Clifford Paul "Cliff" Stoll (born June 4, 1950) is an American astronomer, author and teacher. He is best known for his investigation in 1986, while working as a

system administrator An IT administrator, system administrator, sysadmin, or admin is a person who is responsible for the upkeep, configuration, and reliable operation of computer systems, especially multi-user computers, such as Server (computing), servers. The ...

at the

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL, Berkeley Lab) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in the Berkeley Hills, hills of Berkeley, California, United States. Established i ...

, that led to the capture of

hacker A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who achieves goals and solves problems by non-standard means. The term has become associated in popular culture with a security hackersomeone with knowledge of bug (computing), bugs or exp ...

Markus Hess Markus Hess is a German hacker who was active in the 1980s. Alongside Dirk Brzezinski and Peter Carl, Hess hacked into networks of military and industrial computers based in the United States, Europe and East Asia, and sold the information to the ...

,additional material
/ref> and for Stoll's subsequent book '' The Cuckoo's Egg'', in which he details the investigation. Stoll has written three books as well as articles in the non-specialist press (''e.g.'', in ''

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it, with more than 150 Nobel Pri ...

'') on the Curta mechanical calculator and the

slide rule A slide rule is a hand-operated mechanical calculator consisting of slidable rulers for conducting mathematical operations such as multiplication, division, exponents, roots, logarithms, and trigonometry. It is one of the simplest analog ...

, and is a frequent contributor to the mathematics

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

channel ''

Numberphile ''Numberphile'' is an Educational entertainment, educational YouTube channel featuring videos that explore topics from a variety of fields of mathematics. In the early days of the channel, each video focused on a specific number, but the channe ...

''.

Early life and education

Cliff Stoll attended Hutchinson Central Technical High School in Buffalo, New York. He earned a B.S. in Astronomy in 1973 from the University at Buffalo (SUNY). While studying for his undergraduate degree at SUNY Buffalo, Stoll worked in the university's electronic music laboratory and was mentored by

Robert Moog Robert Arthur Moog ( ; May 23, 1934 – August 21, 2005) was an American engineer and electronic music pioneer. He was the founder of the synthesizer manufacturer Moog Music and the inventor of the first commercial synthesizer, the Moog synthe ...

. He received his PhD from the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona, United States. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it ...

in 1980.

Career

During the 1960s and 1970s, Stoll was assistant chief engineer at

WBFO WBFO (88.7 FM broadcasting, FM, "BTPM NPR") is a non-commercial educational station, non-commercial, listener-supported, public radio, public radio station in Buffalo, New York. It is owned by the Western New York Public Broadcasting Associati ...

, a public radio station in his hometown of

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is a Administrative divisions of New York (state), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and county seat of Erie County, New York, Erie County. It lies in Western New York at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of ...

. In 1986, while employed as a systems administrator at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Stoll investigated a tenacious hacker—later identified as

KGB The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...

recruit

—who stole passwords, pirated multiple computer accounts, and attempted to breach US military security. After identifying the intrusion, Stoll set up a honeypot for Hess by using a non-existent department at the National Laboratory, allegedly cooperating with the US Department of Defense, eventually tracking him down and passing details to the authorities. Stoll spent 10 months trying to track the hacker's whereabouts and eventually managed to do so when a hacker tried to gain access to the computer of a DoD contractor in Virginia. It is recognized as one of the first examples of

digital forensics Digital forensics (sometimes known as digital forensic science) is a branch of forensic science encompassing the recovery, investigation, examination, and analysis of material found in digital devices, often in relation to mobile devices and com ...

. At the time, gaining cooperation from law enforcement was a challenge due to the relatively new nature of the crime. He described the events of his investigation in '' The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage'' and the paper "Stalking the Wily Hacker". Stoll's book was later chronicled in an episode of WGBH's ''

NOVA A nova ( novae or novas) is a transient astronomical event that causes the sudden appearance of a bright, apparently "new" star (hence the name "nova", Latin for "new") that slowly fades over weeks or months. All observed novae involve white ...

'' titled "The KGB, the Computer, and Me", which aired on

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

stations in 1990."The KGB, the Computer, and Me"

Nova A nova ( novae or novas) is a transient astronomical event that causes the sudden appearance of a bright, apparently "new" star (hence the name "nova", Latin for "new") that slowly fades over weeks or months. All observed novae involve white ...

episode. In his 1995 book '' Silicon Snake Oil'' and an accompanying article in ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly news magazine based in New York City. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely distributed during the 20th century and has had many notable editors-in-chief. It is currently co-owned by Dev P ...

'',Clifford Stoll
The Internet? Bah!
''

'', February 27, 1995. Stoll raised questions about the influence of the Internet on future society, and whether it would be beneficial. He made various predictions in the article, such as calling e-commerce nonviable (due to a lack of personal contact and secure online funds transfers) and the future of printed news publications ("no online database will replace your daily newspaper"). When the article resurfaced on ''

Boing Boing ''Boing Boing'' is a website, first established as a zine in 1988, later becoming a group blog. Common topics and themes include technology, futurism, science fiction, gadgets, intellectual property, Disney, and left-wing politics. It twice wo ...

'' in 2010, Stoll left a self-deprecating comment: "Of my many mistakes, flubs, and howlers, few have been as public as my 1995 howler ... Now, whenever I think I know what's happening, I temper my thoughts: Might be wrong, Cliff ..."Curmudgeonly essay on "Why the Internet Will Fail" from 1995
''

'', February 26, 2010. Stoll was an eighth-grade physics teacher at Tehiyah Day School, in

El Cerrito, California El Cerrito (Spanish language, Spanish for "The Little Hill") is a city in Contra Costa County, California, United States, and forms part of the San Francisco Bay Area. It has a population of 25,962 according to the 2020 United States census, 2 ...

, and later taught physics to home-schooled teenagers.Slashdot.org
Stoll was a regular contributor to

MSNBC MSNBC is an American cable news channel owned by the NBCUniversal News Group division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. Launched on July 15, 1996, and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan, the channel primarily broadcasts r ...

's ''

The Site ''The Site'' is an hour-long television program devoted to the Internet revolution. It debuted in July 1996 with MSNBC's launch, and aired Monday through Saturday, reaching 35 million homes. Soledad O'Brien hosted ''The Site'', along with her ...

''. Stoll is an FCC licensed

amateur radio operator An amateur radio operator is someone who uses equipment at an amateur radio station to engage in two-way personal communications with other amateur operators on radio frequencies assigned to the amateur radio service. Amateur radio operators ...

with the call sign K7TA. He appears frequently on

Brady Haran Brady John Haran (born 18 June 1976) is an Australian-British independent filmmaker and video journalist who produces educational videos and documentary films for his YouTube channels, the most notable being ''Computerphile'' and ''Numberph ...

's YouTube channel ''Numberphile''. Stoll sells blown glass

Klein bottle In mathematics, the Klein bottle () is an example of a Orientability, non-orientable Surface (topology), surface; that is, informally, a one-sided surface which, if traveled upon, could be followed back to the point of origin while flipping the ...

s on the internet through his company Acme Klein Bottles. He stores his inventory in the crawlspace underneath his home in

Oakland, California Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...

, and accesses it when needed with a homemade miniature robotic

forklift A forklift (also called industrial truck, lift truck, jitney, hi-lo, fork truck, fork hoist, and forklift truck) is a powered industrial truck used to lift and move materials over short distances. The forklift was developed in the early 20th c ...

Books

* * * *

References

RealAudio RealAudio, also spelled Real Audio, is a proprietary audio format developed by RealNetworks and first released in April 1995. It uses a variety of audio codecs, ranging from low-bitrate formats that can be used over dialup modems, to high-fidelit ...

) * Cliff Stoll and

Jonathan Zittrain Jonathan L. Zittrain (born December 24, 1969) is an American professor of cyber law, Internet law and the George Bemis Professor of International Law at Harvard Law School. He is also a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, a professor of co ...

on ''When Countries Collide Online: Internet Spies, Cyberwar, and Government Skullduggery'', MediaBerkman, February 8, 2010 (1:21 h)
Video
( Ogg video)
Podcast
(MP3, Ogg audio)
Talk by Cliff Stoll
April 4, 1996
One of Stoll's Klein bottles
examined by

Adam Savage Adam Whitney Savage (born July 15, 1967) is an American special effects designer and manufacturer, fabricator, actor, educator, television personality, and producer, best known as the former co-host, with Jamie Hyneman, of the Discovery Channe ...

(

), November 1, 2021 {{DEFAULTSORT:Stoll, Clifford 1950 births Living people American astronomers American technology writers American non-fiction crime writers University of Arizona alumni Amateur radio people Writers from Buffalo, New York Digital forensics people People associated with computer security Scientists from New York (state) University at Buffalo alumni Berkeley Macintosh Users Group members

Early life and education

Career

Books

References

External links