THE MAY 1988
ISSUE FEATURED
A FIRST-PERSON
ACCOUNT OF
CLIFFORD STOLL’S
YEAR-LONG ODYSSEY
OF SILENTLY TRACKING
A GERMAN COMPUTER
PROGRAMMER WHO
BROKE INTO THE
COMPUTER SYSTEM AT
LAWRENCE BERKELEY
NATIONAL LABORATORY
(AMONG 40 OTHERS
WORLDWIDE) TO
DISCOVER THE
INTRUDER WAS A SPY
SELLING SOFTWARE AND
MILITARY DATA TO THE
KGB. THE STORY,
“STALKING THE WILY
HACKER,” RECEIVED
WORLDWIDE MEDIA
COVERAGE.

4. Articles. Establish a new line of contributed and professionally written articles in the Abacus style.

5. Columns. Commission regular columns from excellent writers. (The first was “ Programming Pearls” by Jon Bentley, beginning August 1983.)

6. Design. Hire a professional design company to create a new look and feel for CACM that integrated all the elements noted here. Consult with them on

every issue.

This plan drew on the many ideas from the JAM proposals, reader surveys, and comments. We believed it would establish a new balance among these elements that would prove to be much more satisfactory than the CACM of the day.

Council endorsed the final design and editorial plan in 1982. The new CACMwas launched in February 1983 after a special issue in January to com-

memorate the best of CACM in its first 25 years.

But there was one problem: ACM Council wanted us to implement the plan but did not have the funds to hire all the staff required to execute the plan. We were able to hire two new editors and one journalist, but not the five editors and three journalists we thought we needed.

Therefore much of my time as EIC was spent on finding creative ways to implement as much