Collect raw data and throw away the expected. What remains challenges your theories. (Location 390)
The hacker had fun, even if Ed didn’t. (Location 515)
The astronomer’s rule of thumb: if you don’t write it down, it didn’t happen. (Location 537)
The price of hard evidence was hard work. (Location 577)
Physics: there was the key. Record your observations. Apply physical principles. Speculate, but only trust proven conclusions. (Location 767)
Somebody’s always had control over information, and others have always tried to steal it. Read Machiavelli. As technology changes, sneakiness finds new expressions.” (Location 849)
Just like genetic diversity, which prevents an epidemic from wiping out a whole species at once, diversity in software is a good thing. (Location 933)
Our networks form neighborhoods, each with a sense of community. (Location 1137)
Most networks are so complicated and interwoven that no one knows where all their connections lead, (Location 1147)
asked what cops were in charge of the Internet. (Location 1209)
“We’ll always find a few dodos poking around our data. I’m worried about how hackers poison the trust that’s built our networks. After years of trying to hook together a bunch of computers, a few morons can spoil everything.” (Location 1431)
“People want to share information, so they make most of the files readable to everyone on their computer. They complain if we force them to change their passwords. Yet they demand that their data be private.” (Location 1774)
People paid more attention to locking their cars than securing their data. (Location 1776)
The hacker didn’t succeed through sophistication. Rather he poked at obvious places, trying to enter through unlocked doors. Persistence, not wizardry, let him through. (Location 2005)
My networks were as essential to the lab as steam, water, or electricity. (Location 2070)
The networks were no more mine than the steam pipes belonged to the plumbers. But someone had to treat them as his own, and fix the leaks. (Location 2071)
Indeed, some telephone companies now sell phones that display the digits of the calling telephone as your phone is ringing. (Location 2090)
Did he know something that I didn’t? Did this hacker have a magic decryption formula? Unlikely. If you turn the crank of a sausage machine backwards, pigs won’t come out the other end. (Location 2616)
He grew up in Dorset, England, and first learned to program a computer by mail: he’d write a program at school, send it to a computer center, and receive the printout a week later. (Location 2764)
I wondered how a real professional would track this hacker. But then, who were the professionals? Was anyone dedicated to following people breaking into computers? I hadn’t met them. (Location 3208)
If you don’t document it, you might as well not have observed (Location 3354)
The bureaucrats might not be able to communicate with each other, but the technicians sure did. (Location 3722)
High security computers are difficult to get onto, and unfriendly to use. Open, friendly systems are usually insecure. (Location 4466)
“Any system can be insecure. All you have to do is stupidly manage it.” (Location 4577)
the shoemakers’ kids are running around barefoot. (Location 5239)
took advantage of administrators’ blunders. Leaving accounts protected by obvious passwords. Mailing passwords to each other. Not monitoring audit trails. (Location 5243)
For a year, the chase had consumed my life. In the course of my quest, I’d written dozens of programs, forsaken the company of my sweetheart, mingled with the FBI, NSA, OSI, and CIA, nuked my sneakers, pilfered printers, and made several coast-to-coast flights. I pondered how I would now spend my time, now that my life wasn’t scheduled (Location 5397)
That’s the problem with talking about security problems. If you describe how to make a pipe bomb, the next kid that finds some charcoal and saltpeter will become a terrorist. Yet if you suppress the information, people won’t know the danger. (Location 5535)
New highlights added October 14, 2024 at 11:04 PM
I wore the standard Berkeley corporate uniform: grubby shirt, faded jeans, long hair, and cheap sneakers. Managers occasionally wore ties, but productivity went down on the days they did. (Location 93)
Now, an error of a few thousand dollars is obvious and isn’t hard to find. But errors in the pennies column arise from deeply buried problems, (Location 104)
New highlights added October 16, 2024 at 1:01 PM
Big computers have two types of software: user programs and systems software. (Location 193)
Not dull software engineers who put in forty hours a week, but creative programmers who can’t leave the computer until the machine’s satisfied. A hacker identifies with the computer, knowing it like a friend. (Location 209)
the best part of working at Lawrence Berkeley Labs was the open, academic atmosphere. (Location 233)
with no connections to the outside, Livermore’s computers can’t be dialed into. Their classified data’s protected by brute force: isolation. (Location 235)
Different operating systems have various names for privileged accounts—super-user, root, system manager—but these accounts must always be jealously guarded against outsiders. (Location 263)
New highlights added October 19, 2024 at 5:06 PM
Our computer center’s nestled between three particle accelerators: the 184-inch cyclotron, where Ernest Lawrence first purified a milligram of fissionable uranium; the Bevatron, where the anti-proton was discovered; and the Hilac, the birthplace of a half-dozen new elements. (Location 280)
both laboratories are named after California’s first Nobel Laureate, both are centers for atomic physics, and both are funded by the Atomic Energy Commission’s offspring, the Department of Energy. (Location 290)
Since their computers are often the first ones off the production line, Livermore usually has to write their own operating systems, forming a bizarre software ecology, unseen outside of their laboratory. Such are the costs of living in a classified world. (Location 307)
By trusting his users, he ran an open system and devoted his time to improving their software, instead of building locks. (Location 326)
The daemons themselves are just programs that copy data from the outside world into the operating system—the eyes and ears of Unix. (The ancient Greek daemons were inferior divinities, midway between gods and men. In that sense, my daemons are midway between the god-like operating system and the world of terminals and disks.) (Location 410)
The cuckoo lays her eggs in other birds’ nests. She is a nesting parasite: some other bird will raise her young cuckoos. The survival of cuckoo chicks depends on the ignorance of other species. (Location 461)
Richard Stallman, a free-lance computer programmer, loudly proclaimed that information should be free. His software, which he gives away for free, is brilliantly conceived, elegantly written, and addictive. (Location 474)
New highlights added October 20, 2024 at 9:42 PM
Gnu was the hole in our system’s security. A subtle bug in an obscure section of some popular software. (Location 488)
Often, these networked computers had been arranged to trust each other. If you’re OK on that computer, then you’re OK on this one. This saved a bit of time: people wouldn’t need to present more than one password when using several computers. (Location 522)
New highlights added October 30, 2024 at 5:44 AM
Living together was different. We were both free. We freely chose to share each day, and either of us could leave if the relationship was no longer good for us. (Location 600)
New highlights added November 7, 2024 at 8:39 PM
Was this program a Trojan horse? Maybe I should call it a mockingbird: a false program that sounded like the real thing. (Location 901)
If everyone used the same version of the same operating system, a single security hole would let hackers into all the computers. Instead, there’s a multitude of operating systems: Berkeley Unix, AT&T Unix, DEC’s VMS, IBM’s TSO, VM, DOS, even Macintoshes and Ataris. This variety of software meant that no single attack could succeed against all systems. (Location 931)
New highlights added November 12, 2024 at 8:41 AM
Instead of writing five different, incompatible programs, he created a single standard to exchange files between any systems. Kermit’s become the Esperanto of computers. (Location 874)
New highlights added November 17, 2024 at 4:22 AM
To Dennis, size is measured by counting computers on your network; speed is measured in megabytes per second—how fast the computers talk to each other. The system isn’t the computer, it’s the network. (Location 1429)
When you’re doing real research, you never know what it’ll cost, how much time it’ll take, or what you’ll find. You just know there’s unexplored territory and a chance to discover what’s out there.” (Location 1639)
Nobody will pay for research; they’re only interested in results,” (Location 1653)
