Cliff Stoll is an astronomer working at Lawrence Berkeley Labs. In his lean time, he is tasked with managing the several computer systems at the labs, which are networked to multiple computer systems outside, giving access to scientists who may be anywhere in the world. An early version of what is now the internet.
He notices a 75c accounting mismatch, and starts down a deep rabbit hole to trace it, culminating in tracking the activities of an ingenious and resourceful hacker who uses the LBL computers as a gateway to gain access to several sensitive military and security computers in an attempt to steal information from them.
Playing an elaborate game of cat-and-mouse, the author does not cut off the hacker, but logs every activity of his on both LBL’s computers and every computer accessed through LBL. He even plants fake data as a honey trap to lure the hacker. His detailed tracking efforts gets the attention of FBI, CIA, and West German police, who all work to corner his unseen adversary.
This book gives a great insight into the fledgling days of the internet, when it was just a handful of rag-tag mainframes talking disparate languages and running a myriad set of operating systems. Computer security, such as it was, was rudimentary at best, but mostly non-existent.
A abbreviated version of this book appeared as a “book section” in a Readers’ Digest in the 90’s, which encouraged a lot of readers (including me) to get interested in computer networks. The writing style is conversational and engaging. It almost reads like a mystery, detective or spy novel, but it’s so much more exciting because it’s all true. An excellent read.