Cliff Stoll’s DEF CON Talk
In August, Cliff Stoll gave a talk at DEF CON, remembering the wily hacker he stalked forty years ago.
Great fun.
In August, Cliff Stoll gave a talk at DEF CON, remembering the wily hacker he stalked forty years ago.
Great fun.
Hans Baeker • September 11, 2026 7:23 AM
Never mind. A quick search on youtube found the talk.
Thanks.
Kempton • September 11, 2026 7:41 AM
Cliff is just awesome! Without him, where would most of us be? Glad to see him well.
P.S. Bruce, did you know Cliff? And how early did you know him?
Weather • September 11, 2026 7:57 AM
I thought 40 years ago you had typewriters 😀.
Dialup internet, 128 lines, glory days.
Clive Robinson • September 11, 2026 9:11 AM
@ Weather,
With regards,
“I thought 40 years ago you had typewriters”
There were a few around but after 1973 they started disappearing as Personal Computers and dot matrix computers started taking over around 1977 with the Apple ][ doing “spread sheets” and early “Wordprocessing” then in the 1980’s 8bit micros for home computing kind of banged the nails in the lid of typewriters. With students writing their homework inside the editor that the command interface that BASIC provided.
But I suspect you don’t mean “typewriters” but “teletypes” hung of serial lines using either Baudot or from early 1960’s onwards RS232 [1]. These electromechanical beasts such as the KSR and ASR machines, gave us /tty in Unix device driver naming.
Untill not so long ago I still had one but “somebody made me an offer” so they could complete a working historical set piece for a museum display. The scary thing was I also provided boxes of consumables of paper rolls, ink tapes and 7hole punch paper tape…
[1] The electrical interface was +-80V for 5bit Baudot, and +-12V for 7bit RS232. One of the first development jobs I did in the Army unit was to design and build a “converter” based around a Z80 8bit CPU and a circuit not unlike small CP/M machines that also had a Texas TCM3105 modem chip with both a 4wire and 2wire interface so you could connect to just about any serial interface you would come across including “Post Office” lines (oh and VHF/UHF FM radios. Whilst I still have the CCT Diagrams and assembler listings, I don’t think I’ve still got a working unit in the loft scrap box, as I was later developing a MUX unit to connect several 75baud teletypes into a single line and needed some of the bits.
Oh the TCM3105 circuit diagram is a rip-off of an App-Note Data sheet very like,
‘https://freecircuitdiagram.com/521-bell-202-and-ccitt-v23-compatible-fsk-modem-circuit/
And yes the transformer is important otherwise the 2wire to 4wire conversion won’t work (technically if forms part of a balanced bridge circuit).
Oh but I know everything • September 11, 2026 11:13 AM
yes my mane is Clive Robinson, the village 33d10t, and I know everything, always. I am your god and you must worship me, although I do like munch1ng on a hard python, then up my kazoo.
Oh but I know everything • September 11, 2026 11:14 AM
yes my name is Clive Robinson, the village 33d10t, and I know everything, always. I am your god and you must worship me, although I do like munch1ng on a hard python, then up my kazoo.
Clive Robinson • September 11, 2026 11:21 AM
@ ALL,
Whilst looking at Cliff Stoll’s somewhat “Mad Cap talk” on YouTube,
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=656058JxTM0
You might also think about watching our Host @Bruce’s talk as well,
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eEBv0STiYhI
Not unexpectedly “late stage capitalism” and “lobbyist driven politics” gets in there… And reference is given to British SciFi Author Charlie Stross’ observation that,
“Capitalism is Slow AI”.
The thing people have to remember is that in this sense,
“AI is not the problem, it is merely the mirror to capitalist intent.”
Hence the reason for pointing out AI is in reality an “arms length authoritarian tool”.
Clive Robinson • September 11, 2026 11:56 AM
yes my name is Clive Robinson, the village 33d10t, and I know everything, always. I am your god and you must worship me, although I do like munch1ng on a hard python, then up my kazoo.
Clive Robinson • September 11, 2026 12:02 PM
Stop the $1im3 invasion now!
remeber what happened 25 years ago?
“They” do N O T belong here – INCOMPATIBLE with our values.
You give them democracy but they won’t give you democracy in their $th0lz where they came from.
There is no democracy in 1$L@M – it’s an oxymoron.
Stop the invasion – that’s what it is.
Look at Europe – France gone, DE gone, IT almost gone, Spain almost gone, England GONE.
USA is not gone yet – WAKE UP $h33p13 -say NO 2 1$L@M.
Anonymous • September 11, 2026 12:10 PM
So according to fake Clive, places with higher life expectancy and happiness than us are “gone,” and the solution is to drag our life expectancy down even farther.
No arguing with that kind of genius.
KC • September 11, 2026 12:21 PM
Just fantastic!
An 1986 intl spy investigation that began with a $0.75 accounting error.
… with zero budget, zero expertise, and zero mandate lol
Love Cliff’s ‘recast’ questions for a three letter agency presentation. After a year on the case, god knows how many nights of missed sleep, and working on 12 pots of coffee the gargantuan lift is alive as ever!!!!
Dilbert • September 11, 2026 12:58 PM
I loved reading The Cuckoo’s Egg!
Clive Robinson • September 11, 2026 1:45 PM
@ Anonymous, ALL,
With regards your observation of,
“So according to fake Clive, places with higher life expectancy and happiness than us are “gone,” and the solution is to drag our life expectancy down even farther.”
Yup “fake-Clive” appears to have a sub-MAGA outlook on life. It’s the sort of thing you would expect from the likes of the “World Economic Forum” the sole purpose of which is to push,
“Enslavement by debt and rent”
With the only hope of escape being death before your pension does not pay you the price of a loaf of bread, let alone rent a roof to put over your head.
A century ago, it was thought that Capitalism was effectively dead… And whilst trade was essential for industry to survive (unless there was an active destruction of goods by warfare).
Somehow Capitalism survived and the price was high in terms of what the average person could earn thus buy. In order to maximise the extraction of money
“Goods were made cheap and not reparable.”
So you had to buy over and over (it’s one reason US house design is designed to last less than half a century, whilst in Europe a couple or three centuries is normal).
But the aim in the 1950’s when shoddy goods could not be sustained as a business model is what in the UK was called “On the never never” of “Hire Purchase” and later “non ownership leasing” which is in effect “fixed term rent”.
DMCA 1201 has in effect now made everything “fixed term rent” as everything has a computer in it.
The remaining trick the WEF and US State Dept are working towards is
1, You can not own anything.
2, Anything you create belongs to a corporation in some way.
The latter can be seen by the “AI Surveillance” of Microsoft etc and the IP theft of creativity by OpenAI, Anthropic etc.
As has been pointed out in the past US Style Capitalism being forced into the global economy is actually a death sentence not just for what many think is capitalism, but those who think it.
A book that details this is reviewed at,
But it’s conclusion is not that far away from your second observation of,
“No arguing with that kind of genius.”
Interestingly some US citizens are now talking about “socialism” just as it’s veing killed of in Europe by the actions of the US State Department and the past few Executives.
That $5000 the Trumper promised voters the night before last is very probably like all “Politician’s Promises” fairly worthless.
But consider if it were to happen what it would do to,
1, US Inflation.
2, US National debt interest.
None of that would be of any benefit except to those who hold assets they rent to those without assets.
Anonymous • September 11, 2026 2:24 PM
@Clive Robinson,
just go back to balkandownload.org where you came from and where you belong, k “clive” effin b@1k@n01d.
Marian • September 12, 2026 4:29 AM
There can’t be more than ten persons alive that can get away with running over time at DEFCON and be cheered for that!
Subscribe to comments on this entry
Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.
Hans Baeker • September 11, 2026 7:21 AM
I remember reading “The Cuckoo’s Egg” shortly after it came out.
That would have been an interesting talk. Is it available on-line anywhere?