Clifford Stoll: Cyber Life and Achievements - Report Example

Clifford Stoll Cyber Life and Achievements Name: Institution: Date: Clifford Stoll Cyber Life and achievements Introduction Cyber crime can be traced back to the late 80s when the Internet was still budding. There are many crimes that occur via the internet, and multinational companies have lost millions of shillings or lost competitive advantage due to leaking of secrets and competitive strategies. The history of hacking to gain illegal entry into other people’s systems as well as computer crimes seemed to have started just at the onset of the World Wide Web. Technology has transformed lives, but on the downside it has led to emergency of a new form of crime that involves some of the smartest people in the world. To gain successful, illegal entry into someone’s systems requires brilliance and meticulous calculations. Tracking down such criminals is tedious and requires immense creativity (Garfinkel, 2010). Clifford Stoll, an astronomer, assisted in the capturing of a nuisance KGB hacker during these times of Internet infancy. His ability to imagine and conceptualize has enabled him to lead new paths from technology and education to making of zero-volume bottles. Stoll came to the limelight in 1986 for tracking down a notorious cracker from Germany by the name Markus Hess. The keynotes which have been delivered by Stoll are engaging, exciting and full of intriguing anecdotes and information. Clifford Stoll possesses great oratory skills that depict a command of what he knows. He always has an interesting story to share with his audience. This essay discusses Clifford Stoll cyber life and his achievements that have been recorded in history. Discussion Clifford Stoll was born in June 1950 and gained fame for being able to track down a spy ring from Germany operating on the Net and auctioning the secrets to the KGB. He is a computer security expert, astronomer, and author. He wrote down his finding about the spying game in a book titled The Cuckoo’s Egg. Clifford Stoll is a successful American author and astronomer. He is famous for pursuing hacker Markus Hess in 1986 and authoring about the adventure titled The Cuckoo’s Egg. Stoll wrote three books and technology articles in some non-specialist press. Clifford made history as cyber detective when he gave stark details of his adventures in catching the hacker Markus Hess (Walden, 2007). The hackers stole secrets from military computers and subsequently sold them to KGB. Stoll grew to become a formidable authority on computer security. Stoll’s lecture presentations were entertaining and energetic, and brought to fore his dry wit and insightful views. Cliff Stoll obtained a PhD from the University of Arizona in the year 1980. After graduation with a PhD from the University of Arizona, he was employed as an assistant engineer at WBFO. This is a radio station that is based at Buffalo. He was employed at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at the start of his investigation in the spying ratchet. He was married to Martha Stoll but they later parted ways. While looking at accounting records, Stoll attention was led to a margin error of 75-cent which was in the billing logs. Stoll commenced by the investigation of a 75-cent error and later ended up stumbling on startling industrial espionage. Stoll was examining the logs in an effort to remove the error. He came across adequate discrepancies that made him to firmly believe that an intruder was tapping into their system illegitimately (Stoll, 1989). As an astronomer his careers took a new turn when he came across the bookkeeping error that gave him the lead to trace a notorious hacker to his hideout in Germany. Prior to the search the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central Intelligence Agency, and National Security Agency were also involved but it was Clifford Stoll who eventually tracked down the intruder who was a hacker from Germany. In the 1970s and 1960s Stoll was employed as an assistant chief engineer at a public radio station in Buffalo. Stoll was promoted to a Systems Manager at his lab. While employed as a systems administrator at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Stoll Clifford investigated a hacker by the name Markus Hess who had hacked into multiple accounts. After detecting the intrusion, Stoll set up a trap for Hess that enabled him to track the hacker and provide the details to the relevant authorities. The notorious hacker from Germany was gaining entry into military computers around the world. The culprit was a 25 year old German who was trading secrets of US government to the KGB for cocaine and money. Clifford Stoll worked for almost a year devoid of support from the government or his employers. Stoll eventually followed the lead to a spy German hacking into American computer networks engaging in national security and trading the secrets to the KGB for Cocaine and money (Stoll, 1988). After catching the hacker, Stoll became an instant computer security expert and gave talks to both the National Security Agency and CIA without forgetting the U.S. senate. Clifford Stoll is recorded as a regular contributor to MSNBC’s The Site. Stoll is an amateur radio operator who is licensed by FCC and has a call sign K7TA. When Clifford Stoll states a point, people listen. He is full of surging energy and he discusses one topic to another while darting back and forth on the podium. It is not easy to tell the direction of his argument but the adventure is always full of excitement. Clifford Stoll achievements are always pointed out as early examples presenting digital forensics. During this period getting cooperation from the law enforcement was a huge challenge owing to the new form of the crime. He detailed his activities in a book titled The Cuckoo’s Egg: Tracking a Spy through the Maze of computer Espionage. He also wrote the paper ‘Stalking the Wily Hacker’. The book was translated into a motion picture that aired on PBS stations in the 1990s. Stoll sells blown Klein Bottles using his company Acme Klein Bottles (Ivars, 2001). He was an eighth teacher of physics at a day school in California and he taught home-schooled teenager. Stoll raised issues about the impact of the Internet on the future of society, and whether it was beneficial. Absence of personal contact as well as secure online funds transfers were predicted as challenges by Stoll in a Newsweek article (Stoll, 1995). He predicted the prospects of printed news publications. He was of the view that online database will not takeover daily publications of newspapers. Stoll was quoted saying that the great joy of computers is how they are good at wasting time that could be devoted to other things. Clifford Stoll demonstrated the insecurity of computers and technology in his reference to passwords as toothbrushes that need to be changed often and should not be shared by anybody. Stoll has authored two engaging as well as counter-intuitive critiques of the role of technology in a culture written his recognized folksy and quiet style full of penetrating insights and droll wit. Stoll warns about overselling the internet and people can pay a high price on its impact on the real human interaction. Stoll is a great critic of technology and was from the onset opposed to computers being brought into classroom studies. Stoll questions the obsession with technology where children are constantly messaging and spending a portion of their time in front of computers. Stoll predicted such trends will be detrimental to the society at large. In his book High-Tech Heretic Clifford Stoll questions the prevalence and hype about computer literacy by educationists and the computer industry. His views was that many people used computers for games and word processing but computers can be obsolete or outmoded much sooner as compared to a good teacher or new textbooks. Stoll despised the inflated promises made and provides a commonsense look at how a technological world can be made better to suit people rather than people being made to be obsessed with machines (Stoll, 1995). Other scholars have vehemently criticized Stoll’s views in this book as being far from convincing. The book is seen as unbalanced attack on the application of computers as well as other technologies in institutions of learning. Stoll listed no illustrations of worthwhile promising ventures of uses. There is no survey of schools that Stoll performs in order to offer a genuine research. Personalized attacks and arrogance depicted in the book does not make the books an interesting read. Clifford Stoll has succeeded in igniting a candid debate on the role of technology particular the computer and Internet in the current society. The prediction that Stoll made in his article in 1995 may have been surpassed but there are many other things that are yet to be fulfilled in the world full of technology (Yar, 2006). Classrooms have seen increased use of computers as a means of learning and teaching. Distance learning and interaction between the student and the tutor has been enhanced by technology. Conclusion Cyber crime has a long history since the introduction of the Internet more than two decades ago. Stoll’s investigations of the German hacker kicked off in 1986 when the Internet age was just beginning. This fact demonstrates that perpetrators of cyber crimes surfaced immediately after the invention of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Stoll has contributed to forensic science and instigated an interesting debate about the role of computers in education. Many critics have condemned the way Stoll approached the issue in his second book without thoroughly researching on the application of technology in education. Stoll has also illustrated the challenges that technology has brought into the world and how it may be detrimental to the society. Some of the predictions made by Stoll have been proved wrong but some of his points are still important in this age. The contribution made by Stoll to technology cannot be ignored. References Garfinkel, S. L. (August 2010), Digital forensics research: The next 10 years, Digital Investigation 7: S64-S73. Stoll, C. (1995). The Internet? Bah! Newsweek, February 27, 1995. Stoll, C. (1995), Silicon Snake Oil, McMillan Stoll, C. (May 1988), Stalking the wily Hacker 31 (5). Stoll C. (1989), The Cuckoo's Egg, New York: Doubleday. Ivars, P. (2001), Immersed in Klein Bottles, Science News, February 14, 2001 Walden, I. (2007), Computer Crimes and Digital Investigations, Oxford: Oxford University Press Yar, M. (2006), Cybercrime and Society, London: Sage. Read More