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Clifford Stoll beat the Russians, then made useless, wondrous objects (2016)
- cactusplant7374 4y ago> Sure enough, the perpetrator bit—and stayed on the line long enough for Deutsche Bundespost to locate him at his home in Hanover, West Germany. We need details on how this was accomplished.
- yodon 4y ago> We need details on how this was accomplished The book he wrote on it [0] is a great read [0]https://www.amazon.com/CUCKOOS-EGG-Clifford-Stoll-ebook/dp/B0083DJXCM https://www.amazon.com/CUCKOOS-EGG-Clifford-Stoll-ebook/dp/B...
- CliffStoll 4y agoAnd for every copy you purchase, almost a nickel directly goes into my kids’ tuition and/or bail fund.
- WelcomeShorty 4y ago> my kids’ tuition and/or bail fund. You made me spill my coffee :) Will certainly use that in front of my kids.
- CliffStoll 4y agoWhy are drinking coffee at 2AM ? (Insomniac Cliff in Oakland,California)
- peterfirefly 4y agoI bought it in Denmark either in late '89 or early '90 -- can't remember. The Central Station in Copenhagen had bookstore that sold "airport literature" but for trains -- I think I bought it there. Thank you for a good read!
- cactusplant7374 4y agoDid you do any hacking there?
- pengaru 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cuckoo%27s_Egg_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cuckoo%27s_Egg_(book)
- davidw 4y agoThe first time I lived in Italy, in the mid-90ies, the internet was not the ubiquitous thing that it is now so I was not very well connected with the rest of the world, and getting English language books was not so easy. I had a copy of that book that I think I read 5 times. I was also getting into Linux, so the whole thing was super cool and motivational. Mr. Stoll occasionally drops by this site ( https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=CliffStoll https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=CliffStoll ), so if he sees this: thanks!
- CliffStoll 4y agoAnd my warm greetings back to you David — it sends me back a few decades too!
- mc32 4y ago“I was asking what I thought were reasonable questions: Is the electronic classroom an improvement? Does a computer help a student learn? Yes, but what it teaches you is to go to the computer whenever you have a question, rather than relying on yourself. Suppose I was an evil person and wanted to eliminate the curiosity of children. Give the kid a diet of Google, and pretty soon the child learns that every question he has is answered instantly. The coolest thing about being human is to learn, but you don’t learn things by looking it up; you learn by figuring it out.” The question is coming up yet again with current LLMs and other AI. The previous waves displaced some people but generally modernized by automation many manual processes. Will this wave or the next or the next one after that be the one that displaces the need to learn altogether such that we are totally dependent on the machine and find ourselves unable to proceed without it having lost our aptitude to lean? Of course there will be people who keep on learning because of momentum or because they have an affinity for the old ways, just as we have hose riders, despite modern transportation, but not enough to sustain the system were the future generation of AI to fail (for whatever catastrophic reason like solar blast, etc.)
- CliffStoll 4y agoOh, but your note resonates with me — we’ve slowly changed our what we expect of a learned person. Once, understanding was central. Increasingly, we mainly care about getting the right answer. Or, in the case of AI, something that looks and feels like the right answer.
- hypertexthero 4y agoThis and the Large Language Model AI stuff reminds me of Feynman’s experience teaching in Brazil: “After a lot of investigation, I finally figured out that the students had memorized everything, but they didn’t know what anything meant.” —http://v.cx/2010/04/feynman-brazil-education http://v.cx/2010/04/feynman-brazil-education I hope curiosity, genuine understanding, and joy remain central for our species. Thank you for your wonderful work and inspiration, Mr. Stoll!
- beefield 4y agoYour comment made me think a future world where AI is powerful but capped to the limits of human knowledge. In that world AI makes almost all people (economically) worthless. The exception are the people who take the challenge and study, work and research to expand the human knowledge. Whether this is an utopia or dystopia, I guess depends on how the relationship of these two groups work out.
- jacknews 4y agoBah they forgot to mention the best bit. He keeps already-made klein bottles in the crawlspace under his house, and built a remote controlled fpv mini-forklift to retrieve them on demand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k3mVnRlQLU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k3mVnRlQLU
- CliffStoll 4y agoSigh — for all the time it saves me in carrying boxes from the crawlspace under our house … I probably spend as much time fixing, maintaining and improving the thing. Much fun, of course — I’ve built a line following device for it and played with PyTorch to get it to semiautomaticly pick boxes from stock. Yep - every minute it saves me goes right back into fooling around with the three-wheeled beast.
- adityaathalye 4y agoWell I happen to think that's a good general strategy to live life. Replace non-fun labour and time with fun labour and time. No matter then, if the fun version is all about automating the non-fun version (or vice versa)!
- bb88 4y agoThere's a book called "Automate the boring stuff with python." https://automatetheboringstuff.com/ https://automatetheboringstuff.com/
- jacknews 4y agoYou're doing extremely well if you're breaking even! I think sometimes it's all about the journey, not the destination.
- taylorius 4y ago"You're doing extremely well if you're breaking even!" The automater's slightly underwhelming battle cry! :-D
- beej71 4y agoI have one of his bottles on my desk. We paid him a visit once afternoon and can confirm he's just the nicest geek you've ever met. Plus a chance to meet one of my childhood heroes in person... I don't know if he still encourages visitors, but if he does, I highly recommend it.
- CliffStoll 4y agoMy happy greetings to you, BJee. I certainly appreciate your kind note, not to mention your help with m’kid’s tuition. Math & Computing folk do continue to visit, perhaps encouraged by the free admission to the East Bay (we charge $7 to get out, by way of the Bay bridge)
- reidjs 4y agoIt’s $7 to go back :p
- csours 4y agoCuckoo's Egg is so much more than a hacking story. It's a history of a time when the internet was tiny and people assumed good faith. It's a history of a time when very few people were interested in or believed that computer crime was real or had any impact.
- CliffStoll 4y agoIt was long ago, when almost nobody had a 2400 baud modem, hardly anyone knew of the Arpanet, and pocket pagers were a rarity. Everything’s changed: today, almost nobody has a 2400 baud modem, hardly anyone knows of the Arpanet, and pocket pagers are a rarity.
- JanneVee 4y agoI remember that humor from Silicon Snake Oil, it was a wonderful book. I think back to it when working in an industry where everyone takes a tractable problem and makes it intractable for "job security".
- zabzonk 4y agoWeren't they 2800, not 2400? I always liked the sounds they made when they were dialling up. Nobody will ever miss pagers, IMHO. I used to have to carry one to support a trading server at a bank (Credit Suisse, somewhat topically) and I used to dread it going off in the middle of the night because something had gone horribly wrong in Hong Kong. We eventually re-wrote the server so it was trivial to restart & managed to shuffle off responsibility for it to the locals. Bye-bye pager and good riddance! Liked your books, BTW!
- ahoya 4y agoI ordered one of these as a gift recently and his email as well as the extensive paperwork that comes with the bottle or fantastic works of science fiction in and of themselves. Didn’t realize he wrote the cuckoos egg
- CliffStoll 4y agoThank you, indeed — hadn’t thought of my topological propaganda as exactly science fiction, but I guess you’re right. Same with my dissertation on Jupiter’s atmosphere, but for slightly different reasons.
- inconceivable 4y agoi bought one of his bottles during the pandemic because i needed to gussy the place up a bit for spending more time in. highly recommended. i think i have his handwritten note ... somewhere around here ...
- CliffStoll 4y agoIf you can’t find that handscribbled note, you can substitute this finger-poked reply, Inconcee. I do try to write something on each kleinbottle order — indeed, I try to have fun with my zero-volume business.
- inconceivable 4y agothanks cliff!
- andreareina 4y agoMentions, mentions everywhere / nor a link to click https://www.kleinbottle.com/ https://www.kleinbottle.com/
- thanatos519 4y agoMany years ago Cliff would only charge for the prime-numbered bottles in your order, so I got a group of friends together and we ordered 16 to save money by only paying for 7. I don't see that offer on the website anymore!
- CliffStoll 4y agoWow! You’re right! 25 years ago, when I startedAcme Klein Bottle, I wondered how to properly do quantity discounts. Short story: Around 1996, my wife laughed at me when I told her that I was ordering 25 Klein bottles. “You’ll never sell that many,” she said. “Hardly anyone knows what these are, and nobody needs one. You’ll take most of ‘em to the dump.” Thank you, Thanatos for helping prove her wrong.
- pie314isi 4y agoI have once of his Klein bottles. It came in the most amazing personally decorated package that I've kept that too, and value it almost as highly as the glassware.
- CliffStoll 4y agoOnce, a postal letter-carrier asked me why I scribbled “nonorientable” on my package. I began to tell her the mathematical meanings of the word, and she interrupted me to say that she knew its meaning - she wanted to know what kind of topological shape was in the box. Wow: she knew topology! Since then, I scribble it on every box I mail, in honor of her.
- 31337Logic 4y agoAny previous doubts I may have had regarding the authenticity of this "CliffStoll" account have now evaporated. ;-) Thank you, Cliff, for all that you've done. Clearly, you've left a mark on many souls... and we're all the better for it. :-)
- Enderboi 4y agoEvery few months I keep telling myself I need to buy one of Cliff's Klein bottles to go alongside my (very dogeared) paperback copy of The Cuckoo's Egg :) Learning all the default VMS passwords definately didn't get me in trouble during High School with the state's herd of Vaxen... I mean the book was right there, in the library! Wink wink :P
- CliffStoll 4y agoYou used VMS in high school? You must be old enough to vote! Blushing slightly, my high school had an IBM 1620, where I learned machine coding, assembler, and that most modern language, Fortran. 1965: punch-cards and blinking panel lights. Yep, I feel like a fossil.
- evanb 4y agoCliffStoll, can you tell Brady from Numberphile that it's an internet crime to sit on a Numberphile video with you in it for 2+ years?! I loved the most recent small-business-oriented Numberphile, by the way :)
- CliffStoll 4y agoThose Numberphile videos? It’s way fun when Brady stops by my house. I try to have two or three ideas somewhat organized. Some are simple flops or stumbles; others just seem to click. Like any improv performance. Thanks, of course for your smile about that recent video - yep, I did it offhand a couple years ago; I’d pretty much forgotten about it when -zooks- suddenly I’m staring at 3 dozen Klein bottle orders to send out. Brady Haran, incidentally, is a terrific interviewer and producer. It’s a joy to work with him.
- fudgy 4y agoReading the Cuckoo’s Nest certainly got me into Unix, networking and security! Thanks CliffStoll!
- CliffStoll 4y agoYou’re quite welcome, Fudgee. Now the torch is in your hand, to make the internet a better place.
- bjornsing 4y agoI have a vague memory of reading his book (or a similar account). The one specific thing I remember is a philosophical rant about how you can never be sure that a hacker will leave a trace within the digital inner world of a computer that they control. For example log files can be edited to remove suspicious activity. So he set up the system so it would log straight to a printer. Much harder to redact paper logs. :)
- CliffStoll 4y agoNot to mention that it was way easier to use clipleads to connect teletypes and printers to incoming lines. And since the intruders had root access, how do you hide an OS based logger?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- pvillano 4y agoThe original append-only
- robbiet480 4y agoI’ve been meaning to buy an Acme Klein bottle for years now, especially because I live near Cliff in Oakland so it’s not like he’s far away! Maybe this weekend…
- CliffStoll 4y agoColby Street, near college & alcatraz. But call first — several houseguests this week!
- FeepingCreature 4y agoI still type `ps ax` because that's the syntax I picked up from Cuckoo's Egg. Learnt that command several years before I installed Linux for the first time. <3 IMO, the second lesson of Google is to never trust the first Google hit, or the second or the third... the Internet doesn't really teach you how to investigate questions on your own - then again, what does but experience - but it does teach you the art of detecting bullshit. Even on sites like Stack Overflow, I find myself looking at the top answer, going "no, that's obviously wrong, next, next, next... ah, this answer added two years late at zero votes looks promising." If you just follow the first thing Google tells you, you'll fall on your face pretty reliably.
- CliffStoll 4y agoMy fingers, too, were trained so long ago. The ls command? -lastF no matter what version. Still find myself using /more/ rather than /less/ or any of the more modern versions. Yep, there are still a few dinosaurs left… Behind a pi-hole, those first google hits tend to be blocked ads, so some people follow follow your advice by default.
- hyperman1 4y agoI got your book before I got my first 80386 based computer. I upgrade from ps ax to ps axu, but apart from that, you learned me some UNIX before I got a computer. What I remember most of the book is the talks with Luis Alvarez, and the influence it had on how you examined the attacker. So while you didn't turn me into a (professional) astronomer, you might have managed to turn me into a scientist. BTW, even if the computer stuff is completely outdated, the problem solving attitude that speaks out of the book is a reason why I still recommend it to youngsters. I recently bought an English edition to read it in the original language, too. BTW2, regarding dinosaurs, my old professor could never get the hang of this new-fangled windows stuff. We always saw him struggling with notepad, typing stuff like :wq in it and cursing when it didnt work. One day, we took pity on him and installed cygwin and a windows-compatible vi. Good times ;-)
- donatj 4y agoCliff Stoll is a super interesting character. His Numberphile videos are amongst my favorites. I actually ran into him on Reddit of all places a couple weeks ago. I was looking into air filters for my Mac Studio and I found a post where he had built a special stand with a cut up furnace filter to help protect his Mac Studio from dust. I recognized his garage from Numberphile and asked if it was him, sure enough. I mean to actually build something like his contraption. My old house collects so much dust.
- CliffStoll 4y agoThank you Donat — your happy note brings a smile to this tired astronomer’s face, We have two wonderful cats who enjoy shedding cat hair around my desk. The new Mac Studio draws cooling air from the tabletop ,resulting cat fluff clogging the air passages. As you saw, it’s a chance to research how filter media work, and to home brew a solution that keeps everyone happy: computer, Cliff, and cats.
- netfortius 4y agoRead his book in the early 90s, as result of a presentation he's given in Chicago. Working on SUN Sparcstations running Solaris, at the time, made his entire story extraordinarily exciting for the much younger me, and was one of the deciding factors to drop all that I was doing (had a PhD in engineering, and was using the computers for math modeling of fluid dynamics), go back to school, get my CS degree and move onto a completely different professional world. Thank you, Cliff! Note: never liked his Silicon Snake Oil book :(
- CliffStoll 4y agoAnd you’re very welcome, NetFort. Sparcstations? Oh my - zippy little guys that outgrew the VME crates of earlier Sun boxes. Like you, I loved the astonishing speeds of new computers - 25, 50, even 100MHz clocks. And in such small packages — why all that power could fit in an office!
- flaschenoeffner 4y agoI was an exchange student in Germany when the wall came down. I was a computer science major, and a friend sent me a copy of the Cuckoo's Egg. That book made me feel excited about my future profession and opened my eyes to a world that I was largely unaware of. It also convinced me that grad school was something I had to experience. The book altered the path my life was on in a very good way. Thank you, Cliff!
- CliffStoll 4y agoMy happy greetings back to you! Those times opened my eyes as well. It marked a watershed between days of computing innocence (an academic playground) and the era of a global commercial system with deep implications of security.
- YoooThere 4y agoI bought one of Cliff's Klein bottles years ago and it still has pride of place on one of my bookshelves. I cannot describe how excited I was to find someone actually making them and that they were affordable!
- ibestvina 4y agoWhat an amazing person. I first learned about Clifford when he did his TED talk, and I was immediately a fan. The quote from the Hayes Hall Bell Tower resonated, and stayed with me, for all the years since. I'm deeply grateful that people like him exist, sharing their experiences and knowledge while still being simply kind and approachable. If you're reading this, thank you!
- CliffStoll 4y agoAt 2AM on a rainy Oakland night, thank you very much, BestV. That TED talk was a bit strange for me - I’d prepared a 1 hour talk: just before going onstage, they told me that I had only 18 minutes. So I did what I learned in grad school: talk fast and don’t give ’em a standing target. And the chase across campus? Yep happened petty much as I told it. Even now, in the middle of the night, tapping on an iPad, I can remember: All truth is one. In this light . . . Again, thank you.
- ibestvina 4y agoThank you for the information. I'm sure there are a lot of people who'd be interested in the full 1 hour talk, if you ever find time to film it.
- h0l0cube 4y agoRecently the Malicious Life podcast has been covering the Lawrence Berkeley hack in depth https://malicious.life/episode/episode-210/ https://malicious.life/episode/episode-210/
- ndsipa_pomu 4y agoHaven't seen anyone mention the 1990 documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGv5BqNL164 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGv5BqNL164 It's amazing to see how little he's changed.
- CliffStoll 4y agoA third of a century, two kids, and several turns in the road.
- ndsipa_pomu 4y agoI suspect you wouldn't be as quick cycling up that hill at the start of that film.
- eurasiantiger 4y agoThe quote from his 1995 book is weird: > Give the kid a diet of Google Google was founded in 1998, this quote must be from a later edition of the book.
- woolion 4y agoThe Cuckoo's egg is part of 'history of hackers' literature that fascinated me when I got into computer science. At the time I was spending my time with algorithms, so computers were paper theoretical devices on one side, and media devices on the other. There another hidden world with some people that were driven by an enormous thirst for knowledge that could do fantastic things. One thing that humans don't really manage well is understand how much an activity will change you in the process. It's a cliché, if you fight a monster you become a monster, because you're forced to use some methods that will have an impact on your psyche. The book delves in how the chase of this hacker bled into the author's personal life, and how his simplistic worldview was not enough to manage the different conflicts that were at play. Yet the direction into which he was pulled was so opposite to his own inclinations that it forced him to reflect on it in a more conscious manner. This thought process was both interesting, relatable, and illuminating. I don't see that mentioned anywhere but that left a strong impression on me (hopefully I'm not wrong, this was more than 15 years ago...).
- CliffStoll 4y agoWhew! You said it. I hadn’t thought about who I was or anything beyond my techy life in Berkeley. I figured that I was an apolitical Berkeley longhair, attending Dead concerts and biking along verdant streets. It took a directed attack against my systems, my colleagues, and my community, to wake me up.
- revomatrix 4y agowhoa ..this is Cliff Stoll. I'm still reading that yellow book The Cuckoo's Egg btw ..totally amazed me ..
- sanderjd 4y agoThis is the dynamic that blew my mind and made me love Ender's Game (and a few of its sequels).
- woolion 4y agoIt's the third time this month I see a mention of this book, and every time it seems interesting. I'll try to read it soon!
- phist_mcgee 4y agoI was the only student in my CS class who actually read the Cuckoo's Egg as part of our operating systems unit (everyone else just looked up a synopsis on wikipedia). So glad I did, it was such a fun read. Greetings from Australia! Just purchased a klein bottle as well!
- hhh 4y agoI read The Cuckoo's Egg at 18 (almost 7 years ago now…) and have found Cliff (Mr. Stoll sounds too formal) to be a spectacular source of inspiration in my life. From all the Numberphile videos to the talk about teaching in middle school I’ve always found his energy exciting and try to approach everything with that much enthusiasm. I need to buy a bottle as a token to have something to remind me of those things long past when my memory alone can do it.
- nxpnsv 4y agoI bought some Klein bottles from Cliff. The single best buying anything online experience I've ever had. AND he's a legend.
- pbh101 4y agoMy grandfather gave me a worn copy of ‘The Cuckoo’s Egg’ for our 12+-hour road trip back home after visiting them for the summer when I was in middle school. Fastest ride home ever, and I had nearly finished it by the time we arrived. Had a big influence on my career path. Thanks, Cliff!
- CliffStoll 4y agoMy happy greetings back to you, PBH. Not sure if I’d meant to influence your career (hadn’t thought of that when I wrote the book); I’m astonished at how it turned out.
- 31337Logic 4y agoI love how a simple mention of Cliff Still in 2023 can still generate over 100 lovely comments in a handful of hours. Thanks for being a truly good person, Cliff. ;-)
- vintagedave 4y agoI bought something like eight Klein bottles in one go from him a couple of years ago, as a thankyou gift to various members of my team at work for a new software release. Not sure if he knew this but I had a spreadsheet tracking what kind of bottle (eg a wine-loving teammate got a Wine Klein, a teammate I've gone for beers with got a Klein Stein, etc), plus the countries they had to go to because many of us work remotely! Germany, Estonia, Chile, California... Dr Stoll was _incredibly_ friendly during the process of buying all of these (I tried to keep it organised but I did ask him to send eight different packages to something like eight different locations!) and I bought his smallest-model Klein bottle for myself at the same time. It and its accompanying propaganda is one of my prized possessions, sitting on a shelf next to a wild boar's tusk, a 1920s brass charting compass, and other Really Cool Things. If you read this and happen to remember me, Dr Stoll, I'm very grateful -- plus, I have no idea how to top that gift for my team next time we have a new release out. The next one is later this year. How can I do better than that? I genuinely don't know what to get them next :) If you're interested, this is his website: https://www.kleinbottle.com/ https://www.kleinbottle.com/ It has far more than just normal Klein bottles. There are Klein hats. Klein earrings. Klein Erlenmeyer flasks...
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago> If you read this and happen to remember me, Dr Stoll I know he has an HN ID, and has chimed in, from time to time. I’ve always enjoyed sharing this planet with him. He’s an oddball, but a wonderful one.
- CliffStoll 4y agoAn oddball? Yep - not sure how I wound up this way. I never could follow the outlines when drawing in kindergarten. And the blursed change from /cmp/ to /key/ from Python 2.7 to 3.n really baked that oddballness into me. I've had to add even more vanilla to my chocolate chip cookies.
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y agoI know how I wound up one. Long story. Get your hanky. Cheers, and carry on the Wonderful!
- jgerrish 4y agoThe article mentions one of the things I remember most about The Cuckoo’s Egg. It was Stoll's use of simple tech, a printer, to securely log the activities of the intruder. No worrying about tampered logs, or any of that. Of course, he had physical security at Lawrence Berkeley Lab. I wouldn't want to play that game if I was in an insecure location. It's just not fun. Still, good book. Formative in my youth.
- CliffStoll 4y agoPartly because, as a physicist and a ham, it was way easier to solder and clip lead some RS232 wires than to reprogram a tty daemon.
- Claudus 4y agoI remember searching my library for every book I could find on computers and hacking, there weren’t many, but I somehow stumbled upon The Cuckoos Egg while flipping through the ancient wooden drawers of the card catalog in my local library. It really was one of the most magical books I’ve ever read. Since then I’ve had many exciting experiences of my own in the digital world, and I owe that in part to Clifford Stoll for painting such a vivid an exciting view of his own experiences that helped shape my own imagination.
- TexanFeller 4y agoI bought one of his klein bottles expecting only a klein bottle. Much to my surprise even the cardboard box it came in was hand decorated with drawings made in marker. Inside there was a packet of information about klein bottles stuffed to the gills with witty humor about topology and science and signed by Cliff. Every detail made me laugh and smile. This is so clearly a labor of love for him, I've never seen anyone else put this much effort into bringing joy into the world.
- CliffStoll 4y agoIndeed, my friend from Texas — if you wish to teach math, it takes a bit of effort and humor. Same with computing - you put yourself in the shoes of your student.
- empthought 4y agoThe book is probably the most important influence on my career in software. I read it when I was about 11, and it was a very reassuring narrative from the point of view of an intelligent and curious person -- who wasn't already an expert in what he found himself working on. His explanations of the inner workings of networks and computer operating systems both moved the story along, and helped bridge the gap between Logo and BASIC programming and the impenetrable technical manuals for the computers I was using at the time. It also helped that the commands he listed in the book worked on my school's A/UX computers. I think reading all of that strengthened my confidence to explore programming and systems without either feeling overwhelmed by information, or restricted to narrow specializations.
- deltarholamda 4y agoHis "Silicon Snake Oil" was equally important to me in the mid-90s. As a computer guy who was running as fast as I could into everything Internet, it was a real eye opener. It made me look at what I was doing and flip it around. I still ask "is what I'm doing really an improvement, or am I just making a box go 'bing' in a new way?" It's easy to forget all the nerd stuff we do is supposed to be serving the interests of society, mankind, real people, however you want to think of it. And, sometimes, the question that should be asked is not "can we do it?" but "should we do it?" Social media, for example, should probably have done a bit more introspection before turning us into click-farmers.
- ok123456 4y agoI remember their being a negative backlash against that book. Most of the Stoll fans on the early internet were expecting some futurist pablum, which he certainly could have sold out and done, but instead offered a polemic. I read both "The Cuckoo's Egg" and "Silicon Snake Oil" as a young teen and it shaped and tempered my view of technology.
- CliffStoll 4y agoYou betcha, OKserialdigits -- and thank you. When I wrote a critique of the early internet, my sister warned me of the costs: Nobody thanks Cassandra. But -as techies- I believe it's our responsibility to speak against thick hyperbole and unrealistic projections. Progress grows from realistic evaluations and honest criticisms.
- causi 4y agoshort for President Reagan’s controversial Strategic Defense Initiative program, a proposed “missile shield” that threatened to further destabilize an already tenuous nuclear détente Not that SDI was going to work, but I will never understand this "we shouldn't build anti-nuke defenses because it might make the people pointing nukes at us angry" attitude.
- sbarre 4y agoHonest question: were you alive during the cold war days? It was different times, and the overwhelming desire to not escalate or provoke was very real, in a way that just doesn't exist anymore today.
- thrwawat36 4y agoI'm not a politician, but it could lead to an escalating arms race that is expensive and benefits nobody. If Reagan finished SDI, other nations like China/Russia could feel the need to develop a similar program. They would at a minimum start researching ways to work around the insanely expensive SDI program, which would cause it to be obsolete. The cycle continues and everyone loses money and resources that could be spent on other problems.
- 3pt14159 4y agoIf you would like to understand the arguments they're out there. Arms Control Wonk blog and podcast. My personal view is that we should build them to shield from states like the DPRK, but the contrasting view is that it destabilizes Mutually Assured Destruction. We don't know how many of their missiles we'll be able to intercept in the event of a mass strike, so it could make our leaders overly confident to take actions that would escalate. That's the critique, and I think it has some merit, but I also think that there are people that I admire, like Jeffery Lewis, that hold that view or something similar to it. For whatever it is worth, I've personally worked on arms control and in intelligence, so this opinion is not coming out of the blue.
- sophacles 4y agoA wierd consequence of mutually assured destruction is that you need your adversary to be roughly on par with you. If one side gains a major advantage they may decide to attack knowing that you'll have the worst of it. The weaker side may be more likely to use thier ultimate out of desperation and "nothing left to lose" type thinking. Further, the way to deal with anti-nuke defenses is to just send more nukes and/or lots of dummies too. Things like iron dome are 90% effective (reportedly, some think that number is too high and has a significant propaganda element)... You dont need a huge success rate for your nukes to be effective. Besides the consequences of a destroyed nuke are not great either, there's still a lot of uranium and plutonium getting dumped into the atmosphere. If your goal is to end nuclear proliferation, things that increase said proliferation are not ok.
- zekyl314 4y agoI recall back in 1990 when PBS aired, “The KGB, the Computer, and Me”. I was a freshman in high school and immediately fell in love with the documentary. I recorded it on VHS and watched it numerous times. I was already into computers, we had an IBM PC jr and I was fascinated by it. This story made me want to learn more and dive into technology even more. I recently, within last few years finally picked up the book and read it. It is just a great story. I feel like everything Cliff said, in certain aspects, we still deal with today. I highly recommend the book and watching the documentary.
- AndyMcConachie 4y agoThe KGB, the Computer, and Me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGv5BqNL164 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGv5BqNL164
- justin66 4y ago"Useless?" That's some pretty one-dimensional thinking.
- chrisweekly 4y ago> "The coolest thing about being human is to learn, but you don’t learn things by looking it up; you learn by figuring it out." Wisdom.
- user3939382 4y agoI'm all filled up on anti-Russian sentiment for about 10-15 years, thanks. We don't need any more headlines about "beating the Russians" right now. Especially not from cogs of The Machine like Berkeley.
- xenolithis 4y agoCliff in here responding to so many comments is the best thing I've seen so far this year. Great to see someone who shares experience and nurtures the tech community still so involved. Thanks for all you do!
- thaumaturgy 4y agoTo his unpopular commentary on the impacts of computing and electronics on daily life, I'm agreeing with him more and more as I get older. I don't think it's early-onset curmudgeoness, although I'm not sure I'd know if it was. Still, I grew up at a time just before computers were a normal part of everyone's life, and now they dominate my time and attention and other resources in a way I don't think anyone could have imagined circa 1985. We see enough articles on this site about the consequences of ...excessive computing (?) on sleep and mental health and physical health, we should be able to agree generally that there are some negative effects, as with all technologies. From there, it's only another step to start to find some common ground with Mr. Stoll's views on it, and I hope he sees that happen.
- manv1 4y ago"I realized that the trouble with bong makers is that they’re also bong users." - classic!
- RigelKentaurus 4y agoI wasn't familiar with Dr Stoll or Klein bottles. It was great to read this. As a Cal alum, the sheer number of awesome/weird/creative people associated with the university and city continues to inspire and astonish me. Fiat lux!
- CliffStoll 4y agoLuis Alvarez used to have a weekly physics seminar at his house, just north of campus (on Cedar Street). I was honored to do one of the Tuesday evening talks and get flak from all the physics jocks. Berekeley in the 1980's.
- creiht 4y agoI rarely comment on HN, but I appreciate these moments that remind me that the internet can still be a beautiful place. Cliff, watching the Nova special (and later reading the book), was very formative in deciding to pursue a CS degree, and it has been a blessing to see your humble replies here. Keep doing what you do, and one day I will be able to mark off a bucket list item of being able to stop by and purchase a Klein bottle in person!
- zafka 4y agoHi Cliff, Just want to say how much it brightens my day to see you here. Quite a while I bought a few Klein bottles ( and loved the package inserts ) I work at "big-corp" and every week i host the mental health diplomats "TED talk" A few weeks ago I played your talk "The Call to Learn" for the second time. You are quite the inspiration.
- aanet 4y agoOh wait, Cliff Stoll is in the house?? Wow. Whoda thunk. Dr Stoll -- if you're reading this -- your book _The Cuckoo's Egg_ made such a lasting impression on this young, precocious teen, who read everything in he could lay his hands on. This is the very late 80s or early 90s - and I had read some excerpts in _Reader's Digest_, out in the middle of nowhere, in a village in India. It (among other books) inspired me to study computer networking in my undergrad (thank the IITs) and started my career in the networking industry. When I found myself in the US in the mid-90s, with barely a few dollars in my wallet, yours was the first book I purchased from that lonely bookstore in the strip mall in Los Angeles. I was so poor that I had to choose between getting my copy of the book, or a half-a-week's worth of dinner. I chose the former, and it made all the difference. It still sits here on my shelf, now accompanied by a few hundred other books, but it will always have a special place in my heart. To be honest, I contemplated a career in security, but other fields called my name. FWIW, I now work on autonomous vehicles. Yours is a book I gift any one of my friends/nephews/nieces who I think has the potential to be inspired. So far, I've given it to about half a dozen people. FWIW, when I read the _Silicon Snake Oil_, I wasn't impressed as much.. But over the years I have come to respect the sentiments behind it. Life is better, far richer, outside, and with a few loved ones, than in front of the computer, whatever form it may have taken. I believe a lot of people have come to the same conclusion, with or without agreeing with your theses. Now that I am in the Bay Area (twists of fortune), I would love to get myself one of your Klein Bottles. <3
- simonblack 4y agoI have one of his Klein Steins. The packaging it came in from the States was as much fun as the contents.
- iaw 4y agoI have purchased two Klein bottles from Cliff on different occasions and they're resting in my trinkets cabinet. Both came with notes from Cliff that, as stupid as this sounds, made me feel special. Cliff, not sure if you're still reading this thread but you are an absolute treasure and one of the people that made (makes?) Berkeley such a great place.
- fennecfoxy 4y ago"Are antique stores, booksellers, taxi drivers, librarians, travel agents, and journalists the enemy of society? They are being destroyed by our friend, the Internet." Have you cried for horseback couriers? Hell, there are hundreds if not thousands of industries that died with the rise of automobiles. I suppose it's alright to mourn for things that we lose to history, but I don't think it's right to denounce technological progress, especially when it has given us so much. For all the problems in the world, technology is just there to assist in our own self-destruction. The unfortunate reality is that it is us, human beings, who are our own undoing or remaking in every way; our efforts to do so are just magnified by technology.