Poised Solutions Tech Library

The Cuckoos Egg

The Cuckoos Egg Author: Clifford Stoll Publisher: Pan Published: 1991 Pages: 394

The Cuckoo's Egg by Clifford Stoll is a non fiction account of a system intrusion detected by a system administrator (Clifford Stoll) and is perhaps the first book of the edutainment variety when it comes to cyber security.

The Cuckoo's Egg appeals primarily to tech folk, nowadays intrusions of this kind are fairly common so perhaps the lengths at which Mr Stoll took would not be condensed into a couple of days now, but the tale does highlight a lot of the tracing mechanisms that were used and still are used.

The Cuckoo's Egg story is a classic and parts of it do appear in other books (cyberpunk) often termed as Project Equaliser by the crackers who undertook the attack on Stoll's system.

There are no chapter headings in the Cuckoo's Egg, apart from a number, it makes for an interesting element of the book, but also shows that perhaps Clifford was new to professional writing at the time.

With that said, the Cuckoo's Egg is written in a very engaging style, written in the first person, and the story is one of intrigue; the Cuckoo's Egg reads very much like a thriller or mystery.

Overall the Cuckoo's Egg is a great read, it won't teach a person too much about the technicalities of computer system and tracing over communication networks, but it does offer a very good insight into the thoughts and emotions of a person whose systems are under a degree of attack and penetration.