Episode: 4568
Title: Book reading The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4568/hpr4568.mp3
Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:06 (official HPR transcript)

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4568, for 2026-02-04
Today's show is entitled, "Book reading The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll"
The host is Henrik Hemrin and the duration is 00:08:52
The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA
The summary is "About the book The Cuckoo's Egg, starting by looking back at my experience from that time period."
Welcome to Hacker Public Radio. My name is Henley Kimlin and I'm your host today.
In 1985, I started to work at a telecom equipment manufacturer.
We had a mainframe computer in our combined office and lab room.
We were four sitting in the room and it was this one terminal for all of us and maybe even for someone
more. Downstairs, we at the component technology department had our big climate control lab
laboratories. I used an HP-85 computer having the basic programming language to optimize measurements
of resistors and there were several more of them for other measurements of various electronic components.
Also more advanced computers were used in the labs and as I recall also with other languages
non-basic. I remember I learned briefly a bit about one of those languages but I have forgotten which one.
The secretariat department could send telex messages around the world. We handed a handwritten
manuscript to her and she typed it into the telex system and she had a Xerox computer with
big at least eight inch floppy disks. Not so many years later my manager got the personal computer
running those and some years later those computers also came to us in the department.
But also very early we had a son-unic station and for managers, unix became my daily driver at work.
Before I started to work in school we had some education in basic programming. We were using
the at least in Sweden very successful and good lucks for ABC80 computer. At the end of my school time
my school got the top notch ABC8 tanred with color screen. At home so I could get a chance to learn
somewhat more about computers and basic programming in my own pace. I got a single error said X80
computer which later upgraded to said X81. One summer job when I was a student I was at televerket
the Swedish PETTT. It meant that I visited the numerous of exchange stations
many at the countryside, some with very few subscribers so I could hear the relay start when
some of was making a call. But big stations it was noise from the release all the time.
This was long before the phone number could be seen by us subscribers. It was impossible to
know who was calling. But televerket had such equipment a big wooden box with a print that could
be connected to a subscriber when the traffic needed to be monitored. One reason to monitor could
be that the subscriber had claimed the phone bill was too high, impossible they had been calling so much.
So televerket then monitored for a while and they could show
that there indeed had been many phone calls. But possibly by another person in the family
than the one claiming the bill. And possibly calls were going to a person of an external
lover fair that the partner did not know about until televerket presented their call list.
But the exchange station that were in some cases red plastic pieces indicating
the line was used for data communication and was not to be broken. But the station it was also
possible to connect a special phone to the subscriber line and call as well as listen and interrupt
the ongoing conversation when there was a need for service. Of course whatever was heard was to
be considered unhandled as confidential. As I mentioned after studies were completed I was working
with telecom equipment and in particular for landline telephony. Not at least I worked with components
for the line cards, a card at the telephone exchange that is facing towards the end user.
After this long introduction I better come to the book. I have read the Kukus egg by Cliff Stahl.
Many of you listeners probably have already read this book and even more of you have heard
about the book. Now I have read it. It is a hacker thriller based on a true story that happened
in the mid-1980s going on for a year. It was written by the hunter Cliff Stahl shortly after.
This is the same time frame as I relate to above from my personal life. I think the book can
be interesting for anyone. To me, if I even barely can do any programming or understand the telecom
network in depth, my background gives me another layer of relation to the book. Although I am
younger than the author, I have a bit of understanding. I have heard about both Vax and
Unix and the special dialect of Unix from Berkeley. Cliff Stahl describes Unix commands
which are similar to Linux. He talks about passwords about encryption and a lot more.
Many technical details he describes by using analogie with more common non-tech
nircal life examples. A security hole in GNU MX software, a software still around today,
plays a central role in how the hacker could penetrate. To fix an update, security holes are
very relevant today as well. Many things in computers and technology have changed.
But at the same time, very much of the problems are valid today, although they are somewhat
different. And the way he describes technical details for the non-technical reader are relevant also
today, I believe. At the same time, as a book has many technical details, he also talks about the
daily life at home, the left wing culture here belonged to, at the university, his long hair and
the dress code he belonged to, and the music. He also describes his context to numerous authorities
and frustration he had in those contexts. I am very impressed of his analytical research approach,
his persistence, his skills, and inventiveness, including the inventiveness of his girlfriend and others.
One takeaway for me is that he kept a detailed logbook. It is an important research tool
he wrote down what happened all details. The logbook together with the print outs of exactly
what the hack he did were core references for analyzing and make conclusions,
retract and change conclusions when you information led to that the earlier assumptions were wrong.
And without the logbook book and all print outs, it had been impossible to write this book.
He also wrote a technical paper about it before he wrote the book.
So, for a listener to hack a public radio, this is a book I really recommend,
and for those interested, there are several videos with him,
of a late date on various topics.
Thank you for listening, take care and goodbye.
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