The release dates of movies are always a shocking reminder of mortality.
It was 1983, in the midst of the Cold War, when the cult-classic WarGames debuted in theaters. 42 years ago. And, according to David Lightman and Jennifer Mack:
“He wasn’t very old.” “No, he was pretty old. He was 41.” “Oh yeah? Well, that’s old.”
Ouch.
However, don’t let fictional teenage dialogue get you down.
If WarGames was your origin story, wear that claim as a veteran’s ribbon (just as General Beringer would).
The film hardwired hacking into the mainstream, minted the “nerd anti-hero”, and inspired a generation of cyber enthusiasts and professionals alike. Although the technology seen in the film may be outdated, its lessons and influence have maintained relevancy.
WarGames changed the world.
I can’t believe it may be necessary to explain this. But, for the younger crowd, the hacking technique in the movie may seem like yet another Hollywood misrepresentation without some background information.
Back in the day, if you wanted to talk to someone, you’d have to either:
However, if you opted for convenience and decided to call, being leashed to a fixed spot in the house (usually a central room that was not suitable for any privacy) was not the only drawback. If anyone in the house was connected to the Internet, you needed to wait until they were offline.
Why? Well, shortly after computers were invented, people started wanting to connect them together—the first instances of networking. This was a simple task for a couple of computers in the same room, but a much bigger feat for computers with any substantial distance between them. Thankfully, there was already existing infrastructure for long-distance communication: the system that facilitated telephone calls.
Though, since the phone lines transmitted sound, devices were needed that could encode or “modulate” the data a computer sent into an electrical audio signal. Then, a device on the other end would have to decode or “demodulate” the audio back into the original data so the receiving computer could interpret it properly. This would be even more efficient if a device could work bidirectionally, modulating and demodulating as needed. Hence the “mo”-“dem.”
This is why, in a time forgotten, accessing the Internet was referred to as a “dial-up” connection—computers would literally call each other by their phone numbers and “talk” to each other in beeps, boops, and clicks to transmit data.
Because of this, you used to not be able to use the phone for voice calls while you were connected to the Internet as the same line was used for both.
If an advanced corn-on-the-cob buttering technique is a reference you don’t understand, or your cache has expired…
WarGames follows David Lightman, a bright but unmotivated high-school student that almost incites WWIII.
In his search for unreleased video games, David carries out a “war dialing” attack to call all of the phone numbers in Sunnyvale, California in the hopes of identifying the ones associated with the development company: Protovision.
TO SCAN FOR CARRIER TONES, PLEASE LIST DESIRED AREA CODES AND PREFIXES
AREA AREA AREA AREA
CODE PRFX NUMBER CODE PRFX NUMBER CODE PRFX NUMBER CODE PRFX NUMBER
—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ (311) 399-0001 (311) 437 (311) 767 (311) 936
(311) 399-0002
(311) 399-0003
Thinking he has gained access to military simulation games, David and his classmate Jennifer Mack start a game titled GLOBAL THERMONUCLEAR WAR.
…SHALL WE PLAY A GAME? Love to. How about Global Thermonuclear War? WHICH SIDE DO YOU WANT? UNITED STATES SOVIET UNION PLEASE CHOOSE ONE: 2
What the two don’t realize is they actually connected to an open line in NORAD’s Sunnyvale space division and have gained unauthorized access to a backdoor in the War Operation Plan Response (WOPR) computer—a supercomputer interfaced via an AI program that controls the entire U.S. nuclear missile arsenal.
The WOPR, unable to differentiate between simulation and reality, interprets the game as a real attack from the Soviet Union and begins strategizing with the intent to “win.”
Hello, are you still playing the game? OF COURSE. I SHOULD REACH DEFCON 1 AND LAUNCH MY MISSILES IN 28 HOURS. Is this a game or is it real? WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?
Realizing the error, David and Jennifer find and warn the program’s lead developer, Dr. Stephen Falken, of the imminent Armageddon. As NORAD stands by to retaliate, all attempts to authenticate into the WOPR system to terminate the process are denied.
By accessing a hidden game file for tic-tac-toe, David and Dr. Falken are able to teach the AI the concept of futility by instructing it to play against itself. After iterating through a series of tic-tac-toe games that all result in a tie, the AI applies the same logic to the GLOBAL THERMONUCLEAR WAR simulation and concludes that the only winning move is to not play the “game.”
GREETINGS PROFESSOR FALKEN HELLO A STRANGE GAME. THE ONLY WINNING MOVE IS NOT TO PLAY.
Like all great works of fiction, WarGames drew influence from reality and has left its influence as well.
In the movie: David dials into the school’s computer to change his and Jennifer’s grades so they don’t have to attend summer school.
In the real world: During his youth, Greg Linares (a.k.a. Laughing Mantis), was much like David—a brilliant kid with a disinterest in school.
In high school, he wrote a macro virus to alter the Excel spreadsheet that tracked student grades and attendance. With the guarantee that he would pass all of his classes and have perfect attendance on paper, he skipped school entirely.
But it all came crashing down when the school added a column to the spreadsheet that clashed with his virus. He was eventually caught and became the youngest child to be arrested in the state of Arizona for a computer crime. However, due to the police mishandling evidence, the case was dropped.
Today, Linares works as the principal threat intelligence analyst for Huntress.
In the movie: The WOPR computer runs an AI program that simulates potential war outcomes and controls America’s nuclear ICBMs.
In the real world: A declassified top-secret report from 1990, titled The Soviet “War Scare”, reveals just how close the world came to nuclear war.
Beginning in the mid-1970s, the Soviets developed a computer model that analyzed roughly 40,000 weighted data points based on military, political, and economic factors believed to be decisive to the outcome of WWII. The program, a component of Operation Ryan, output a score as a percentage that measured the risk of nuclear attack by the US and its allies.
In 1983, a series of world events, elaborate NATO military exercises, and two false-positive missile detection alerts put the Soviets on edge. During this time, the risk score output by the RYAN computer plummeted to the mid-40s, well below the “safe” threshold of 60.
Had a Soviet officer followed procedure, instead of declaring the launch warnings as malfunctions, or had there been a greater reliance on the software generated score, an immediate launch of Soviet warheads would have been ordered.
In the movie: Falken warns General Beringer about making strategic military decisions based on the output of a machine-run simulation.
“Uh, General, what you see on these screens up here is a fantasy, a computer-enhanced hallucination.”
In the real world: Recently, Maj. Gen. William Taylor, a commanding officer of the U.S. Army in South Korea disclosed that he is using LLMs to make strategic decisions.
During the annual press conference, he stated: “Just being able to write our weekly reports and things, in the intelligence world, to actually then help us predict things—I think that is the biggest thing that really I’m excited about—it’s that modernization piece.”
In the movie: The President is advised throughout the movie on the situation.
In the real world: On the weekend of its release, President Ronald Reagan attended a screening of WarGames at Camp David. Even with his military experience and acting career, Reagan became so concerned about the possibility of the fictional attack materializing that he addressed his concerns in a White House meeting just a few days later.
After describing the plot to his audience of national-security advisors and members of Congress, he asked: “Could something like this really happen? Could someone break into our most sensitive computers?”
A week later, Gen. John Vessey Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff returned with an answer: “Mr. President, the problem is much worse than you think.”
The interagency memos and studies that followed resulted in National Security Decision Directive Number 145, the precursor to the current Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
Nearly four decades later, WarGames remains more than just a nostalgic artifact of Cold War paranoia and dial-up tones. It’s a cautionary tale about humanity’s every-changing relationship with machines.
The film affects us all, even if you’ve never seen it, as the moral of its story exists in every security policy and ethical debate surrounding artificial intelligence, digital warfare, and human oversight.
As technology continues to advance and restrictions are lifted in the pursuit of capital, WarGames can remind us that progress without perspective can be its own doomsday game. Sometimes, the only winning move is not to play.