Rumors of my death are slightly exaggerated
Cliff Stoll — author of The Cuckoo’s Egg and hacker-culture legend — posted to correct a circulating report of his death. He is alive.
What Matters
- Source text was not extractable; the post’s core claim is that Stoll himself disputes reports of his death.
- Stoll is best known for The Cuckoo’s Egg (1989), his firsthand account of tracking a KGB-linked hacker through early internet infrastructure.
- The false death report spread far enough to reach his Wikipedia page before he could correct it.
- [HN: @kelsey98765431] recommends The Cuckoo’s Egg as formative reading; urges anyone who hasn’t read it to do so immediately.
- [HN: @hoppyhoppy2] flagged the Wikipedia edit problem: “I will update your Wikipedia page to show that your death is currently under dispute” — illustrating how hard misinformation is to retract.
- [HN: @monegator] frames the episode against 2026’s broader information-quality collapse: fictional and factual content are now effectively indistinguishable online.
