Lessons learned from The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage (No Spoiler)

This 80's book of espionage story still brings attention to modern cybersecurity professionals, and remains surprisingly relevant to today’s world. The book is made up of many easy-to-read short to medium-sized chapters, and things start to get really thrilling around chapter 29. I could be biased here!

Through my reading of this thriller, I have distilled a couple of interesting lessons that I felt I had to share.

While the protagonist (The author himself) exhibits hands-on experience on Linux and programming, he wasn't an IT specialist by profession, so you will come across some unusual naming like "one-way trap-door software" to refer to hashing algorithm used to store passwords on Unix system.

Being a non-fiction book, this is royally a true reference for the history of technology. I learned that treating cancer tumors at the cellular level using atomic particles was already operational during the 80's, and the intercontinental fiber optic cable was also laid on the ocean floor in the late 80's.

That's being said, here are some lessons learned from this book:

• Curiosity and perseverance are the two keys for continues progress, but they are not necessarily for guaranteed results.

• Priorities are not made only on the basis of available information, but also on the position we hold and the entity we belong to. 

• Better progress can be achieved by sharing information with the right people. However, escalating to decision-makers can hinder the process if done at the wrong time.

• Assumptions are born from poor data, but the more we test our assumptions, the more data turn up.

So, what is your thoughts? have you already read this book? I'll be happy to read your comments.

Check the book out on Amazon — 

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