“Like Einstein’s universe, most networks are finite but unbounded. There’s only a certain number of computers attached, yet you never quite reach the edge of the network. There’s always another computer down the line. Eventually, you’ll make a complete circuit and wind up back where you started. Most networks are so complicated and interwoven that no one knows where all their connections lead.” ~ The Cuckoo’s Egg1
Thoughts
What’s the book about?
It is a first-person account of a sysadmin (who was an astronomer) at Berkeley tasked with a seemingly innocuous task of tracking down a 75 cent accounting discrepancy of server usage and discovering a secret web of computer network hacking and stealing of classified information. A year-long hunt for the hacker connects Cliff to many government departments and cable network operators across the US and finally finds that the hacking originated from abroad.
It is a fascinating book. I had heard a lot about this book and always wanted to read it. It is an engaging book even if you’re not into cybersecurity, though in today’s world, everyone is unwittingly into cybersecurity and should be aware of the security of one’s own data and privacy.
However, it is not just a story about chasing a hacker but a glimpse of society and people interactions. It is a history lesson on how things were networked in the 80s; it’s about life in Berkeley as an astronomer; about how being too passionate about work can affect one’s love life; about persistence, about taking notes, about how frustrating it can be to work with bureaucrats; how to improvise when you don’t have resources; and so on.
My key takeaway
My big takeaway was that you have to take notes. Being able to journal events of the day and being able to retrieve crucial pieces of information when you need it, is critical to your learning process. Our brain works that way. There are many PKMs2 that allow you to organize notes like a “Second Brain”, a concept popularized by Tiago Forte3.
There are a few instances where Cliff talks explicitly about the importance of taking notes. In the first few * Chapters, he mentions -
“The astronomer’s rule of thumb: if you don’t write it down, it didn’t happen.”
There is also an incident later where someone in the NSA had leaked information about the investigation to DoE. His manager says that not informing DoE was a mistake since their lab got funding from DoE. Cliff points to his notes and says that DoE was informed two months ago and it was documented in the logbook. Here is the quote from the book after this -
“Saved by my logbook. Just like observing at a telescope. If you don’t document it, you might as well not have observed it. Sure, you need powerful telescopes and computers. But without a logbook, your observations won’t amount to much.”
Follow up
I stumbled upon this lecture series by Chris Sanders2 who uses the book to give an introduction to Information Security. What a novel way to teach! I haven’t gone through it yet. Hopefully sometime this year.
Notes
Footnotes
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Stoll, C. (2005). The cuckoo’s egg: tracking a spy through the maze of computer espionage. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. ↩
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Sanders, Chris (2018). The Cuckoo’s Egg Decompiled: An Introduction to Information Security. Retrieved from http://www.chrissanders.org/cuckoosegg. ↩ ↩2
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Tiago Forte, Youtube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/tiagofortelabs ↩