Turning system accounting data into money

[Allen]

*snip*
On 10/11/2011 4:23 PM, Christopher J. Ruwe wrote:
> Cannot be of any direct help, but ...
> 
> You remember that 'astronomer chases hacker on Berkely computer 
> systes'- novel, Cliff Stoll: The Cookoo's Egg? If not, try wikipedia.
> As an aside, I was told that at some universities' CS-classes, it is
> required lecture. In that novel, user's departments where charged
> according to resources spent on the university's computers and the
> main figure was tasked to find out about a 0.75$ accounting error and
> found a hacker instead. The system in the novel was a Berkeley Unix.
> So, systems that do what you want (and customers who want to pay on a
> per use basis) must be around for quite some time.  The novel is
> copyrighted 1989, I cannot track when the real event circling around
> a certain Markus Hess, cf. also wikipedia, took place. My guess about
> the system is  4.3BSD Tahoe or earlier 4.3BSD.
> 
> Cheers,

I actually found that book not very long ago at a used book store. It
was neat; I went in with my Wife, saw that, started reading the back,
saw Berkeley, and bought it.

At first I wasn't sure how it would go, but as I kept reading, I started
knocking out like 5 chapters at a time, and reading multiple times a
day. It was a REALLY good book, and, yea, the Copyright, on mine at
least, says "1989" and "1990" but, in the book, he does name years in
it. Some of them I know are 1987, and some I think were much earlier,
but I don't think any of the time frames he gave were before 1985 or so,
but I'd have to check, as I finished it and read the last chapter a
while ago.

I thought it was funny that a 75 cent accounting error was how they
figured out a complete ring of "chaos" lol.

And of course, you can't help but laugh at the VMS joke, and, the System
V jokes.

-Allen