I had about $80,000 in IRA/CD's. I'd created & contributed to them over a period of 35 years.
Last year, it's time to retire, and Citibank won't give me half the money. It seems that some CD's are for "Cliff Stoll" and some for "Clifford Stoll".
Citibank Retirement demanded a "Marriage Certificate, Divorce Decree, or Court Order" to demonstrate that "Cliff Stoll" is the same person as "Clifford Stoll".
Took more than 8 months, dozens of emails, five visits to Citibank offices, and a letter to the Citibank president, to shake loose money that I'd deposited across three decades.
Related to an earlier comment I posted on a different thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41316889 , I didn't name the "national bank", but I now feel perfectly comfortable outing "Citibank" as the national bank that I will no longer (personally) do business with. Corporate stuff is a different matter.
As a matter of policy, they do not empower their front-line (personal) banking CSR reps, and even 1st-level escalation folks. They're basically nothing more than stenographers.
After 20 days of back-and-forth with non-answers, I finally sent them a certified letter giving them 30 days to "take action" or "explain non-action" on a specific dispute amounting to ~$5k.
The responded with a non-reponse bizarre marketing letter in 10 days.
I called to verify the prior letter was "on-record" in my account. Given the nature of the postage, it was already verified delivered.
Moving forward, that 15 year+ line-of-credit is just going sit on their books until they close the account. There is no longer a fundamental basis of forthright communication, confidence in competence, and trust to move forward.
> As a matter of policy, they do not empower their front-line (personal) banking CSR reps
This appears to be the original sin in most of these scenarios.
Eventually, automation and predictive analytics will break.
If you do not have a customer service org empowered and staffed to (a) investigate what went wrong & (b) make it right, then you will lose customers.
And maybe you're fine with that trickle, but know that the Kafkaesque burning of a relationship means they will never do business with you again.
For all its faults, Amazon is an example of a company that still remembers this and seems to empower its support folks. As a counterexample, I severed a 20 year relationship with Bank of America because they disempowered their retail staff to the point of uselessness.
Truth re:Amazon. I think my longest support call with them (~30min) over decades of service was with their pharmacy and the root cause turned out to be related to the Change Healthcare hacks.
Even though it wasn't their fault and they could do nothing, at the time, to source the medication, I received instant credit (very expensive med) and they even talked to my insurance (with me on the line) to smooth-out the instant re-issuance of the prescription with an alternative vendor.
My worst experience with Amazon was a rogue computer system re-flagging a refund as erroneous. It was annoying to have to go back 4 times, but every person I talked to was empowered to reverse the charge, and the last one knew how to stop it for good.
> After 20 days of back-and-forth with non-answers, I finally sent them a certified letter giving them 30 days to "take action" or "explain non-action" on a specific dispute amounting to ~$5k.
> The responded with a non-reponse bizarre marketing letter in 10 days.
>I called to verify the prior letter was "on-record" in my account. Given the nature of the postage, it was already verified delivered.
What was the purpose of the certified letter? you can use that in court but did you take any further action?
To verify they received it, signed for it, and to, essentially, guarantee that it would also be logged into my account. Emails are supported in court, but a certified letter or courier service has, essentially, zero grounds for evidentiary hearing challenges.
The purpose was to layout an explicit log of prior communications and the terms of any/all communications moving forward (only physical mail), actions they needed to take if they wanted the account to remain active, and a time frame under which they needed to take those actions. Franky, just bog-standard financial dispute stuff.
Cleaning out my attic last month, I just found a stash of punch cards left over from the 1980's. Some paper-tape that has my phd dissertation. And a fortran manual from my high school's IBM-1620. Oh my...
I read your book for the first time a few months ago after someone here recommended it. I was hooked. It took me back to my beginnings (99/00) when the internet was different, when we had dial up and there was still discovery.
I appreciate the time you put into writing it — and the nostalgic enjoyment it brought me.
What are you up to these days? Were you able to predict or see the advent of modern AI and LLMs coming from earlier in your career? Thoughts on the future of computing?
All truth is one. In this light may science and religion labor here together for the steady evolution of mankind from darkness to light; from prejudice to tolerance; from narrowness to broadmindedness.
I'm having the same issue due to changing my surname (male). So far I've mentioned that millions of women experience name changes during marriage... to deaf ears.
The good news for this is that my primary stock has gone up 80% (since this issue became apparent, just two years ago), and it has encouraged me to live more frugally. Eventually?
Unrelated: thanks for the awesome Klein Mug, Cliff!
Millions of people experience name changes… and have to file paperwork. I don’t know how many copies of my marriage cert I’ve had to send out now. I had to send one to a multiplayer video game company to change an account name, for example. It’s not just a given that you can change your name on certain records!
I've had some weird experiences related to my address although none were really a serious problem. My street name changed (probably when an interstate spur was put in about 40 years ago) and I still have issues now and then with geolocation.
>My street name changed and I still have issues now and then with geolocation.
This happened at my previous house, except with an additional twist: the street name was changed to an identical streetname, less than a mile away, but within a different city.
Adding to the confusion, my address was duplicated on that other street with a commercial brokerage which often gets sued. How do I know about these lawsuits? — because several process servers showed up (over about eight years living there) to sue the other address. They never believed my factual explanation: the numbers repeat on the same road, so closely ("yeah, ok buddy").
Usually just accepted the documents/lawsuit, then drove up the mountain to give it to the intended recipient. The first time this happened, business was closed... so I just taped it to the door (and then the owner came out LIVID, thinking I was the process server...).
Only once did the process server actually look on his phone to see that there were in fact two same-addressed properties (and obviously mine was residential).
Of course, what you did was the kind and polite thing but would the process server have any recourse to, "You would be failing to serve that notice if you leave it with me"?
Many decades ago I transfered my money from the USA to Europe. Nothinf much but I didn't want to cross borders with wads of cash even though it's perfectly legal.
I had to give my origin bank everything imaginable, including address, phone, fax of both the destination bank as well as the branch.
All of my ID obviously and the destination account number.
Weeks later I get a message from my destination branch saying they got some money in USD for someone that had a subset of my name but no account information whatsoever.
I said it was for me and thankfully that was it.
What happened?
Eventually I got something that looked like a traceroute of the transfer.
The origin bank used Citibank as an intermediary and at that step everything but the amount, name of the destination bank and my first and last name was lost.
Early this year they messed around with a credit card account I had with them. I immediately said fix it or I cancel today, they refused, I cancelled the account and they've been nagging me to come back for 6 months. Fuck no!
Aside: Hey Cliff, love your work and efforts, glad to hear you're retiring too.
Yeah, we had another issue with Chase like yours and the article's. Finally got around to letting Chase know that a family member had died, took a little while, because, duh. We were all on the accounts together. So, Chase then goes and makes us all down as dead. Freezes everything, then started up the process to put up the money for probate to our various estates (?!). Luckily, we get daily emails about this and were able to go and start everything back up again. It's still no where near finished up, after about 5 months of weekly visits. They managed to make us undead in their system, but then a week later it would revert. No one ever knew what was going on and still don't. Eventually managed to get a check of all the cash in the checking and savings accounts and have gone and put it all with a local credit union. However, about $120k of retirement savings from my dead family member are still locked up in Chase. No amount of records from the county or newspaper obits or hospice forms can convince Chase that the deceased is actually dead. They, and I am not joking here, said that my family member has to sign off on declaring their death to Chase.
Chase, never again.
I want to be clear to the other readers here: This is your warning that 'something is rotten in Denmark'. When another large fiscal crisis starts up again in ~3 years, you'll now know it's because these banks have become too big to operate, not just fail. Cleaning out that mess is going to be a lot harder than 2008, as all their internal records stink.
Thanks D'moy! I'm still having fun with Klein bottles and other topological manifolds. Toying with immersions of the projective plane and several knot embeddings.
At the moment, retirement mainly means "start taking out required minimum distributions".
All the same, I wonder: How do you retire from a marginally profitable nano-business built upon glass mathematical shapes? How'd I ever reach 74 years old?
Find someone interested in continuing that business under a long term (royalty or such) or short term (lump sum) financial arrangement that is acceptable to you? I think there will be interested people, maybe even within this community (not suggesting I’m one of them, though).
There are lots of us that made good money over the years and your books were important to lots of us.
Sell signed copies of your books for $1000 at the klein bottle store so we can buy them. Let us help you have fun in your retirement! (A signature or signed bottle would be awesome too.)
How was it possible for both "Cliff Stoll" and "Clifford Stoll" to exist? Shouldn't your legal name be used as it is (i.e. no nicknames) on all papers? Or did you change your legal name?
Names are fuzzy things, and what you write on a piece of paper can change. What's on your ID can change over time too.
I've known people who couldn't get their name into the system (no last name), couldn't fit their names into the system (two last names, no hyphen), changed family name (spouses), change first name, put in a different first name (sometimes Timothy, sometimes Tim), their name didn't _fit_ in the field (too many characters, unexpected character encoding), trans people.
This should be expected by computer systems, and expected by staff.
I can walk into my credit union's offices - they have just two branches - and talk to someone with decision making power. An actual human being picks up the phone if I call. Their customer service has been impeccable despite some complex asks.
I am unlikely to be able to do this if someone steals my crypto.
(My security question when calling in was once "you sent an email last week that made my boss very happy, what was it about?")
Pros of a credit union: many processes are still manually-controlled
Cons of a credit union: many processes are still manually-controlled
There's a lot of scenarios where that's the lesser of two evils, though. And god it's nice to be able to walk into a branch, explain the situation to someone, and get "Let me see what I can do. There, all fixed" in reply.
At my previous credit union (before moving), the local branch manager knew me and my family (mom, husband, etc) by name. And she either (1) had actual power to make things happen or (2) could just call the person that did in any given circumstance.
This is a medium sized credit union, with a dozen or so branches.
Banks are for-profit and credit unions are not-for-profit. Banks will do whatever they think they can get away with to increase their profits, which affects every interaction you have with them. I've had accounts at Citibank and now multiple credit unions, and I regret ever having had accounts at Citibank. They were constantly making things difficult in new ways. I don't know how the bureaucracy compares, but how they treat customers is definitely different.
The main difference is size. I have an account at the #4 biggest credit union by assets. It would be about 80th if banks and credit unions were ranked together. I previously had an account with what's currently the 4th largest bank, and it was a totally different experience that I won't repeat.
At that level of assets, you're usually not thousands of branches, it's probably just tens, and the organization is small enough to be based on empowering people to use their brains as opposed to strict script following and zero thinking.
Credit unions are a bit more flexible than a small bank though, because of shared branching. It's not as good as they say it is, but you can go to selected other credit union branches and get limited teller services.
In the 1970's, I had the honor of working with Bill Hartmann, Bob Strom, Gerard Kuiper, Clark Chapman and Ewen Whittaker, at Tucson's Lunar & Planetary Labs. They used large earthbased telescopes to photograph the moon's surface at many illumination angles and libation angles. The images were captured on glass plates.
They physically projected these images onto a large plaster sphere; in turn, they rephotographed the images from different angles, to remove foreshortening and show the lunar surface as seen from directly above a crater.
I'm always really impressed with the clever techniques and methods to accurately map topographic surfaces (in this case, lunar) before computerization. Really interesting!
(and your comment reminded me to finally place my order for a Klein bottle!)
FM Radio transmitters broadcast a continuous 19 KHz pilot tone to indicate that it's a stereo broadcast. If it's present, then there's also a 38 KHz AM modulated carrier, which has the stereo information.
The main FM modulation is (Left + Right) audio channels - the baseband. The 38 KHz subcarrier is (Left - Right). Notice that the stereo information is likely to be higher noise, being AM and without a lot of power. So on weak FM broadcast signals, you're often better off setting your tuner to mono.
Some cruddy FM tuners don't properly filter out the 19Khz pilot tone, resulting in ear-ringing in the listener.
The unfiltered pilot tone was a problem when recording FM radio onto tape, beating against the bias tone and confusing Dolby NR into thinking there was constant sound.
High-end cassette decks had an "MPX Filter" which was a sharp 19kHz filter before the recording system.
And FM broadcasts have a high-frequency pre-emphasis, which adds something like 10dB of boost to audio high frequencies. This is to reduce high frequency noise that occurs in analog FM systems. Radio receivers have a matching de-emphasis high-frequency cut.
Indeed, both vinyl phonographs and audio tape systems employ similar pre-emphasis and de-emphasis. It's the RIAA curve for phonographs. Not sure what the standard is for mag tape.
I'm personally grateful to Jim Simons -- and his foundation -- for supporting and extending mathematical research in Berkeley, and throughout the world.
Jim Simons did fundamental research in topology; his work in mathematics, cryptography, and topological quantum field theory.
Beyond this, he pressed for higher quality public education in math and encouraging training and presige for math teachers.
My warm greetings and smiles to my Hacker News friends — I’m honored by both your kindness and attention. Like many of you, I began computing as a teenager (in 1965: assembler on an IBM 1620); like many HN contributors, I’ve had fun with science, math, technology, and crafts.
HN has connected me with insightful and over-the-top competent people; I’m happy to be considered one of the gang. To the many who’ve helped me understand things from time crystals to homotopy theory, my deep thanks!
While I’ve tiptoed away from many turbulent scenes, I remain curious (just discovered that a biocide used as a paint additive to kill mildew is an ingredient in my shampoo). Still hacking & coding (handful of rasp pi’s), still sewing (finished an appliqué quilt last week), and still making these odd onesided shapes.
From a across the ether and across the decades, my warm wishes to those who’ve made this forum an inviting and occasionally inspiring place!
Thank you for your incredible book Cliff. I found a copy when I was in high school about ten years ago and it changed my trajectory. It got me into hacking and tinkering with computers and led me to a career I love today. I always make a point of loaning my copy to anyone I see who was my age then with an interest in computers.
And thank you for your kind note -- the technology in the book feels antique today, but I suspect that many infosec people recognize both the story and my attitudes. Best wishes to you in your computing career!
Same. I don’t know where I’d be without it honestly. But certainly not where I am. It was the first and only thing that ever really clicked for me. Only I found it back in the early 2000s. Quite how I found it, I’ll never remember, but I found it at a dark time in my life and it had a profound impact then, through now.
Thanks, oh Shackleford. Dark times (in life, at night, or during an eclipse) can lead to remarkable observations and insights. I'm honored that m'book played a part in your own story.
Thanks for everything, Cliff. I discovered _The Cuckoo’s Egg_ as a child, and was taken in. I wrote a book report on it... and then I wrote a book report on it the next year... and the next year...
At some point, I stopped trying to drag my pre-teen schoolmates along with me, but I still have my original hardback and re-read it regularly.
Your book taught me many things - perhaps most importantly, that one can educate about complex topics in engaging and understandable ways. And now I’ve landed in a job that focused on security.
One of the things that I’ve been doing in this job is, well, trying to educate about complex topics in engaging and understandable ways. I’ve thought about your book in every blog post I’ve written lately.
Thanks for all the writing. I read Cukoo's Egg when it came out and enjoyed but it took at least 10 years before I really followed it. As I remember I got started getting more involved in IT and Unix shortly after I read it and there would be conscious or even sub conscious moments were I'd be running some command or learning some networking concept and what I was learning at the moment would be a bit clearer for having read the book. Or maybe the book would be a bit clearer because I'd seen the reality on my screen.
A decade ago, I taught physics to some high school students; they were amazed by the old CRT Tektronix oscilloscope. "So many knobs and controls!" "Does it only show green?" "Can it show pictures from the web?" Two of them figured it out and we used it to measure the speed of sound.
Recently, I dusted it off and let a couple neighbor teenagers fool with it (displaying speech, music, sine waves, and Lissajoius patterns. Again, they were fascinated.
I had about $80,000 in IRA/CD's. I'd created & contributed to them over a period of 35 years.
Last year, it's time to retire, and Citibank won't give me half the money. It seems that some CD's are for "Cliff Stoll" and some for "Clifford Stoll".
Citibank Retirement demanded a "Marriage Certificate, Divorce Decree, or Court Order" to demonstrate that "Cliff Stoll" is the same person as "Clifford Stoll".
Took more than 8 months, dozens of emails, five visits to Citibank offices, and a letter to the Citibank president, to shake loose money that I'd deposited across three decades.