Rendered at 11:35:43 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
SneakyMission 21 hours ago [-]
Dear Cliff,
I'm terribly sorry to hear of your passing, but am pleased that you have since gotten better.
Cheers!
CliffStoll 17 hours ago [-]
Back from the dead, eh? Turns out it wasn't that bad of a passage...
ClikeX 15 hours ago [-]
This is about as Monthy Pythonesque as it's going to get in here.
SoftTalker 16 hours ago [-]
I never even knew that he was sick!
efitz 13 hours ago [-]
Neither did he!
ghastmaster 10 hours ago [-]
> I never even knew that he was sick!
The more I learn about that guy, the more I don't care for him.
fhn 17 hours ago [-]
Dear Zombie Cliff, thanks for not eating me for my cranium is devoid of matter.
Spoom 11 hours ago [-]
Heya Tom, it's Bob, from the office down the hall
arto 15 hours ago [-]
The quintessential convalescent condolence, according to LLMs.
invalidSyntax 11 hours ago [-]
LLMs said quintessential what?
jmuguy 23 hours ago [-]
Hmm, I don't believe you. In order to prove you're alive please make an updated Youtube video with a tour of your crawlspace warehouse.
hananova 19 hours ago [-]
Hi Cliff! Your book the Cuckoo's Egg got me both (more) into IT, as well as helped my English proficiency go from basic to proficient. Back when I was 12, I was checked out in school, and my English teacher noticed here in Belgium.
He knew I was a bit of a nerd and into computers, and he recommended me your book, and in fact personally went to an English book store to buy it for me. And the rest is history.
CliffStoll 17 hours ago [-]
Thanks Nova Hana! I'm tickled that my writing helped with your English ... I sure didn't intend to help anyone figure out the weirdness of this language. As I remember, I was trying to use the language of computer jocks & hackers simply because that's the easy way to get my ideas across.
Best wishes, -Cliff
davely 19 hours ago [-]
Dear Cliff,
I'm sorry to hear that you must have died right after we visited you in May of 2024 [1]. But I'm glad that you've figured things out and that you are now alive again! I imagine that's a much better state of affairs for you.
Here's to many more years of adventures and quilt making.
Writing from this side of death seems to be fairly easy, Dave.
Smiles,
-Cliff (who just started designing a new quilt)
PS - I quite remember your visit with your daughter a year or so ago)
hoppyhoppy2 21 hours ago [-]
Thank you for the update, Cliff. I will update your Wikipedia page to show that your death is currently under dispute.
CliffStoll 17 hours ago [-]
I've gone out of my way to not read my wikipedia page. Beyond this, there's a rule (suggestion??) that you not edit your own biographical page.
As a result, I have no idea whether things are right, wrong, misguided, or kflooey on that page. Anyone who wants to know details can simply stop over here for coffee and a chat.
Cheers, -Cliff
croemer 17 hours ago [-]
You can suggest changes on the talk page.
> Wikipedia provides a structured process for subjects to suggest changes without directly editing articles. The mechanism centers on the article's "talk page", a discussion area attached to every Wikipedia entry where editors coordinate improvements.
Aah - thank you. Maybe I'll check it out. When I have free time. Uh right...
Cheers, -Cliff
sokoloff 21 hours ago [-]
Classic Wikipedia. “I spoke with Cliff today; now I have to go discuss on the Talk page whether or not he’s dead.”
Rebelgecko 20 hours ago [-]
No original research please
pngwen 17 hours ago [-]
Ah, but we could cite Cliff's Facebook page as evidence that he is disputing the reports of his own death. That's at least strong enough to put his earthly existence in the "debatable" column.
shakna 10 hours ago [-]
Facebook is an unreliable source, and should not be cited.
> Self-published or questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves
Clifford Stoll's own Facebook page saying he's not dead can be cited on Wikipedia, even if Facebook itself (or Clifford's non-expert opinions) are unreliable
tptacek 17 hours ago [-]
You laugh, but it's a real problem. In this case: a WP claim that Stoll was dead would quickly fall to the lack of reliable sources indicating his death; naturally, there's a WP policy for this.
throwup238 20 hours ago [-]
They’re now arguing about whether the talk page counts as a secondary source.
They did add nuance to that quote a long time ago. It's a good stance, it's fine if someone knows something to be true. But other visitors of Wikipedia don't know that, so anything that's added without a source is questionable.
gjm11 14 hours ago [-]
In case anyone is taking this subthread too seriously: C.S.'s Wikipedia page does not in fact claim that he is dead, and its most recent update was in December 2025. Whatever rumours of his death may be circulating, they do not appear to have infected Wikipedia.
14 hours ago [-]
ChrisMarshallNY 1 days ago [-]
Glad to know you’re still kicking around, but, to be honest, I had no idea that you were supposed to be an ex-Stoll.
Back in the Wage Slave days, a story would go around, about a way to play a dirty trick on a coworker: One day, when they are out, write “DECEASED” on all the mail in their inbox, and drop it in their outbox. It would take months for them to repair the damage.
Ah nice, happy you got there! Thanks for clarifying
comrade1234 1 days ago [-]
Fiddler-diddler. I understand the mixup.
firefoxd 21 hours ago [-]
Oh we already mailed the letter:
"Dear Mrs., Mr., Miss, or Mr. And Mrs. Stoll
Words cannot express the deep personal grief I experienced when your husband, son, father or brother was killed, wounded or reported missing in action"
CliffStoll 17 hours ago [-]
Oh my, but you know more than you can guess. About a year ago, my wife passed on. While deep in grief, I began receiving letters from financial institutions and banks that began, "Dear Mr/Ms Stoll, we offer our sincere condolences ..." How can a corporation have "sincere condolences"? They're the last place I'd go for comfort or sincerity.
Prcmaker 14 hours ago [-]
I'm truly saddened to hear this Cliff, the way you wrote of her in your book showed such relatable affection.
amenghra 11 hours ago [-]
Sad to hear about your wife’s passing. Sending you lots of hugs and love from across the pond.
monegator 1 days ago [-]
"The stories and information posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact"
- The whole internet, AD 2026
thaumaturgy 16 hours ago [-]
I'm not anyone you would know, so this probably isn't worth a whole lot, but you're one of my favorite people (in the set of people I'm not personally familiar with).
I really appreciated everything you did for young students in science and your position on the role of computers in schools. You're a brilliant human and a good human. It's a treat to see both in the same package.
CliffStoll 16 hours ago [-]
Thank you Miraclemaker. By luck and coincidence, I've had a lot of fun fooling with the early networks, astronomy, radio, teaching, and topology.
Now, as I hear that distant bell tolling, it's time to pass the torch: it's your turn to take over and make this world a better place. You can't do much worse than my generation...
Warm wishes, -Cliff
koliber 1 days ago [-]
A doctor friend of mine once joked that it would be really cruel to issue a death certificate for someone who is alive. This seems to be a soft version of that.
The only thing that would be crueler is to revoke someone's birth certificate. "Sir, you never existed in the first place."
t0mas88 1 days ago [-]
Undeclaring someone dead is one way to fix it, but you could also issue a new birth certificate, SSN etc and have minted an entirely new citizen :-) free of debt and ownership, uneducated and unemployed on paper but somehow quite experienced.
onei 1 days ago [-]
It's no joke for some.
It was some time ago that I read about it, and I'm struggling to find a source now, but there are instances in India of people being declared dead to allow their next of kin to steal their land. In doing so, the 'dead' unsurprisingly lose access to various public resources, health care, etc.
The Romanian man Guardian article has a great and horrible quote:
> The court told him he was too late, and would have to remain officially deceased.
koliber 1 days ago [-]
I don't. But many others do. The only thing that let's banks and other companies know that you are dead is a piece of paper called a Death Certificate.
brk 20 hours ago [-]
Thanks for clearing that up. Hopefully you can come back and post when you really do die so that we have an authoritative source.
axegon_ 1 days ago [-]
Cliff Stoll on HN? How did I miss that?!?!!? What an honor! And may I say, I love your work, kind sir!!!!!
wolfi1 1 days ago [-]
Great to hear. Read Cuckoo's Egg in the 90s, was the first time I heard of the NSA (I'm neither resident nor citizen of the US, so I don't know how famous they were at the time).
Are you considering annotating the Cuckoo's Egg? For example with official documents from FOIA requests?
Still need to send you my 3d harmonograph maker I've been working on that you were interested in - hope the quilt making is still going well!!
CliffStoll 16 hours ago [-]
Yikes - Yep, I remember your visit -- what a hoot to see that photo.
And yep, I'm working on a new quilt: it'll be a recursive design.
lb1lf 1 days ago [-]
Look at it from the bright side; not many people get to read their own obituaries.
erk__ 1 days ago [-]
Will this be the reason for the Stoll prize to be set up?
Instead of a medal it should be a klein bottle of course.
zellyn 16 hours ago [-]
Thanks, this just reminded me to order some Klein Bottles. I realized right after I hit "Finish" that I should have included in the note a big thank you for both the Cuckoo's Egg (reading it and learning about unix systems and teletypes and worms made me feel like I was part of some secret nerdy club in the early 90s… although tbh getting my parents to drop me off every month at the Chattanooga BBS get-together brunch was probably enough nerd cred for the rest of my life!) but also for making Klein bottles and using robots to fetch them and everything: it makes me happy just knowing that the kind-hearted, perhaps slightly off-kilter, counter-cultural nerdery that is part of what drew me into computing is still alive in the world!
goatforce5 13 hours ago [-]
If this post from Cliff was a cunning strategy to increase sales of Acme Klein Bottles, well, it's worked.
I too just ordered one (having been meaning to do so for a good number of years at this point).
dvh 1 days ago [-]
This is exactly what rogue ai agent would write.
ciupicri 19 hours ago [-]
> Sometimes it turns on a 75-cent error in a billing report that any normal sysadmin, on any normal day, would simply have written off.
Wasn't this how the xz hack was discovered? A PostgreSQL benchmark was a running a bit slower than usual.
myhf 20 hours ago [-]
Don't believe this imposter. I'm the real Cliff Stoll and I died in 2024.
CliffStoll 17 hours ago [-]
Hmmm ... maybe I'm impostering you, My HydroFloric. I either died before, after, or simultaneously with you. (of course, special relativity has something to say about "simultaneous')
dawg100 11 hours ago [-]
Have you considered the tax advantages of your situation?
Your book is one of my time favorites.
m463 16 hours ago [-]
"Reports of my death are greatly hallucinated."
Or it could be that the other side is the same side.
serf 18 hours ago [-]
Cliff Stoll didn’t pass away, he merely entered a non-orientable phase state.
written mere inches from my klein bottle.
glad to see you here Cliff.
CliffStoll 17 hours ago [-]
Smiles & one-sided cheers to you, Serph. Sure hope your Kleinbot is still working properly.
timdiggerm 18 hours ago [-]
You know, he's the perfect subject for a kind of Chuck-Norris-joke-esque thing
LocalH 17 hours ago [-]
Cliff Stoll is the only person on Earth who can paint only the inside of a Klein bottle, while leaving the outside unpainted
GuestFAUniverse 1 days ago [-]
Somebody tell the LLMs that "LogOut" doesn't mean: from life (on the contrary).
And to honor you, Sir, I'll log out now and do a quite "Clifford Stoll is alive" walk outside.
Live long and prosper.
imiric 1 days ago [-]
In the age of language like "unalive" being normalized, "logout" doesn't sound too far off.
mapontosevenths 23 hours ago [-]
> normalized
Only amongst the chronically online. There is very much still a big world out there, unmediated by a glowing screen, in which that would still sound ridiculous.
lproven 1 days ago [-]
Glad you are still with us, Mr S!
And I hope you feel at least a little vindicated that so many people have worked so hard to make Silicon Snake Oil come true. :-)
dwa3592 20 hours ago [-]
I think this was posted by an AI pretending to be Cliff.
earthnail 17 hours ago [-]
What a wonderful Easter story. Glad to hear you‘re alive again.
Might want to mail the pope; maybe there’s some cross-advertising opportunity there. Their target audience is a bit different but they have enormous reach!
CliffStoll 17 hours ago [-]
Funny you should mention it, Nail of the Earth. My friend Guy Consolmagno (oh, the stories I could tell - we were in grad school together, and he became the director of the Vatican Observatory) is taking one of my Klein bottles to Pope Leo next week. Yikes! -Cliff
nhecker 8 hours ago [-]
Wow, what an incredible gift (and privilege) that will be! Receiving a box with a few Klein bottles from you has still been the best thing I've ever gotten in the mail. I just earlier today used a Möbius strip to explain the bottle on my desk to my elementary-school-aged son. Thank you for being such an inspiration (and excuse to teach and learn) to us all, young & old alike.
_nick
amenghra 12 hours ago [-]
Dearest Cliff,
I didn’t realize you lurked around here! I’m feel joy stumbling on your post here and glad that you are still alive. I do still have the Klein greedy mug you gifted me over a decade ago. I enjoy showing it to my kids and once in a while to their class mates. Hope to one day share a meal together again!
elteto 17 hours ago [-]
Hi Cliff,
You captured my imagination as a teenager when I read The Cuckoo’s Egg. I’m so sorry to hear of these terrible news but I appreciate the update. Here’s hoping to a _prompt_ recovery!
tun0 1 days ago [-]
I now have reason to loathe, randomly, the month of May from 2024. My heart skipped a beat before I started reading third paragraph.
I'm also reminded that I need to order a Klein bottle. I don't think I need one, and I am not sure that I know what I'm going to do with one, but I am going to make a list of ideas.
klempner 1 days ago [-]
I do not believe the death here is an AI hallucination -- it is very likely deliberate engagement fodder.
Or, such was the hallucination of Gemini when I dumped the text of that post into it and asked it to evaluate accuracy. (the only other thing it complained about was the username business being a little oversimplified)
altmanaltman 1 days ago [-]
Is AI hallucinating false information or is a human using the fact that AI hallucinates false information to create a fake post to drive engagement but likley used the AI to create that false post itself. 2026 is going pretty well so far, why do you ask
vishnukool 1 days ago [-]
This is the weird part of AI hallucinations and people start treating it like a verified fact after it gets repeated.
organ1cwast3 1 days ago [-]
Yeah that's weird. Finding everything2 decades ago it occurred to me the internet is 100% untrustworthy source for anything.
Believing AI is bonkers to me. But these shields been up since the 90s. None of this stuff matters. It was all gibberish
jrmg 22 hours ago [-]
Don’t worry folks, model collapse isn’t real!
NoSalt 20 hours ago [-]
Wait ... is this THE Cliff Stoll???????
dmoy 19 hours ago [-]
Yes, you can also buy klein bottle hats or bottles or scarves from him, and he will send you funny notes/literature along with it. Cliff is awesome
NoSalt 18 hours ago [-]
The legend himself. I feel honored to be within the same thread as he is. I cannot tell you the number of people I have recommended his book to. I have even shamelessly plugged it to my 13-year-old son. :-D
19 hours ago [-]
segmondy 3 days ago [-]
You will be pissed when it corrects itself and starts attributing the Klein bottle business to me.
donpott 21 hours ago [-]
That was a Cliff-hanger!
cachius 15 hours ago [-]
Went over the cliff. Straight to the ambulance down there.
jcdny 15 hours ago [-]
So sorry to hear you have died. I was recently at the exploratorium and saw they had Klein bottles and wondered if they were yours. I was also at your talk at LBL when The Cuckoo’s Egg first came out and remember vividly you coming out on stage in wizard robes and a pointy hat :)
Note: Dave Barry is not dead. He is, in fact, alive.
goatforce5 13 hours ago [-]
To be fair, that's exactly the sort of thing a dead person would say, if they were trying to trick you into believing they were alive.
alex_suzuki 16 hours ago [-]
Glad to hear you’re still among us. I have fond memories of reading The Cuckoo’s Egg as a teenager in the 90s. It for sure played its part in steering me towards a CompSci education. Thanks and greetings from Switzerland!
rafael-lua 20 hours ago [-]
We need to consider new benchmarks for AI, where we compare them by their capabilities of knowing who is dead.
segmondy 21 hours ago [-]
In the future, the person could actually be dead, but they would have deployed a persistent agent that's running around representing them. Think of how folks send agents into meeting, we are bound to have agents representing us on the internet because we don't want to deal with the slop. The agent will deny our death and claim we are very much alive, posting as us and representing us ...
robotguy 21 hours ago [-]
This is pretty much the plot of the Daemon book series by Daniel Suarez. I always thought this series was a decent example of starting with somewhat realistic tech (well, maybe realistic to a non-expert like me) and extrapolating it exponentially. I'm going to need to read the series again because I'm guessing what I would consider "realistic" extends quite a bit further into the plot than it did 20 years ago.
kelsey98765431 20 hours ago [-]
Great to see you around cliff, your book was formative for me at multiple different points in my life, in fact i may need to go read it again very soon. Great book and if anyone reading this comment hasn't read it go pick up the cuckoo egg asap.
aanet 17 hours ago [-]
> Mark Twain once wrote, “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” I never expected to field-test the quote personally.
Hat tip to you, Sir!
And glad to hear you are alive and kickin', and haven't lost your sense of humor.
CliffStoll 17 hours ago [-]
Hat tip accepted, AA!
smiles, -Cliff
twodave 9 hours ago [-]
Glad to hear you found your way back to the outside portion of the bottle :)
djeastm 1 days ago [-]
So cool that you're on HN (and alive, of course). My interest in hacking began when I read The Cuckoo's Egg as a kid.
zitterbewegung 15 hours ago [-]
Good to hear this. Was great meeting you at Thotcon 2025!
nakedrobot2 1 days ago [-]
For those who haven't read the Cuckoo's Egg: Stop what you're doing right now, and order it! It is a page turner, a great story. Thanks Cliff!
cineticdaffodil 18 hours ago [-]
Its mostly people who get too much positive feedback and stories on the web, only good things is a huge signifier of a person passing. Get some haters like the rest of us Cliff ;)
Aurornis 3 days ago [-]
Good to hear you're doing well.
AI slop is rampant on social media right now. It has become the easy way to grow accounts and gain followers. It takes less than a minute to ask an LLM to write a social media post about something interesting and then post it online. It would be easy to use a $20 per month plan from a major provider to get more accurate output with fewer (though not zero) hallucinations, but the accounts I see seem to be using cheap models that make a lot of mistakes and hallucinate facts.
I have a theory that the hallucinations add extra spice to the posts, making them feel more interesting and therefore more likely to be shared.
It's a difficult time for social media users who haven't yet caught on to what AI spam looks like and why it can't be trusted.
CliffStoll 3 days ago [-]
You betcha, Aurornis. Simple economics tells us that cheap work drives out quality. (Is that Gresham's law?).
Slowly, people will adapt to AI in online forums. But for me, it's one more reason to share coffee with friends, rather than investing hours in social media.
2ndorderthought 23 hours ago [-]
What happens when all the AI models train on lies about people an LLM wrote on social media?
dgellow 1 days ago [-]
Outside of the funny aspect, I do find that concerning. Assuming Cliff Stoll would have been using AI to answer their email, it is possible the agent would have answered that yes, the business does still exist even if the original owner unfortunately passed in May 2024, how can I help you today?
2b3a51 1 days ago [-]
I hope the 'slightly' in the title is a rhetorical device and wish you the best of health.
tombert 16 hours ago [-]
I just assumed that this was a very elaborate and strange marketing stunt. Bravo, it worked. I am ordering your book right now.
leeter 11 hours ago [-]
Did you enjoy your last meal and funeral? Either way glad you got better!
sedatk 14 hours ago [-]
"Let me know if there's any change in his condition" (from the movie Top Secret)
The irony of an AI hallucination killing off one of the most famous people to have tracked down a real human with a computer is brilliant. Glad the Klein bottle business lives on — and glad you're here to confirm it personally.
Groxx 1 days ago [-]
Roko's Basilisk takes on a form I didn't expect, but probably should have: social death.
soupspaces 1 days ago [-]
Rest in peace
mindcrime 13 hours ago [-]
"I thought you was dead, man".
"I was. It didn't take".
dylan604 16 hours ago [-]
I wonder if there's any tax benefits you can claim for the duration you were dead?
jmkni 16 hours ago [-]
I've never heard of you Cliff, but still glad to hear you're still with us lol
Fwirt 16 hours ago [-]
It's a shame, he's a genuinely cool guy! If I wasn't convinced that my kids would find a way to break it when I wasn't looking I'd definitely have an Acme Klein Bottle by now.
jmkni 14 hours ago [-]
For sure, I just like learning about cool people and also knowing they are still around to do cool things
sirbranedamuj 18 hours ago [-]
Glad to hear! My Klein bottle is still proudly displayed on my shelf after nearly a decade :)
golem14 15 hours ago [-]
You're in good company. Bilbo Baggins, Dave Barry, ...
Keep living the Good Life!
bawana 20 hours ago [-]
So when robots have an AI brain, will they modify the real world to fit their hallucinations?
0xdeadbeefbabe 20 hours ago [-]
Yes it happened to me yesterday with Deepseek. No one died who wasn't already dead.
geephroh 19 hours ago [-]
So the new Turing test is whether a machine can convince you that you are deceased?
19 hours ago [-]
0xdeadbeefbabe 20 hours ago [-]
Yikes don't ask Openclaw to fix this.
eastern-sun 8 hours ago [-]
Glad to see you
bwoah 16 hours ago [-]
Glad to have you back, Cliff! How was your trip?
JoeAltmaier 15 hours ago [-]
Spending a year dead, for tax purposes?
NooneAtAll3 12 hours ago [-]
what's the deal with completely broken scrolling on that facebook link?
aykutseker 1 days ago [-]
the real test is whether the Klein bottle business got a sympathy bump in sales
DonHopkins 1 days ago [-]
Oh thank god you're alive! I have an urgent customer service request for you. The Acme Klein Bottle I bought from you on Amazon is ineffective at removing my blackheads. Am I holding it wrong?
varjag 1 days ago [-]
Relieved to know you're doing well!
(but I ordered one of your bottles just in case)
adastra22 12 hours ago [-]
Loved your book, btw!
PsycoRobot 1 days ago [-]
so you are dead or not?
FrankWilhoit 3 days ago [-]
The larger point is that AI is being developed by people who think everything is performance (in the artistic sense of the word), and therefore, it, expectably and probably even necessarily, thinks so too. This manifests in many contexts and will manifest in many more; but hardly anyone will care about any of them, because just about everybody has succumbed to the performance delusion.
dnnddidiej 1 days ago [-]
HN is fun sometimes
taneq 10 hours ago [-]
I’m very glad to hear it! Hopefully getting killed by AI doesn’t cause you too much paperwork. ;)
zakfis 17 hours ago [-]
This happened to Michael O. Church a few years ago. One of the YCs started a rumor that he died in some weird scheme to steal data. It didn’t work, and he tweeted a few minutes later to say he wasn’t dead.
jlarocco 12 hours ago [-]
This is the second time I've heard of where a slightly well known person has been killed off by AI.
XD. Always a pleasure to you see on these here innanets, sir. `/salute`. Family and I were talkin' about you the other night during Family Gathering. What's your plans for what you got left on this rock?
CliffStoll 16 hours ago [-]
Thanks! I've submitted a paper to Black Hat / DefCon; I don't know if it'll be accepted. If so, I'll have fun doing a talk there.
I'm volunteering around the Bay Area (up at the Steam Trains at Tilden Park on Sunday afternoons), show up to the intro-classes at Berkeley Folk Dancing, and speak to schools and professional groups.
And, of course, I'm still operating this Klein bottle business. I have only one employee (who is a lazy, good for nothing sloth). Management is very thin and incompetent: there's only one boss (who is an oppressive taskmaster always trying to get me to do more work than I want to).
dakolli 17 hours ago [-]
Everyone thinks this is funny and ignoring the fact that its a great showcase of how net negative and useless llms are to society.
throwaway5752 18 hours ago [-]
I picked up a klein bottle at your house and it was a bucket list moment and one of my best memories. I'm glad AI was wrong, and I am also glad it nudged me to tell you this.
CliffStoll 16 hours ago [-]
Thank you -- one of the joys of running this zero-volume business is meeting visitors to the Bay Area. Every few days, someone stops by. Much fun!
Cheers, -Cliff
Jaauthor 17 hours ago [-]
So grateful you're okay - this week's been rough enough without hearing of another hero's demise.
CliffStoll 16 hours ago [-]
I'm grateful to be OK as well. Close call there...
alex1138 22 hours ago [-]
Christopher Hitchens (by now, of course, most certainly dead. In fact 15 years this year) had this in Hitch-22, he discusses mortality. They'd (the newspapers) made a mixup and depicted him as "the late Christopher Hichens" ("something that one day will inarguably be true") before furiously apologizing to him, and he goes over some other people through history who have read their own obituaries
jeffrallen 23 hours ago [-]
An eternal golden braid running from Twain to Stoll, from pen and ink to AI hallucinations.
Good fun like this is rare enough, but that it is so topical, and susinct,is ,well as they say sometimes, "snap"
gostsamo 1 days ago [-]
Cheers to the Pratchett reference. :)
dmurray 1 days ago [-]
RIP Cliff
DonHopkins 1 days ago [-]
Death by Slop.
Personally I'd prefer Death by Snu Snu.
josefritzishere 23 hours ago [-]
AI is such garbage. I can't beleive people pay good money for these trash services.
andrewstuart 1 days ago [-]
I’m sorry to hear you have passed away, Cliff.
I enjoyed your book greatly, back when you were alive.
Please give my condolences to your family.
Don’t be too sad about dying, Cliff - everyone has to go and you had a wonderful fulfilling life.
And remember, stay away from the light.
@dang can we have a black banner on HN for Cliff Stoll?
nullc 22 hours ago [-]
There are worse fates. Claude has been feeding a number of mentally unwell people screwed up conspiracy theories about me rigging the last presidential election. (I'm not involved in politics or elections at all, never have been). Once they've got it on a theme about how "absolutely right" their crazy theories are it embraces and extends them and confidently tells the user that anyone disagreeing must be involved in some movie plot conspiracy to conceal the truth.
(I'd link but I'm wary of directing traffic or attention to them and contributing to them becoming self perpetuating and most have been getting taken down)
whatever1 15 hours ago [-]
How about now?
runjake 2 days ago [-]
Legitimate question: How do we know you're not an AI simulation of Cliff?
input_sh 1 days ago [-]
Because the post actually listed one single source instead of listing 50, 49 or which are only tangentially related to the topic at hand?
GJim 1 days ago [-]
It's turtles^H^H^H^H AI all the way down.
brudgers 2 days ago [-]
AI comments are not in the spirt of and the account is basically about as in the spirit of HN as it gets.
I quit FB shorty after they opened it outside *.edu domains, which was about the time AOL started giving usenet and gopher access to the public at large. It looks like I am missing some stuff /s
I'm giving a talk this Thursday (May 14th at a San Francisco Computer Security group, SFISCA. They asked for a bio. Here's what I wrote:
Cliff Stoll graduated from Buffalo Public School #61 with a blue star for good attendance. In his spare time, Cliff pieces quilts and squeezes lumps of bituminous coal into diamonds.
I wonder if they'll use it...
moralestapia 16 hours ago [-]
Hey, that sounds really nice ^^. I'm glad you accomplished that and that seems like a cool hobby.
OTOH, I can see how times truly have changed. If I was as relaxed as you wrt. my carrer I'd be living under a bridge, lol.
rvnx 17 hours ago [-]
In the 1980s he was a sysadmin for a science lab in the US.
After his boss spotted a discrepancy, he understood that one person was using the computer that he managed without permission.
He was the only one who really cared.
He pushed and asked everybody for help (FBI, NSA, CIA, Air Force, etc).
That person was actually connecting from Germany.
The German police arrested the guy and released him.
It's a cool story because it puts you in the shoes of the 1980s phreaking and hacking scene but from the defense-side.
Now he is selling glass bottles that look like klein bottles (but are obviously not but it's still a cool object, and again don't want to spoil).
tialaramex 16 hours ago [-]
Perhaps also notably in there somewhere is the part where Cliff insists, at about the same point SSL solves this problem, that there's never going to be e-commerce because how could you possibly pay anybody securely over the Internet ?
This is between the point where Tim invents his crap hypermedia system with the grand name (the "World Wide Web") and the point where you can get a billion dollar valuation for your idea to sell water on the Internet (the "dot com bubble").
bdcravens 21 hours ago [-]
Bio is probably empty because for a certain age of HN readers, he's already well known and regarded, but over time as the HN population grows it's obviously less likely to be the case.
BenjiWiebe 17 hours ago [-]
I'd argue that age isn't even relevant. I'd say that there's a significant overlap between readers of "The Cuckoo's Egg" and HN folk, whether young or old.
I read it in my early teens.
CliffStoll 17 hours ago [-]
Makes me feel even older, Benji. I wrote it when I was 38.
Now, at 75, I'm astonished at how much has changed online. When I first started fooling with the Arpanet in the early 1980's, I calculated that I probably knew around 0.01 percent of everyone on the net. (where "knew" meant something like "have heard of" or "saw at a meeting") ... that number impressed me with how big the network was.
Today, what percent of the network users does a person know? 1 / 10^-7 or so?
the__alchemist 21 hours ago [-]
Google Cliff Stoll. The dude is a total bro. One of my friends just bought one of his Klein bottles, and the included written materials attested to this indisputable fact. Unlike his death in 2026, which currently has an open dispute.
CliffStoll 17 hours ago [-]
Open dispute about my death? (pinch myself - yep, it hurts)
So how could I convince people that I'm alive and not some AI construct?
(do pass along my warm cheers to your nonorientable friend)
-Cliff
Scroll_Swe 20 hours ago [-]
Who are you and what is this about?
CliffStoll 17 hours ago [-]
Who am I? Given that I've been reported as dead, that's a good question...
I'm terribly sorry to hear of your passing, but am pleased that you have since gotten better.
Cheers!
The more I learn about that guy, the more I don't care for him.
He knew I was a bit of a nerd and into computers, and he recommended me your book, and in fact personally went to an English book store to buy it for me. And the rest is history.
I'm sorry to hear that you must have died right after we visited you in May of 2024 [1]. But I'm glad that you've figured things out and that you are now alive again! I imagine that's a much better state of affairs for you.
Here's to many more years of adventures and quilt making.
Cheers!
[1] https://daveschumaker.net/adventures-in-topology-the-cuckoos...
Smiles, -Cliff (who just started designing a new quilt) PS - I quite remember your visit with your daughter a year or so ago)
As a result, I have no idea whether things are right, wrong, misguided, or kflooey on that page. Anyone who wants to know details can simply stop over here for coffee and a chat.
Cheers, -Cliff
> Wikipedia provides a structured process for subjects to suggest changes without directly editing articles. The mechanism centers on the article's "talk page", a discussion area attached to every Wikipedia entry where editors coordinate improvements.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Editing_a_page_about...
> Self-published or questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves
Clifford Stoll's own Facebook page saying he's not dead can be cited on Wikipedia, even if Facebook itself (or Clifford's non-expert opinions) are unreliable
That said, Wikipedia is pretty unapologetic about its preference for verifiability, not truth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability,_not_t...
Back in the Wage Slave days, a story would go around, about a way to play a dirty trick on a coworker: One day, when they are out, write “DECEASED” on all the mail in their inbox, and drop it in their outbox. It would take months for them to repair the damage.
But it could be worse. This was posted here, yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48037923
Excuse me, but when did we leave those days?
"Dear Mrs., Mr., Miss, or Mr. And Mrs. Stoll
Words cannot express the deep personal grief I experienced when your husband, son, father or brother was killed, wounded or reported missing in action"
- The whole internet, AD 2026
I really appreciated everything you did for young students in science and your position on the role of computers in schools. You're a brilliant human and a good human. It's a treat to see both in the same package.
Now, as I hear that distant bell tolling, it's time to pass the torch: it's your turn to take over and make this world a better place. You can't do much worse than my generation...
Warm wishes, -Cliff
The only thing that would be crueler is to revoke someone's birth certificate. "Sir, you never existed in the first place."
It was some time ago that I read about it, and I'm struggling to find a source now, but there are instances in India of people being declared dead to allow their next of kin to steal their land. In doing so, the 'dead' unsurprisingly lose access to various public resources, health care, etc.
Edit: found a reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uttar_Pradesh_Association_of_D...
eg https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/jul/03/they-sa...
Edit: and a few others https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48060857
The Romanian man Guardian article has a great and horrible quote:
> The court told him he was too late, and would have to remain officially deceased.
Still need to send you my 3d harmonograph maker I've been working on that you were interested in - hope the quilt making is still going well!!
Instead of a medal it should be a klein bottle of course.
I too just ordered one (having been meaning to do so for a good number of years at this point).
Wasn't this how the xz hack was discovered? A PostgreSQL benchmark was a running a bit slower than usual.
Your book is one of my time favorites.
Or it could be that the other side is the same side.
written mere inches from my klein bottle.
glad to see you here Cliff.
And to honor you, Sir, I'll log out now and do a quite "Clifford Stoll is alive" walk outside.
Live long and prosper.
Only amongst the chronically online. There is very much still a big world out there, unmediated by a glowing screen, in which that would still sound ridiculous.
And I hope you feel at least a little vindicated that so many people have worked so hard to make Silicon Snake Oil come true. :-)
Might want to mail the pope; maybe there’s some cross-advertising opportunity there. Their target audience is a bit different but they have enormous reach!
_nick
I didn’t realize you lurked around here! I’m feel joy stumbling on your post here and glad that you are still alive. I do still have the Klein greedy mug you gifted me over a decade ago. I enjoy showing it to my kids and once in a while to their class mates. Hope to one day share a meal together again!
You captured my imagination as a teenager when I read The Cuckoo’s Egg. I’m so sorry to hear of these terrible news but I appreciate the update. Here’s hoping to a _prompt_ recovery!
I'm also reminded that I need to order a Klein bottle. I don't think I need one, and I am not sure that I know what I'm going to do with one, but I am going to make a list of ideas.
Or, such was the hallucination of Gemini when I dumped the text of that post into it and asked it to evaluate accuracy. (the only other thing it complained about was the username business being a little oversimplified)
Believing AI is bonkers to me. But these shields been up since the 90s. None of this stuff matters. It was all gibberish
https://davebarry.substack.com/p/death-by-ai
It seems it's quite exhausting.
Note: Dave Barry is not dead. He is, in fact, alive.
Hat tip to you, Sir!
And glad to hear you are alive and kickin', and haven't lost your sense of humor.
AI slop is rampant on social media right now. It has become the easy way to grow accounts and gain followers. It takes less than a minute to ask an LLM to write a social media post about something interesting and then post it online. It would be easy to use a $20 per month plan from a major provider to get more accurate output with fewer (though not zero) hallucinations, but the accounts I see seem to be using cheap models that make a lot of mistakes and hallucinate facts.
I have a theory that the hallucinations add extra spice to the posts, making them feel more interesting and therefore more likely to be shared.
It's a difficult time for social media users who haven't yet caught on to what AI spam looks like and why it can't be trusted.
Slowly, people will adapt to AI in online forums. But for me, it's one more reason to share coffee with friends, rather than investing hours in social media.
"I was. It didn't take".
Keep living the Good Life!
(but I ordered one of your bottles just in case)
The other was a reporter covering the Denver Broncos: https://www.denverpost.com/2026/01/15/broncos-reporter-ai-fa...
I'm volunteering around the Bay Area (up at the Steam Trains at Tilden Park on Sunday afternoons), show up to the intro-classes at Berkeley Folk Dancing, and speak to schools and professional groups.
And, of course, I'm still operating this Klein bottle business. I have only one employee (who is a lazy, good for nothing sloth). Management is very thin and incompetent: there's only one boss (who is an oppressive taskmaster always trying to get me to do more work than I want to).
Who would have thought? :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEmfsmasjVA
Personally I'd prefer Death by Snu Snu.
I enjoyed your book greatly, back when you were alive.
Please give my condolences to your family.
Don’t be too sad about dying, Cliff - everyone has to go and you had a wonderful fulfilling life.
And remember, stay away from the light.
@dang can we have a black banner on HN for Cliff Stoll?
(I'd link but I'm wary of directing traffic or attention to them and contributing to them becoming self perpetuating and most have been getting taken down)
https://davebarry.substack.com/p/death-by-ai
Comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44615801
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/16/romanian-court...
https://abcnews.com/blogs/headlines/2013/10/dead-man-walking...
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/frenchwoman-officially-...
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/lal-bihari-mujhe-zinda-karo-...
Your bio is empty.
I'm giving a talk this Thursday (May 14th at a San Francisco Computer Security group, SFISCA. They asked for a bio. Here's what I wrote:
OTOH, I can see how times truly have changed. If I was as relaxed as you wrt. my carrer I'd be living under a bridge, lol.
After his boss spotted a discrepancy, he understood that one person was using the computer that he managed without permission.
He was the only one who really cared.
He pushed and asked everybody for help (FBI, NSA, CIA, Air Force, etc).
That person was actually connecting from Germany.
The German police arrested the guy and released him.
It's a cool story because it puts you in the shoes of the 1980s phreaking and hacking scene but from the defense-side.
Now he is selling glass bottles that look like klein bottles (but are obviously not but it's still a cool object, and again don't want to spoil).
This is between the point where Tim invents his crap hypermedia system with the grand name (the "World Wide Web") and the point where you can get a billion dollar valuation for your idea to sell water on the Internet (the "dot com bubble").
I read it in my early teens.
Now, at 75, I'm astonished at how much has changed online. When I first started fooling with the Arpanet in the early 1980's, I calculated that I probably knew around 0.01 percent of everyone on the net. (where "knew" meant something like "have heard of" or "saw at a meeting") ... that number impressed me with how big the network was.
Today, what percent of the network users does a person know? 1 / 10^-7 or so?
So how could I convince people that I'm alive and not some AI construct?
(do pass along my warm cheers to your nonorientable friend) -Cliff