Book review: The Cuckoo’s Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage (1989)
Truth is often stranger than fiction, though it isn’t always as interesting. The Cuckoo’s Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage (1989) is the exception, giving us a tale just as exciting as any best-selling, fictional thriller and yet is entirely factual. Who would have guessed that such an exhilarating adventure could be totally enclosed in the not-entirely-sexy world of computer networks and security?
The Cuckoo’s Egg is a fascinating story that began with a minor discrepancy on a small computer network in Berkeley and ended in an international sting operation. Cliff Stoll was the astronomer-turned-programmer who was on the trail of the mysterious hacker, and he tells the story quite well. This is a suspense filled tale of tracking this burglar to his lair, of frustrating red herrings and of maddening bureaucracy that stands in the scientist’s way.
There are one or two places that don’t flow quite as smoothly as they would have had the author been a professional writer and not an astronomer/computer-engineer. He also tends to be a bit repetitive in his discussions and his repeating of his philosophies. But, as I mentioned, this is from a scientist, not an English major, and his style does have a charm of its own. It helps the story feel more like something that’s happening to just an average kind of guy, which is a great aid to heightening tension, and also helps carry the computer-illiterate reader. Despite having to convey some relatively difficult concepts, Stoll does an excellent job at explaining networks, operating systems, programming logic and other computer activities with a minimum of confusion. And while the average reader is gaining insight into the world of computers, the advanced, 21st Century computer operator may find something to feel nostalgic about in this story of late-80’s computer networks.
I can easily recommend this book to anyone regardless of his or her prior knowledge of computers. While on the surface this is a story about breaking into electronic equipment, the appealing aspects of the story lie in the mystery itself, not necessarily in the tools of the trade. What this all boils down to is a good old-fashioned game of cops-and-robbers, when computer networks and Internet security were still only in their infancy.
This review was originally posted in May 2002.
