Talk:Clifford Stoll

Contradiction

Isn't it contradictory to state that "In his 1995 book, Silicon Snake Oil, Stoll called the possibility of e-commerce 'baloney.' He currently sells Klein bottles on the Web"? If the possibility of e-commerce is baloney, why does he participate in e-commerce, as though it is actual?Lestrade (talk) 01:05, 2 January 2008 (UTC)Lestrade

Clearly he was wrong in his book. The book was written before the rise of e-commerce, and his idea that it was baloney proved to be incorrect. Now he sells items on the web. That is what we call irony. No contradiction in context. Ethan a dawe (talk) 03:17, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

For the sake of laughs, I'd also like to mention he said there isn't (implying there never will be) an easy way to look up factual information online about, say, the date of the Battle of Trafalgar since the net's all just a mess of jumbled unprocessed data and has no critics, editors, or reviewers (!). He's also explained one reason e-commerce is impossible is cause there's no way to send money online (Pay Pal, hee), not to mention there's no salespeople (which are essential to all consumer purchases anywhere ever he claims). Oh, and people will never buy books in an electronic format, nor will online news ever replace your local newspaper. -- 16:32, 23 March, 2008 (PST) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.21.33.74 (talk)

It's still not safe way to transfer money. If you google "paypal sucks", you'll see PayPal called into question. A number of online payment systems are known for stealing money. Aside from that, receiving any credit card payments are at risk for the cardholder doing a friendly fraud chargeback and echeck payments allow a similar thing. Any service where a buyer can reverse their payment and keep the merchandise is not safe. The only payment systems immune to that are electronic gold which is extremely cumbersome, requiring a wire transfer with a third party who then puts it into the electronic gold account. There's Revolution Money Exchange which solves the egold issue, except it only works in the USA, requires a social security number, and only social security number, not allowing companies that use tax IDs instead to use their service. So there's problems with safe payments. He was also right when he said, "And who'd prefer cybersex to the real thing?" Other things he was wrong about, though. 32.153.236.106 (talk) 00:19, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Boy, isn't it highly misleading to sum up his book as a series of predictions about the future? So what if he was wrong about e-commerce? The point of the book is to ask questions about where technology is leading us and if that is where we as a people want to be. It's easy to rag on a guy like Cliff Stoll after the fact. I wager 76.xx.xx.xx is nowhere near as an insightful person as Stoll.

Since the passage is clearly meant to be "ironic" and detract from his book, I've rephrased it to be more NPOV.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.120.178.36 (talk) 13:33, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

-----dude your a dick, why do you have to attempt to humiliate this man over the Internet?---- --—Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.240.225.161 (talk • contribs)

Of course it is rather easy to call out Stoll for his errors after the fact, but then again he chose to make his predictions with vigorous confidence. However, in writing this encyclopedia article, the question should be whether this is a notable part of his career, and I think it is - for example, Kevin Kelly also highlighted Stoll's predictions ten years later [1], as an example of "smart people saying stupid things about the Internet on the morning of its birth". Regards, HaeB (talk) 23:05, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Layout

It seems that the article is formed so as to increase the "noteworthiness" of Clifford Stoll. A chronological ordering would be more neutral and encyclopaedic. 24.37.101.43 (talk) 05:33, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Nonsense. This guy's famous for one reason; he was famously wrong about the future uses of the Internet and the social changes they would inspire. Do you think we'd care where he was born or that he's a teacher at El Cerrito High School if it weren't for his silly book? 66.215.51.164 (talk) 02:18, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

"for one reason"? The only reason Silicon Snake-Oil was even publishable was because of his work that produced The Cuckoo's Egg. He is notable for that, initially. YojimboSan (talk) 02:08, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I have to agree with YojimboSan that Stoll is mainly known for the Cuckoo's Egg espionage episode, anything else is based on that fame. One of the many biographies I'll get to when I have the time to do it.--Abebenjoe (talk) 09:16, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree, too: He is the guy who wrote "Cuckoo's Egg" - who also did some other stuff (and I own one of his Klein bottles). That episode should dominate the article. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 12:07, 4 January 2013 (UTC)