The KGB, the Computer and Me (1990) Online

How this terrific PBS/Nova film could possibly have been allowed to go off sale is impossible to understand. This documentary/reenactment manages to tell most of the story of Clifford Stoll's best selling "The Cuckoo's Egg" with Clifford portraying himself. It is as lively and entertaining as the book itself, if not more so, and clearly articulates many of the issues associated with computer-based spying. A terrific example of how much energy a documentary can have - it will be worth the search at your local library or public school. Good luck!

The KGB, CIA, Computer and Me tells the true story of a computer nerd, Cliff, who is brought in by a company to find a hacker who's been using a companies computer. One thing leads to another and Cliff finds himself on the hunt for a hacker with the CIA.

I believe this was a short created for the TV series "Nova". The acting isn't very good at all but the story is pretty good and the film is overall pretty funny. I can honestly say this is one of the most enjoyable movies I have ever got to watch in school.

This based on true story how an astronomer turned computer scientist hunted down THE HACKER all way from Germany who was reading all important information in US government computers even CIA. The concepts an the ways that are applied to catch the hacker can only people who are in this field.

So if you don have any interest in computers or hacking stuff, don't watch it. u will never like it.

Myself being computer Engineer, enjoyed this movie. I also saw the other version that is the hackers story which is in German, thats also nice.

I do security response for a living. It is amazing how this guy was doing the same sorts of things almost 30 years ago as we do today. The technology has changed but the thought process hasn't. The way he hooked a logic analyzer to a tty, and set it to page him when it saw a certain word was essentially an early network intrusion detection system.

The hackers were similar too. They set up shop on a series of vulnerable intermediary machines (Berkley, MITRE) to mask their activities from their actual target (military).

I'm just really glad my job has never required an oscilloscope to measure round trip times for packets.

The movie uses, according to the beginning, the actual characters from the entire "spy" chasing. I doubt the CIA agents who show up are really the actual ones, however.

An astronomer at Berkley labs whose grant has run out gets a job in the IT department. His boss finds a $.75 problem in billing -- no account to charge it to -- and the chase is on. The actual events take place in the early 80's. The boss gives it to our hapless hero, who finds an account with no account number. This piques his interest, so he starts tracing it down.

At one point, there are 50 stolen printers in action, to trace the hacker, who is finally discovered in Hanover, Germany. The Hacker was selling information he found while hacking to the KGB. Remember, this is before the wall fell, and while the KGB still existed.

Additionally, the names the hacker used are quite a blast. Using a librarian to figure them out is a masterpiece!

It is quite fun to watch how hard this young man had to work to trace the spy/hacker. Today, all this can be done in almost seconds. Then, it took two years, getting warrants from each state the hacker traveled through.

While the movie is pretty old -- at the time of my review, 25 years -- it is exceptionally interesting, informative, and FUN to watch. Mr. Stoll, a hippie if ever there was one still left in the '80s, reenact his role, is fantastic. You can tell this was the highlight of his life (up to then, I hope). His animation, his enthusiasm, his good story telling are all worth watching.

I do wonder if he married that girlfriend.