Clifford Stoll

Bio: Clifford Stoll is an academic researcher from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The author has contributed to research in topics: Cuckoo & Trespasser. The author has an hindex of 8, co-authored 9 publications receiving 1318 citations. Previous affiliations of Clifford Stoll include Harvard University.

Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the Information Highway

Abstract: From the Publisher: Ah, the information highway. No phenomenon in modern times has received more attention, held out more promise, nor achieved more mythic stature than the information highway. This computer utopia is said to educate, entertain, and inform. It will supply us with vast amounts of information, put us in close touch with one another and turn our fractious world into a global village. Not so, says Cliff Stoll. Stoll knows. He's the author of The Cuckoo's Egg - the bestselling book about how he caught German spies prowling through computers - and a genuine legend on the Internet. Involved with networks since their earliest days, Stoll has watched the Internet grow from an improbable research project into a communications juggernaut. He knows computers; he loves his networked community. And yet... Stoll asks: when do the networks really educate, and when are they simply diversions from learning? Is electronic mail useful, or might it be so much electronic noise? Why do online services promise so much, yet deliver so little? What makes computers so universally frustrating? Silicon Snake Oil is the first book that intelligently questions where the Internet is leading us. Stoll looks at our network as it is, not as it's promised to be. Yet this is no diatribe against technology, nor is it one more computer jock adding his voice to the already noisy chorus debating the uses of the networks. Following his personal inquiry into the nature of computers, Cliff meets a Chinese astronomer with an abacus, gets lost in a cave, and travels across the Midwest on a home-brew railroad cart. And, at the end of the journey, we're all a bit wiser about what this thing called the information highway really was, is, could, and should be. Grounded in common sense, Silicon Snake Oil is a meditation full of passion but devoid of hysteria. Anyone concerned with computers and our future will find it startling, wholly original, and ultimately wise.

The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage

Abstract: From the Publisher: Cliff Stoll was an astronomer turned systems manager at Lawrence Berkeley Lab when a 75-cent accounting error alerted him to the presence of an unauthorized user on his system. The hacker's code name was "Hunter"—a mystery invader hiding inside a twisting electronic labyrinth, breaking into U.S. computer systems and stealing sensitive military and security information. Stoll began a one-man hunt of his own, spying on the spy—and plunged into an incredible international probe that finally gained the attention of top U.S. counterintelligence agents. The Cookoo's Egg is his wild and suspenseful true story—a year of deception, broken codes, satellites, missile bases, and the ultimate sting operation—and how one ingenious American trapped a spy ring paid in cash and cocaine, and reporting to the KGB.

Stalking the wily hacker

Abstract: An astronomer-turned-sleuth traces a German trespasser on our military networks, who slipped through operating system security holes and browsed through sensitive databases. Was it espionage?

The Cuckoo's Egg : Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage

Abstract: From the Publisher: Cliff Stoll was an astronomer turned systems manager at Lawrence Berkeley Lab when a 75-cent accounting error alerted him to the presence of an unauthorized user on his system. The hacker's code name was "Hunter"—a mystery invader hiding inside a twisting electronic labyrinth, breaking into U.S. computer systems and stealing sensitive military and security information. Stoll began a one-man hunt of his own, spying on the spy—and plunged into an incredible international probe that finally gained the attention of top U.S. counterintelligence agents. The Cookoo's Egg is his wild and suspenseful true story—a year of deception, broken codes, satellites, missile bases, and the ultimate sting operation—and how one ingenious American trapped a spy ring paid in cash and cocaine, and reporting to the KGB.

Uses and Gratifications Theory in the 21st Century

Abstract: Some mass communications scholars have contended that uses and gratifications is not a rigorous social science theory. In this article, I argue just the opposite, and any attempt to speculate on the future direction of mass communication theory must seriously include the uses and gratifications approach. In this article, I assert that the emergence of computer-mediated communication has revived the significance of uses and gratifications. In fact, uses and gratifications has always provided a cutting-edge theoretical approach in the initial stages of each new mass communications medium: newspapers, radio and television, and now the Internet. Although scientists are likely to continue using traditional tools and typologies to answer questions about media use, we must also be prepared to expand our current theoretical models of uses and gratifications. Contemporary and future models must include concepts such as interactivity, demassification, hypertextuality, and asynchroneity. Researchers must also be willing to explore interpersonal and qualitative aspects of mediated communication in a more holistic methodology.

Does the Internet Increase, Decrease, or Supplement Social Capital? : Social Networks, Participation, and Community Commitment

Abstract: How does the Internet affect social capital? Do the communication possibilities of the Internet increase, decrease, or supplement interpersonal contact, participation, and community commitment? This evidence comes from a 1998 survey of 39,211 visitors to the National Geographic Society Web site, one of the first large-scale Web surveys. The authors find that people's interaction online supplements their face-to-face and telephone communication without increasing or decreasing it. However, heavy Internet use is associated with increased participation in voluntary organizations and politics. Further support for this effect is the positive association between offline and online participation in voluntary organizations and politics. However, the effects of the Internet are not only positive: The heaviest users of the Internet are the least committed to online community. Taken together, this evidence suggests that the Internet is becoming normalized as it is incorporated into the routine practices of everyday ...

Social Implications of the Internet

Abstract: The Internet is a critically important research site for sociologists testing theories of technology diffusion and media effects, particularly because it is a medium uniquely capable of integrating modes of communication and forms of content. Current research tends to focus on the Internet's implications in five domains: 1) inequality (the “digital divide”); 2) community and social capital; 3) political participation; 4) organizations and other economic institutions; and 5) cultural participation and cultural diversity. A recurrent theme across domains is that the Internet tends to complement rather than displace existing media and patterns of behavior. Thus in each domain, utopian claims and dystopic warnings based on extrapolations from technical possibilities have given way to more nuanced and circumscribed understandings of how Internet use adapts to existing patterns, permits certain innovations, and reinforces particular kinds of change. Moreover, in each domain the ultimate social implications of t...

Computer Networks as Social Networks: Collaborative Work, Telework, and Virtual Community

Abstract: When computer networks link people as well as machines, they become social networks. Such computer-supported social networks (CSSNs) are becoming important bases of virtual communities, computer-supported cooperative work, and telework. Computer-mediated communication such as electronic mail and computerized conferencing is usually text-based and asynchronous. It has limited social presence, and on-line communications are often more uninhibited, creative, and blunt than in-person communication. Nevertheless, CSSNs sustain strong, intermediate, and weak ties that provide information and social support in both specialized and broadly based relationships. CSSNs foster virtual communities that are usually partial and narrowly focused, although some do become encompassing and broadly based. CSSNs accomplish a wide variety of cooperative work, connecting workers within and between organizations who are often physically dispersed. CSSNs also link teleworkers from their homes or remote work centers to main organi...

Net-Surfers Don’t Ride Alone: Virtual Communities as Communities

Abstract: Can people use the Internet to find community? Can online relationships between people who never see, smell, or hear each other be supportive and intimate?