War Games

“War Games” is a movie about computer whiz kid David Lightman whose hacking skills puts him on the FBI's radar. This unwanted exposure occurred after David unintentionally gained access to the supercomputer of the U.S. military. The machine had its own name, the WOPR, which stood for War Operational Plan Response. The purpose of the WOPR was to predict possible outcomes of a nuclear war. David is prompted by the machine to select a game he wished to play and, believing it was just a game, he selects Global Thermonuclear War.  WOPR then runs a nuclear war simulation, which almost causes the military to prepare for DEFCON 1, which would have been WWIII.

 1.      Passwords

David was always hacking into computers. He misbehaves in class so that he would get sent to the principal's office, a tactic to retrieve the latest password to the school's computer system. They were always changing the passwords, so he had to be inside to open the draw to where the passwords were scribbled to write down the latest one. Despite how smart he was with hacking, he was an underachiever in school. He goes home on his smart pc and hacks into the school's system and changes his failed grades to passing. This was in the 80's, yet people still to this day use passwords that are weak and easy to guess. Knowing this makes it easy for hackers to gain access to personal and private data. 

 2.      Connecting to computers              &             3.      Gaining Access

While searching for the number to ProtoVision, David stumbled on the phone number to the NORAD computer. In the movie, dial-up was used to access the internet. Which was an early form of internet access to connect to the internet by dialing specific telephone numbers. Today most people use high-speed internet to connect to the web. After failed attempts to gain access to the NORAD computer system, David turns to his hacker friends who suggest he use a “back door”. As the hacker explains, back door is using a simple password that only the user knows so as to bypass any new added security. Back doors are still used today for if a person forgets their password, they will have an alternative way of gaining access. Examples of this are security questions, finger-print scanning, eye ball scanning, etc.

  4.      Computer Hardware                &               5.      Human-like Computers

 The WOPR was a room-sized computer with flashing lights on it that played Global Thermonuclear War. The acronym WOPR stands for War Operational Plan Response. David’s personal computer would communicate with him as if he was talking to a real person. This was possible because of voice box installation, which interpret music from the computer and turned it into sound. Also, like computers today, his pc did what it was programmed to do.  Computers with this ability exist today. An example is a computer that is programmed for the visually impaired. Much like the pc in the movie, I know a fellow who is blind and his computer talks to him, reads to him, etc.

  6.      Futility of the Game

To learn the futility of the game, David invites WOPR to play tic-tac-toe. WOPR only plays to win, but tic-tac-toe is a game that could not be won, instead it crashes while trying to test different strategies. Using the knowledge gained, WOPR comes to the conclusion that "The only winning move is not to play". It finally learnt to lose.