The Cuckoos Egg: Cliffs Persistence Essays -- essays research papers

The Cuckoos Egg Cliffs PersistenceBy Clifford Stoll"The Cuckoos Egg" is a story of persistence, love for ones organize and is justplain funny The story starts kayoed with Clifford Stoll being "recycled" to acomputer analyst/webmaster.Cliff, as he is affectionately called, is a long-haired ex-hippie that workings atLawrence Berkeley Lab. He originally was an astronomer, but since his grantwore out, he became a mainframe master. He was glad that instead of throwinghim out into the unemployment office, the Lab recycled their lot and ground-floor he went, to the computer lab.A few days after he becomes the master of the mainframe, his colleague, WayneGraves, 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 hisclosest 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 ofprograms for the Berkeley UNIX system. At the time, he was in England far fromcomputers and civilization. The crew does not what to believe that it would beSeventek, so they start to wait what the impostor is doing. Cliff hooks up afew computers to the line that comes from the Tymnet. Tymnet is a series offiber-optic cables that run from a major city to some other major city. So if youwere in LA and wanted to hook up to a computer in the Big Apple you could calllong distance, earn a lot of interference from other callers and have a slowconnection, or you could sign-up to Tymnet and dial locally, hop onthe opticcable and cruise at a T-3 line. The lab had only five Tymnet lines so Cliffcould easily monitor every one with five computers, teletypes, and five printers.That was the difficult part, where to get all that equipment. At graduateschool they taught Cliff to improvise. It was a Friday, and not many peoplecome to work on Saturday. Since it was easier to make up an excuse tha n to begfor anything, he "borrowed" everything he needed. Then programmed his computerto beep twice when someone logged on from the Tymnet lines. The thing is, sincehe was sleeping under his desk, he would gouge his head on the desk drawer.Also, many people like to check their E-mail very late at night, so not to getinterference. Because of that his terminal bee... ...the FBI knew thenumber, they wouldnt tell him who the predator was.For the undermentioned 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." Thatdidnt happen. He got word, though, that there was a search of his home, andthey 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, theycaught him in the act. That was enough, he was in the slammer awaiting trail.Cliffords adventure was over, he caught his hacker, and was engaged to Mar tha.They decided to get married after all. He returned to being an astronomer, andnot a computer wizard. Though many people though of him as a wizard, he himselfthough that what he did was a discovery that he stumbled on. From a 75centaccounting mishap to Tymnet to Virginia, to Germany. What a traceAt the end of the story, poor Cliff was sobbing because he grew up L To himthat was a disaster, but the wedding coming up, and his life officiallybeginning, he forgot it soon. today he lives in Cambridge with his wife, Martha,and three cats that he pretends to dislike.