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.
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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?