War Games and Grim Warnings
The film War Games, released in 1983, captivated audiences with a thrilling depiction of military super computers and the possibility of nuclear war. Hidden within the story of a young boy with a knack for technology is an accurate depiction of computerized, unmanned warfare. War Games illustrates a truly terrifying concept that one day we won’t be able to stop the technology that we created. While a rewatch of the film today really highlights the 80s cheese, at the time the film was a raging success. It was nominated for three Academy Awards and grossed over $125 million worldwide.
The synopsis of the film is that David Lightman, a tech savvy teenager, accidentally stumbles across the backdoor to a military supercomputer while trying to find an unreleased game from his favorite gaming company. A chain of events then leads Lightman to nearly start WWIII.
War Games starts off with some beginner cybersecurity concepts, like password protection. Lightman is failing Biology and is sent to the principal's office to face repercussions. After being in the same position so many times, he has learned that the administrators write down their computer passwords in a desk drawer. While awaiting punishment, he makes note of the newest password, Pencil. Along with being a weak password, the biggest mistake administrators made was writing it down. Using the password, Lightman logins and changes his grades in the system, along with the grades of Jennifer, the girl he is trying to impress. This is a textbook password protection mistake. The result of this oversight is that Lightman gets a grade that he doesn’t deserve but for many of us the stakes are a lot higher.
To find the unreleased game he is looking for, Lightman starts war dialing all the phone numbers in Sunnyvale, California, where the company’s headquarters is located. War dialing is a technique used to call all phone numbers with a certain area code. Here Lightman uses it to call all the phone numbers with a (399) area code in hopes of finding one that is connected to the gaming company's computers. War dialing is the easiest way to do this because he doesn’t have to sit and call every individual number himself. This method disregards any phone numbers that are answered by humans and hangs up on any call that goes on for more than two rings since computers normally pick up after one. Prior to this movie's release, war dialing was known as hammer or demon dialing. War Games was the first instance of the tactic being seen on screen making ‘war dialing’ the most widely used term.
By sheer accident, Lightman connects with an unidentified NORAD system and thinking it is the protected system of the gaming company, he asks it to list games. NORAD is the North American Aerospace Defense Command, a very real organization that oversees air defense, warning, and protection for Canada and the United States. They have a base in the Cheyenne Mountain Complex in Colorado, just as depicted in War Games.
The list begins with normal chess, checkers, and poker but eventually starts listing off games like chemical warfare and global thermonuclear war. Computer games were a way for computers to learn in the early days of their creation. During the 80s games like chess and checkers were playable on most computers. They used algorithms and data sets to understand how to win the game. This is a type of machine learning, which is still used today on a much larger scale. While in the 70s computers were mastering chess by studying all the possible moves and their outcome, today AI is trying to master how to better fulfill requests by studying how we ask questions.
The list of NORAD games each ask for a login, which is unusual. After enlisting the help of two computer nerds, Lightman realizes he actually found a backdoor to a government system. A backdoor is a way of bypassing the security of a system. They are hidden so they can only be accessed by legitimate users. Unfortunately, as the film demonstrates, backdoors are often susceptible to attack.
The film circles back to password protection as Lightman is trying to guess the password for the backdoor to the supercomputer. He easily guesses the password, which is ‘Joshua’, the name of its creator’s son. To reiterate, the password to the literal most powerful computer in the world, that has the capability to start WWIII, is the name of the creator’s son. Not only is it an easy password to guess, but it is also incredibly short, making it easier to crack. Considering the time period, viewers wouldn’t have known better but it wouldn’t take long for a brute force attack to figure out this password today.
After providing the password, Lightman chooses the last game listed and unknowingly starts a nuclear war simulation that later develops into a real threat of war.
Lightman is quickly tracked down by NORAD and he is taken in for questioning. They bring him to Cheyenne Mountain complex and lock him in an infirmary room to await questioning. Using social engineering he tricks a guard into unlocking the room so he can ‘use the restroom’ but in reality, he recorded the keypad code-sequence on a tape recorded. By playing the sequence back to the keypad through a wire, he unlocks the door. This isn’t likely possible with any known keypad lock but does depict a very real thing called a replay attack. The tones picked up from the keypad probably wouldn’t be of any use if played back because the keypad uses electrical signals, not tones. We can also see Lightman use this method earlier in his war dialing attack. This strategy does work for detecting systems that are connected to phone number tones like the NORAD backdoor. After breaking out of the room, Lightman sneaks through the facility pretending to be part of a tour group and leaves freely on a bus.
Because NORAD had recently removed the need for human approval for nuclear launch, the simulation convinces military personnel that the Soviet Union has begun an attack on the U.S. By the time they realize none of it is real, it's too late because the computer can no longer understand the difference between the game and real life. Determined to win, it starts carrying out the war plan assuming NORAD was destroyed. Lightman goes on a race against the clock to find the supercomputer's creator before it starts the nuclear attack. Once he tracks down the scientist, they head back to the NORAD complex to try and shut the computer down.
The film ends with a thrilling game of Tic-Tac-Toe between Lightman and the supercomputer, which ends in a draw. He then tells the computer to keep playing the game with itself. It runs through countless strategies and plays but every game ends in a draw. This teaches the computer that some games have no winners. The possibly of a winner-less war makes the computer run through all of the outcomes of thermonuclear war again. In the end the supercomputer sees that there aren’t any true winners in war, and it shuts down the plan to launch the missiles. While it is possible for a computer to learn, it isn’t realistic that it understands the weight of human life. In reality, it would determine a winner based on numerical outcomes. A computer could compare the number of deaths or economic impact to see who is left standing. However, the scene isn’t supposed to be completely realistic, its sole purpose is to teach the audience the bigger message.
All in all, this movie is a great watch and a decent representation of cyber. While it might not be totally accurate and at times a bit cheesy (the supercomputer has a face), it still stands the test of time. Today there are growing concerns regarding AI and machine learning. The worry is that we will lose control of these technologies and eventually endanger ourselves. This film is a reminder that we are responsible for keeping our technology in check. A heavy reliance on intelligent automation leads down an unknown path that could drastically change the way we live our lives. War Games was such a hit with audiences because it explained the terrifying reality of automated nuclear war in a way that was easy for the masses to understand. It is movies like this that shed light on cybersecurity, showing everyday users the importance of protecting their systems and keeping a firm grasp on the capabilities of their technology.
