Review:
This video is from the NOVA public television series.
It is about the ``Hannover Hacker'' tracked down by Clifford Stohl in the
1980s.
The video was made after Stohl's article which appeared in the Communications of
the ACM in May of 1988.
It contains references to the results of the trial of the crackers, which is not
covered in the CACM article.
The article, however, contains much richer detail about the cracking activities.
So one useful approach may be to read the article before watching the video.
The video tells the basic story of the Hannover Hacker incident at a high level.
It mentions various relatively timeless elements of cracking activity:
breaking into computers by relatively simple methods
such as trying default names and passwords,
becoming superuser on the systems,
changing administrative files to hide evidence of the break-in,
jumping from system to system to make things harder to trace,
and
the motivation of ``information being free.''.
The particular computers and computing equipment seen in the video are naturally
out-of-date by now.
Near the end of the video there are some good interview clips with the crackers,
including the ``Hannover Hacker'' himself.
There was actually a group of these crackers operating out of Germany.
They were caught and tried in Germany.
The results of the trial included probation and fines,
but the fines of $12,000 are reported to be only 1/4 of the payments received
from the KGB.
There are also intriguing questions about one of the crackers who died before
the trial, and whose death was ruled a suicide.
There are some annoying elements to this video.
Possible mild annoyances include repeated use of some Pink Panther theme music and
detective-on-a-dark-street images.
Also, there is one very brief and blurry image of Stoll and his girlfriend
taking a shower before he runs off to take a phone call about the cracker.
It is not racy, but so un-neccessary to the story as to be annoying.
Video Format/Length:
This video was viewed in VHS format and is just under one hour long.
Ordering Information:
This video should be available from Coronet Films and Video, at a cost of $24.95.
Phone: 1-800-221-1274.
The title is ``Nova series: The KGB, the Computer and Me.''