Clifford Stoll

Homepage: http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~stoll/

Clifford Stoll is a washed up BerkeleyHacker?. He wrote

TheCuckoosEgg (a book about his experiences helping find the bad guys who were breaking into his lab's computer)
- The Nova documentary about this was pretty funny.
SiliconSnakeOil (a book about why computers are Bad)
HighTechHeretic (a book about why computers in schools are Bad) as well as various articles about why school kids shouldn't use computers (see for instance http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/04/cyber/education/05education.html).

He is also (primarily, even) an astronomer. This fact is only discussed in passing in his books, which are about his computer interests, but those who are interested can do a search to find some of his astronomical work online: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&sim_query=YES&aut_xct=NO&aut_logic=OR&obj_logic=OR&author=Stoll%2C+C&object=&start_mon=&start_year=&end_mon=&end_year=&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&min_score=&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&sort=SCORE&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&obj_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1

One of Cliff's sidelines is selling various KleinBottle and MoebiusStrip inspired merchandise, such as the Klein bottle knitted cap he is wearing in the photo. His web site devoted to this is pretty funny for the topologically inclined. http://www.kleinbottle.com/

I went to a Clifford Stoll book signing (Dayton, Ohio) many years ago. He is, by far, the most hyperactive person I have ever met, including kids. He bounced around the entire time he was talking, and couldn't sit still for a minute. He was extremely bright, articulate, and very friendly to everyone at the book signing.

I disagreed with a lot of SiliconSnakeOil, though. It seemed more like he just wanted to stir controversy.

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