Episode 2: Shall We Play a Game?: WarGames (1983)

The Machine Awakens, Season Arc, Chapter Two

In 1983, a teenager dialed into what he thought was a game company and nearly started World War III. The film spooked President Reagan, prompted a Joint Chiefs investigation, and ended up in the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which is still federal law. This week on Celluloid Circuits, we continue The Machine Awakens with WarGames. We cover war dialing, social engineering, and a computer that can’t tell a simulation from reality, then take the film apart in “That’s Not How That Works. That’s Not How Any Of This Works.”

In this episode

• Film synopsis (full spoilers)
• War dialing: the real technique, and its modern descendant, Shodan
• Social engineering: why “Joshua” was the oldest hack in the book
• Removing humans from the loop in nuclear and autonomous weapons
• WOPR as an early picture of reinforcement learning
• What the film got right, including the full chain from the film to Reagan, the 414s, the House hearings, and the CFAA
• That’s Not How That Works: NORAD’s password problem and the one-box WOPR
• The bigger picture: Stanislav Petrov and the human capacity to say “wait”

Circuit Breaker verdict: Two Circuit Breakers, “Close Enough for Hollywood.”

Film details WarGames (1983), directed by John Badham, starring Matthew Broderick, Ally Sheedy, Dabney Coleman, and John Wood. Runtime about 1 hr 54 min.

Up next: Episode 3, Ex Machina (2014). The AI isn’t trying to launch missiles. It’s trying to get out of the room.