The Cuckoo's Egg cover art

The Cuckoo's Egg

Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage

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The Cuckoo's Egg

By: Cliff Stoll
Narrated by: Will Damron
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About this listen

Before the internet became widely known as a global tool for terrorists, one perceptive US citizen recognized its ominous potential. Armed with clear evidence of computer espionage, he began a highly personal quest to expose a hidden network of spies that threatened national security. But would the authorities back him up? Cliff Stoll's dramatic firsthand account is "a computer-age detective story, instantly fascinating [and] astonishingly gripping" - Smithsonian.

Cliff Stoll was an astronomer turned systems manager at Lawrence Berkeley Lab when a 75 cent accounting error alerted him to the presence of an unauthorized user on his system. The hacker's code name was "Hunter" - a mysterious invader who managed to break into US computer systems and steal sensitive military and security information. Stoll began a one-man hunt of his own: spying on the spy. It was a dangerous game of deception, broken codes, satellites, and missile bases - a one-man sting operation that finally gained the attention of the CIA...and ultimately trapped an international spy ring fueled by cash, cocaine, and the KGB.

©1989 Clifford Stoll (P)2020 Tantor Espionage Freedom & Security Politics & Government Security & Encryption True Crime War & Crisis Exciting Thought-Provoking Inspiring Computer Security

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All stars
Most relevant
Very interesting to hear the details of how the hacker was detected and tracked. The story could have been edited down, for example the listing of arbitrary file names was completely unnecessary. The whole story could have been distilled down into 5 hrs or less.

Very well narrated.

Great storey

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This was an excellent story that was told beautifully, the author and narrator put you right there, highly recommend.

I loved it

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The story has not dated, although the technology has changed. It's still a story of creative thinking and puzzle solving, by real humans. The evocation of San Frank in the 80s is powerful and warm

. Essential listening for those who want to understand the Internet or who enjoy a good tale

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This is indeed a fascinating and enjoyable true-life yarn. Because of the immense advances in computer technology since 1990 many features of the book are now superseded - there was no internet as we know it today and this was the world of dial-up modems. The author recounts engagingly his fortuitous discovery of and subsequent efforts to trace one of the first known instances of espionage by a computer hacker. Even 30 years down the line this is an engrossing story, well written and narrated.

I must point out that the version being read here is very far from unabridged, contrary to what is claimed.
In the original book the author took considerable care to set out exactly what he observed the hacker typing as he attempted to break into various Unix computer systems. These interesting insertions afforded additional insight into the methods of the hacker as well as adding real depth to one's understanding of what was happening.

For some unknown reason all of this material has been excised from the version being read, along with the sentences which immediately preceded, introduced and anticipated these quotations. This is unexplained and unneccesary.

Thus, this is not an unabridged version of the original book and it should not be described as unabridged.

A very entertaining and interesting story

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Very fun. With the speed of technological progress and now wide spread IT literacy, this no longer reads as a tale of computer wizardry. However, this simplicity makes it one of the easiest to understand ‘hacker tales’, and it is a well told and enormously engaging ‘sleuth’ story. The peek into the world of academia and Berkeley liberalism of the time is also fascinating and remains relevant today. Strong recommend!

Very enjoyable lesson from recent history

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