The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage

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   A password is a personal item of digital hygiene: it only works while it stays private and gets renewed, not a possession you keep for years.

   The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage · 1989

   A password is a personal hygiene item: valid only while private and regularly renewed.

   Stoll discovered an intruder in the university systems where he worked only because he refused to let a 75-cent accounting discrepancy slide, then tracked the hacker for nearly a year. His lesson is that everyday security lies not in exotic technology but in banal habits: shared passwords destroy any accountability, because you can no longer know who actually entered. The example from the book: accounts lent between colleagues were exactly the doors the intruder used for months.

   “Treat your password like your toothbrush. Don't let anybody else use it, and get a new one every six months.”

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