By Clifford Stoll

"The Cuckoo's Egg" is a story of persistence, love for one's work and is just pl
ain funny! The story starts out with Clifford Stoll being "recycled" to a compu
ter analyst/webmaster.
Cliff, as he is affectionately called, is a long-haired ex-hippie that works at
Lawrence Berkeley Lab. He originally was an astronomer, but since his grant wor
e out, he became a mainframe master. He was glad that instead of throwing him o
ut into the unemployment office, the Lab recycled their people and downstairs he
went, to the computer lab.
A few days after he becomes the master of the mainframe, his colleague, Wayne Gr
aves, asks him to figure out a 75cent glitch that is in the accounting system.
It turns out that a computer guru, "Seventek" seems to be in town. None of his
closest friends know that. The Lab becomes suspicious that it might be a hacker
. To fill you in who Seventek is, he is a computer guru that created a number o
f programs for the Berkeley UNIX system. At the time, he was in England far fro
m computers and civilization. The crew does not what to believe that it would b
e Seventek, so they start to look what the impostor is doing. Cliff hooks up a
few computers to the line that comes from the Tymnet. Tymnet is a series of fib
er-optic cables that run from a major city to another major city. So if you wer
e in LA and wanted to hook up to a computer in the Big Apple you could call long
distance, have a lot of interference from other callers and have a slow connect
ion, or you could sign-up to Tymnet and dial locally, hop on the optic cable and
cruise at a T-3 line. The lab had only five Tymnet lines so Cliff could easily
monitor every one with five computers, teletypes, and five printers. That was
the difficult part, where to get all that equipment. At graduate school they ta
ught Cliff to improvise. It was a Friday, and not many people come to work on S
aturday. Since it was easier to make up an excuse than to beg for anything, he
"borrowed" everything he needed. Then programmed his computer to beep twice whe
n someone logged on from the Tymnet lines. The thing is, since he was sleeping
under his desk, he would gouge his head on the desk drawer. Also, many people l
ike to check their E-mail very late at night, so not to get interference. Becaus
e of that his terminal beeped a lot! The next day, he was woken up by the cable
operator. Cliff said that he must have smelled like a dying goat. Any way, th
e hacker only logged on once during the night, but left an 80 foot souvenir behi
nd. Cliff estimated a two to three hours roaming through the three million doll
ar pieces of silicon that he calls a computer. During that time he planted a "C
uckoo's egg."
The cuckoo is a bird that leaves its eggs in other bird's nest. If it not were
for the other species ignorance, the cuckoo would die out. The same is for the
mainframe. There is a housecleaning program that runs every five minutes on th
e Berkeley UNIX. It is called atrun. The hacker put his version of atrun into
the computer through a hole in the Gnu-Emacs program. It is a program that lets
the person who is sending E-mail put a file anywhere they wished. So that is h
ow the hacker became a "Superuser." A superuser has all the privileges of a sys
tem operator, but from a different computer. Cliff called the FBI, the CIA, and
all the other three lettered agencies that that had spooks in trench coat and d
ark glasses (and some of them had these nifty ear pieces too!) Everyone except
the FBI lifted a finger. The FBI listened but, they stated that if they hadn't l
ost millions of dollars in equipment, or classified data, they didn't what to kn
ow them. The hodgepodge of information between the CIA, NSA, and Cliff began to
worry his lover, Martha. A little background on her. She and Clifford have kn
ow each other since they were kids, and lovers since they turned adults. They d
idn't feel like getting married because they thought that was a thing that you d
o when you're very bland. They wanted freedom. If they ever wanted to leave the
y would just pack their bags, pay their share of the utilities and hightail it o
ut of there. Well back to the plot. She too was an ex-hippie and she hated anyt
hing that had to do with government. The spook calls were killing their relatio
nship.
When Cliff wanted to trace a phone call to the hacker, the police said. "That
just isn't our bailiwick." It seemed that everyone wanted information, wanted C
liff to say open with his monitoring system, but nobody seemed interested in pay
ing for the things that were happening.
When Cliff found the hacker in a supposedly secure system, he called the system
administrator. The hacker was using the computer in their system to dial anywhe
re he wished, and they picked up the tab. The guy was NOT happy. He asked if h
e was to close up shop for the hacker and change all the passwords. Cliff answe
red no, he wanted to track the guy/gal. First Cliff strategically master minded
a contrivance. He would ask for the secure system's phone records, which would
show him (theoretically) where the hacker is calling to. Then that night, Clif
f became the hacker. He used his computer to log in to his account at Berkley a
nd then he would Telnet to the hacked system, try the passwords and see what he
could see. Boy was he ever surprised! He could call anywhere, for free!! He h
ad access to other computer on the network also, one sensitive at that.
The next day, Cliff called the sys administrator, and told him about his little
excursion. The guy answered. "Sorry Cliff, we have to close up shop. This wen
t right up the line, and well, the modems are going down for a long time." This
irritated Clifford. He was so close! Anyway his life went back to semi-normal
. (Was it ever?!) Then unexpectedly his beeper beeped. To fill you in, he got
him self a beeper for those unexpected pleasures. He was in the middle of makin
g scrambled eggs for Martha, who was still asleep. He wrote her a note saying "
The case is afoot!!J", leaving the eggs still in the pan.
The hacker didn't come through the now secure system, but through another line,
over Tymnet. He called Tymnet and got them to do a search. They traced him ove
r the "puddle" (the Atlantic) to the German Datex Network. They couldn't trace
any further because the German's network is all switches, not like the computeri
zed switches of the good ol' US of A! There would have to be a technician, ther
e tracing the wire along the wall, into the ground, and maybe on to a telephone
pole. Not only that, the Germans wouldn't do anything without a search warrant.
Every minor discovery was told about six times to the different three letter age
ncies that were on the case. Mean while, since this was no longer a domestic ca
se, and was remotely interesting for the FBI, they took the case, out of pure bo
redom.
The CIA affectionately called the FBI the "F entry". Now that the guys at the F
entry were in, there was work to be done. They got a warrant, but the guy who
was to deliver, never did. This was beginning to be serious. Every time Cliff t
ried to get some info on what is going on across the puddle, the agencies clamed
up.
When the warrant finally came, the Germans let the technicians be there to midni
ght German time. As soon as the fiend on the other side raised his periscope, t
hey would nail him.
The problem was, to trace him, well, he needed to be on the line for about two h
ours! The kicker is that he was on for mostly two to three minute intervals. T
hat is when Operation Showerhead came into effect!! Martha came up with this pl
an while in the shower with Cliff...First make up some cheesy files that sound r
emotely interesting. Then place them in a spot that only he and the hacker coul
d read. Recall that the hacker was after military files. They take files that
were all ready there, change all the Mr. to General, all the Ms to corporal and
all the Professors to Sergeant Major. All that day they made up those files. T
hen they pondered what the title should be, STING or SDINET. They chose SDINET
because STING looked too obvious. Then they created a bogus secretary, under th
e address of a real one. Cliff put enough files on the directory so that it wou
ld take the hacker at least three hours of dumping the whole file onto his compu
ter.
In one of the files it said that if you wanted more info, send to this address.
Well one day, Cliff was actually doing some work, for a change, when the real s
ecretary called to say that a letter came for the bogus secretary. Cliff ran up
 the stairs, the elevator was too slow. They opened it and she read it aloud to
Cliff who was in utter amassment. Then he called the F entry. They told him n
ot to touch the document and to send to them in a special envelope. He did.
Cliff was at home one day and all of a sudden his beeper beeped. Since he progr
ammed it to beep in Morse code, he knew where the hacker was coming from before
he physically saw him on the screen. Martha groaned while Clifford jumped on hi
s old ten speed and rode to work. When he got there, the hacker just started to
download the SDINET files from the UNIX. He called Tymnet and started the ball
rolling. That day the hacker was on for more than two hours, enough for the tr
ace to be completed. Though he knew that the FBI knew the number, they wouldn't
tell him who the predator was.
For the next few days, Clifford expected to get a call from the Germans saying,
"You can close up your system, we have him at the police station now." That did
n't happen. He got word, though, that there was a search of his home, and they
recovered printouts, computer back-up tapes, and disks, and diskettes. That was
enough evidence to lock him up for a few years. Then one day, they caught him
in the act. That was enough, he was in the slammer awaiting trail.
Clifford's adventure was over, he caught his hacker, and was engaged to Martha.
They decided to get married after all. He returned to being an astronomer, and
not a computer wizard. Though many people though of him as a wizard, he himsel
f though that what he did was a discovery that he stumbled on. From a 75cent ac
counting mishap to Tymnet to Virginia, to Germany. What a trace!
At the end of the story, poor Cliff was sobbing because he grew up!! L To him t
hat was a disaster, but the wedding coming up, and his life officially beginning
, he forgot it soon. Now he lives in Cambridge with his wife, Martha, and three
cats that he pretends to dislike.