Security way back when...the movies

The other night I was flipping through the channels and the 1983 movie "War Games" was on. For those that don't know, the movie is about a teenage hacker that accidentally stumbles into a military defense mainframe when trying to access a software company to play games. Once he gets in he thinks that he is playing a harmless simulation, but he almost causes the US to initiate a global thermonuclear war with the "Soviet Union."

What I thought was funny is that to log in to this top secret government machine all he needed was a modem and an one-word login. No passwords, no authentication, no terminal emulators...just a computer that was attached to a TV and a modem. The mainframe was attached to a public exchange, too. Sooooo funny looking back at it now.

Oh, well. Hopefully everyone won't be bothered by this post. Just a nice bit of nostalgia....

You gotta love hollywood for the effort. :)

Wasn't a password needed? If I recall right it was "Joshua" (or something close) which was the name of the son of the programmer...

Ammo

Ya know, way back when, I used to talk to the modem on my apple //c with nothing more then raw AT commands and such, no termnal emulator :) but anyways, I've heard of some pretty damn poor security practices at government computer installations back in the 80's, but maybe its just stories....

Well, to be fair, he was using a backdoor specially added by the prima-donna-programma guy for the AI system, rather than through 'official' channels.