War Games

From: Anthony Clifton <wirehead_at_retrocomputing.com>
Date: Tue Sep 23 14:29:15 1997

> back then would at best give you three tries at the password and drop you
> and if you tried the account within 15 minutes you were again dropped and
> the timer reset. The was to prevent cracking via successive tries. That
> was an example of commercial systems, secure military would not even have
> outside access that wasn't encrypted and highly secure.

Actually, the nerdy guy that ran WOPR said:

"There was an open line at our Space Division in Sunnyvale. The phone
company screwed up!" and

"He used a password left by the original programmer. Now none of our
guys even knew it was there."

Basically, the movie wasn't saying he had particular hacking skill. Just
that he got EXTREMELY lucky because he was looking for a computer games
company in Sunnyvale.

Anthony Clifton - WireHead Prime and Wargames Apologist
Received on Tue Sep 23 1997 - 14:29:15 BST