Hacker 2/HACKER2.mdf/cud/cud444d.txt

Text File | 1995-01-03 | 7KB | 115 lines

Date: Mon, 14 Sep 92 11:14:49 CDT
From: Jim Thomas <[e-mail]>
Subject: File 4--An Ideal(istic) Egg

Cliff Stoll, the hippy, might appreciate the irony of The Cuckoo's Egg
(TCE) symbolizing for the "hacker generation" what Altamont did for
the counter-culture of the sixties. Cliff Stoll, the socially
committed astronomer would take little pleasure in the prophetic power
of his observations.  For those of the sixties, the free Rolling
Stones concert at Altamont was seen as a west-coast version of
Woodstock--a chance to frolic, engage in the excesses of "freedom from
responsibility," and live out a fantasy inspired by a romantic image
of the flower-power culture. A beating death by the Hell's Angels
"peace keepers," seemingly high numbers of drug overdoses, and
spiritual rain darkened the event.

Altamont itself did not kill the "hippy dream" any more than TCE had a
terminal effect on the hacker counterculture. Nonetheless, the
experiences recounted in TCE provided an icon for the passing of a
romantic era of hacking into one in which personal responsibility (or
lack of it), personal excesses, and increasing abuse without concern
for the consequences were eroding a culture from within.  Like the
decay of the sixties' culture, the hacker culture of the 1980s was
invaded by newcomers who lacked the romantic idealism of those who had
come before them. As access to computers increased, a hoard of
newcomers moved in, bringing with them the problems that face any
community in a population explosion.  In TCE, Cliff only documents one
slice of the problem by describing one incident that symbolized the
problems of a new society when trust and respect for the rights of
others breaks down.

In long-lost correspondence, Eric Smith once suggested that TCE
represented a turning point for Cliff, for the "hacker community," and
for computer users who who lived outside the pale of exploratory
computer use.  Cliff's work raised consciousness, a few hackles
(including my own), praise, and criticism. It was written before
Operation Sun Devil, but was read by many of us in the context of the
Legion of Doom and Phrack indictments. It was cited by some law
enforcement agents in documents and other media as a means of
exaggerating the "Hacker Menace" as a national security threat to
justify their excesses in early 1990.  As a consequence, it was not a
work that received many neutral readings.  Ironically, much of the
criticism directed at Cliff and his work reflected the same passion
that prompted Cliff to write it:  Betrayal of trust and opposition to
injustice and predatory behavior.  The metaphors of betrayal and loss
permeate TCE. Openness, whether in our personal relationships or on
computer systems, require trust. When that trust is violated, we lose.
Cliff's persona seeps continually out of the book. One can picture him
with keyboard in one hand, yoyo in the other, chocolate chip cookie
crumbs scattered about, and sneakers steaming in the microwave,
sharing each chapter with the woman he loves with joy and
anticipation.  The intellectual and other rewards he reaped from his
labor also carried a burden.  The nearly three years' experience and
corresponding time to reflect on events since then cannot but make a
re-reading of The Cuckoo's Egg a somewhat sad experience.  Cliff has
written elsewhere of his personal losses: Some friends abandoned him,
he was unfairly criticized, his relationship dissolved, and he found
himself at the center of controversy not of his own making.

What was the cause of all this? By now, most know that TCE was about
tracking an intruder into UC/Berkeley's computer system who was
noticed as the result of a miniscule accounting error.  Cliff
discovered that his system was being used by the hacker to access
other systems, and, like a cyber-bloodhound, followed the intruder
into other systems and then retraced the steps and ultimately located
him on a system in Germany.  The narrative made a fascinating
detective story, and when read from the protagonist's perspective, one
couldn't help root for the detective. Methodologically, patiently,
painstakingly, the narrator pursued his quarry. Guided by the same
passion for solving a puzzle that motivates hackers (and researchers)
and by the feeling that if things are not quite right they should be
fixed, Cliff combined curiosity and technology in a way that one
might argue celebrates the original hacker ethos while adamantly
opposing its excesses.

When I first read the Cuckoo's Egg in early 1990, the Legion of Doom,
Phrack, and Len Rose were facing legal problems. Sun Devil was still a
few months away.  Prosecutors, the media, and others alluded to the
work to demonstrate the "hacker menace," to raise the spectre of
threats to national security through espionage or disrupting the
social fabric, and to generally justify the need to bring the full
weight of law enforcement down upon teenage joyriders.  Although Cliff
has taken a strong and unequivocal stand on civil liberties and has
publicly denounced excesses that violate Constitutional rights, he had
no power of the use of the images that some took from the book. This
led some at that time, myself included, to associate him with the
excesses.  Ironically he was in a sense victimized by the same law
enforcement excesses as others in early 1990. By attempting to alert
us to a problem, he was unwittingly caught up in it, and the messenger
was mistaken for the message. As a series of posts on
comp.org.eff.talk indicated this past summer, the mistake lingers.

And what *IS* Cliff's message? In TCE and elsewhere, he has made it
quite clear: Cyberspace must be based on trust.  The sixties' idealism
of a better world through cooperation and respect for others' rights
is not simply a "PC" perspective, but an ethos that is essential if
computer technology and its benefits are to be widely shared.  Those
who intrude on others subvert this trust, and virus-planters are akin
to putting razor blades in the sand at the beach.  The attitude of
some that it's a right to try to hack into systems with impunity
subverts the freedom of others, and when trust dissolves, so does
freedom.

In some ways, Cliff Stoll *is* The Cuckoo's Egg.  His persona has been
planted in our psyche, his images have become part of our lore, and
his non-compromising insistance on establishing a culture of trust and
mutual respect provide a model for teaching young computer users that
responsibility comes with knowledge. Gordon Meyer provides the best
summary for the legacy of The Cuckoo's Egg: It has hatched and his
given us Cliff Stoll and an image of curiosity, decency, and class
that can help civilize the cyber-frontier.  And there aren't many
books or authors about which that can be said.

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