got me hooked!
Review: I'm an outsider in the computer world -- I wouldn't know a RAM from a ROM -- but this well-written and captivating work quickly got me hooked, and had all the earmarks of a classic. The book detailed how the author and some friends used their wits to detect and uncover a sophisticated plot by a group of hackers who penetrated sensitive, supposedly secure information systems. It was suspenseful but easy to understand, and when things began to get too technical the author related some interesting stories of his life in the anarchist's romantic dreamworld of Bezerkely CA. Come to think of it, he actually reconciled the extreme left-wing laissez-faire world of computing with the right-wing world of paranoia about loss of control. Stoll seems to feel that, paradoxically, the "hackers" who want free run of cyberspace can be the greatest enemies of those who want to use computers as a tool for personal freedom. Currently, governments are far too clumsy and inept to damage individual rights nearly as much as an anarchistic programmer armed with systems knowledge, logic bombs, hyperviruses, and credit-card identifier schemes. Too many "people of the left" think it's OK for anyone but the government to do anything they want on a computer network, but the government is the least of our worries (for now). In fact, Stoll's book was the scariest and most aggravating when he related just how inept, uncoordinated, lazy, and unwilling to take responsibilty the government investigators were. We need more work here. Perhaps 9/11 was as much a product of government plodding as Osama's plotting. Stoll argues that cyberspace will be most free when regular users and cyberpunks alike use cyberspace responsibly and with malice towards none. The Golden Rule is as valid for the Internet as it is for the low-tech world of evryday life. Next time I see our computer security geek, I'm going to buy him a Krispy-Kreme donut, and recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: OK it got me hooked
Review: I'm an outsider in the computer world -- I wouldn't know a RAM from a ROM -- but this well-written and captivating (but poorly-titled) work got me hooked and had all the earmarks of a classic. The book detailed how the author and some friends used their common sense and cleverness to uncover a sophisticated plot by a group of hackers who elegantly penetrated supposedly secure information systems. It was suspenseful but easy to understand, and when things began to get too technical the author related some interesting stories of his life in the romantic anarchist's dreamworld of Bezerkely CA. Come to think of it, he actually reconciled the extreme left-wing laissez-faire world of computing with the right-wing world of paranoia about loss of control. Stoll seems to feel that, paradoxically, the "hackers" who want free run of cyberspace can be the greatest enemies of those who want to use computers as a tool for personal freedom. Currently, governments are far too clumsy and inept to damage individual rights nearly as much as a reasonably clever anarchistic programmer armed with systems information, logic bombs, hyperviruses, and credit-card identifier schemes. Too many "people of the left" think it's OK for anyone but the government to do anything they want on a computer network, but the government is the least of our worries for now. In fact, Stoll's book was the scariest and most aggravating when he related just how inept, uncoordinated, lazy, and unwilling to take responsibilty most government investigators were. We need some work here. Possibly 9/11 was as much a product of our own government's plodding as Osama's plotting. Stoll argues that cyberspace will be most free when regular users and cyberpunks alike approach cyberspace with responsibility and malice towards none. The Golden Rule is as valid for the Internet as it is for the low-tech world of everyday life. Next time I see our computer security geek, I'm going to buy him a Krispy-Kreme donut and recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: WOW
Review: For what amounts to a collection of printouts and a good memory, this book makes an awesome read. Dr. Stoll has an excellent command of the narrative form and dramatic flair. I could not put this book down. It is a must have for anyone even remotely interested in computer security.
Rating:
Summary: A true spy story involving computer crime
Review: It starts with a 75-cent discrepancy in an account for computer time and ends with the arrest of a small group of German hackers. The journey from this start to the end is one of the most amazing in all of computing. Along the way, it involves the National Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, all branches of the United States military and the Soviet KGB. Fortunately, in the end the good guys emerge victorious, but it is hard to feel very comfortable about it.
This is a story about unauthorized access into computers, where the trespassers are after military and economic data. All information considered of value is sent to the Soviet KGB in exchange for money and drugs. A major undercurrent of the story is the lack of cooperation between the American federal agencies and how they refuse to commit themselves to anything. In the aftermath of the tragedy of 9-11, this is unsettling, as it appears that the lack of communication between the different agencies is where the real failure occurred on that terrible day.
Cliff Stoll is a combination computer programmer and astronomer who was the primary actor in the events that led to the apprehension of the hackers. A self-admitted California hippie type, he started being anti-government and yet ended up lecturing to some of the most governmental of institutions. In the end, he gives some of the best arguments as to why unauthorized access to computers is a serious crime. As a scientist, he understands how all benefit from the free flow of information and mutual trust and how hackers destroy that, forcing all into a state of perpetual paranoia.
This is one of the best popular books on computing that has ever been written. While there are some passages that require a bit of computer expertise to understand, they are very few and not essential to the understanding of the story. It also leaves you wondering as to how many other systems have been entered where the tracks are either nonexistent or have been ignored.
Rating:
Summary: The unintentional counterespionage agent
Review: _The Cuckoo's Egg_ has everything most fictional detective novels wish that they had: a personable detective who doesn't mean to get involved as deeply as he does, federal agencies who just can't seem to take action, and a criminal mastermind who has everybody stumped until he encounters our detective. The best part of this whole book is that it really happened-- a feat that fictional mysteries can never match. I knew Stoll's work through the more technical article "Stalking the Wily Hacker" and was pleasantly surprised to see how well Stoll was able to translate the technical side into a book-length narrative. IMO, this is significantly better than other more recent books about computer crime and still worth a read today (both for information and entertainment).
Rating:
Summary: I read this book when I was in university.
Review: It's really interesting, and the technical details in this book is easy to understand.
| 
