Cuckoo's Egg Analysis Paper
THE CUCKOO’S EGG BOOK ANALYSIS – TRACKING A SPY
Suma Lakshminarayan
Book Analysis Paper
Professor Jon Clark
Summer Quarter 2012
11 September, 2012
INTRODUCTION
The Cuckoo’s Egg book is well written by Cliff Stoll. It was something like reading a horror story book. It was creepy, suspense, curiosity and scary too. The hacker every time breaks into a military system seemed to be like a ghost entering into the house and not like a thief. We know thief will definitely when he attacks a home he will for sure grab all things possible for him to steal. But this hacker was not doing just that, he was wandering in the system and making some creepy moves and disappeared. Many a times he would just come and go just to show that he was still there. Something like a ghosts act. Cliff clearly briefs every day’s situations, thoughts and reaction of the people around him. As we are reading this book and try to imagine the description given by Cliff, we can understand how things were in those days. The FBI, NSA, NCSC and CIA reacted and helped for such case. It was definitely very difficult for Cliff to handle the pressure of his boss and the unsupportive FBI. It was definitely a challenging case. An astronomer, who was least interested in computer programming lands up tracking a spy which leads him to be a professional network and information security provider. This journey of Cliff is an example to many who loose hope on their current jobs, or people who lost and don’t know where they are ending up. From this book I take back lot of things related to computers, networks, the government, information security and its importance, and how to handle things under pressure and stress. There are many characters who teach us how to look at situations which actually shows us a way to solve the problem. Luis Alvarez is one such example who actually showed Cliff another view of handling this case. I think it was because of him Cliff took this case as a
Suma Lakshminarayan
Book Analysis Paper
Professor Jon Clark
Summer Quarter 2012
11 September, 2012
INTRODUCTION
The Cuckoo’s Egg book is well written by Cliff Stoll. It was something like reading a horror story book. It was creepy, suspense, curiosity and scary too. The hacker every time breaks into a military system seemed to be like a ghost entering into the house and not like a thief. We know thief will definitely when he attacks a home he will for sure grab all things possible for him to steal. But this hacker was not doing just that, he was wandering in the system and making some creepy moves and disappeared. Many a times he would just come and go just to show that he was still there. Something like a ghosts act. Cliff clearly briefs every day’s situations, thoughts and reaction of the people around him. As we are reading this book and try to imagine the description given by Cliff, we can understand how things were in those days. The FBI, NSA, NCSC and CIA reacted and helped for such case. It was definitely very difficult for Cliff to handle the pressure of his boss and the unsupportive FBI. It was definitely a challenging case. An astronomer, who was least interested in computer programming lands up tracking a spy which leads him to be a professional network and information security provider. This journey of Cliff is an example to many who loose hope on their current jobs, or people who lost and don’t know where they are ending up. From this book I take back lot of things related to computers, networks, the government, information security and its importance, and how to handle things under pressure and stress. There are many characters who teach us how to look at situations which actually shows us a way to solve the problem. Luis Alvarez is one such example who actually showed Cliff another view of handling this case. I think it was because of him Cliff took this case as a