WarGames | First Time Watching | Movie Reaction | Movie Review | Movie Commentary

[@TerryNationB7]

U.S. President Ronald Reagan screened WarGames at Camp David the weekend it was released, and it freaked him out. Reagan brought it up a few days later at a White House meeting that included the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and asked, “Could something like this really happen? Could someone break into our most sensitive computers?” The answer came back a week later: “Mr. President, the problem is much worse than you think.” That led not only to a significant revamp of how computer security was handled at the Defense Department, but also passage of an anti-hacking law that would eventually evolve into our current Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Clips of WarGames were shown during the congressional hearings where lawmakers debated the need for hacking legislation.

[@maksphoto78]

I wonder what the world would have been like if this movie never came out.

[@MrLivewire1970]

I never heard that, but very interesting. I read that Reagan was haunted by the TV movie, The Day After. I remember we had to watch that in grade school, and I know the ending shook me up.

[@rexmundi2986]

Came to comments to explain this if no one else had; scary to think how weak the security was at that time. This movie performed an amazing, if unintentional, public service by pointing out our vulnerability at the time

[@SurvivorBri]

@@MrLivewire1970 the Genesis music video, "Land of Confusion" was inspired in part by that movie and Reagan's fear.

[@MrLivewire1970]

@@SurvivorBri I didn't know that and I watched that video a lot back in the 80s. It's cool to pick up these new bits of info.

[@captainchaos3667]

Dasha, look up Stanislav Petrov. He was a Russian air defence officer who prevented World War 3 and pretty much _actually_ saved the world by going against orders and ignoring a false launch warning.

[@johnmguzman7491]

"The man who saved the world."

[@ScarriorIII]

Between that and Vasily Arkhipov, we came too close at least twice and the thing saved us was a Soviet officer choosing to be an individual, that's irony.

[@PjRjHj]

And only a few months after the movie was released in the West

[@Cheepchipsable]

@@ScarriorIII Well he did what too many US soldiers would have done, hence the reason for the integration of the computer in the movie.

[@victorramsey5575]

True!

[@Smokie_666]

"General, you are listening to a machine! Do the world a favor and don't act like one." Having grown up in the 80's, not only is this one of my favorite quotes but I feel it becomes more relevant every day.

[@nicholasregan6526]

Oh I totally agree

[@SilentBob731]

If humans don't destroy themselves outright, their clever machinations will in the end.

[@raeldor]

As an 80's computer geek, this is my go-to movie．Nice to see it's still getting some love. Back in the days of pay phones you used to be able to send tones and pulses down the line; if you knew the correct sequences to send, you could get free phone calls. It was called 'phone phreaking'. That's what he was doing in the phone box.

[@carlosspeicywiener7018]

I miss the old days. My Walkman got me a lot of free calls.

[@stevematthews7686]

Would have been great if he had a Cap’n Crunch bosun whistle!

[@allisterfiend_2112]

I remember doing the 'war dialing' to get long distance card numbers to download games at the awesome maximum speed of 300 baud.

[@John_Locke_108]

​@@allisterfiend_2112And than Wi-Fi became standard in houses and people started doing "war driving" looking for open networks.

[@AlanCanon2222]

Yes, and the bit with the pay phone wouldn't actually work, the way he does it, which was by design on the part of the filmmakers, who definitely didn't want to get in trouble by depicting an actual phreaking method.

[@allisterfiend_2112]

Hey Dasha, someone might have mentioned this already. At 20:03, the payphone uses a system called 'ground start' to activate the phone line. All he did was find a piece of metal to short one of the phone lines to a ground line which started that dial tone. Things were so much easier to get away with back then.

[@TheAtkey]

One of my highschool teachers told us how when he was in college in the 50s or 60s the campus had large banks of payphones and back then you had to dial the operator and she would tell you to deposit the money and she would listen for to drop. He and his buddies figured out if they put the coins into the phone next to them she(it was almost always a woman) would still hear them. After he was done he would hang up his phone than hang up the one he was putting coins and and they would all come out. It was the only way he could afford to talk to his girlfriend and future wife at another school.

[@TLL1969]

Ah yes...age of the phreaks. :)

[@jamescase4986]

Eventually they started sealing the phone receiver so you couldn't twist them off easily

[@blueboy4244]

@@jamescase4986 one could still stick a wire directly thru one of the little holes though.. I..ummm.. heard

[@Trifler500]

"Wouldn't the computer pick up that there were multiple login attempts from the same IP address?" Not back then. You have to program the computer to count the number of attempts and tell it what to do if it reaches a certain number. Nobody programmed that back then. Also, he's calling using a phone modem, so there is no IP address. :)

[@Brian_Combs]

As a Russian you should be proud. A Russian in 1983 named Stanislav Petrov actually saved the world. He saw 5 incoming nuclear missles from the U.S. he refused to turn the key. It turned out to be an error. His decision saved every nuke on Earth from being launched.

[@markking8228]

"No one cares about your grades once you grow up" - 100% focus on social skills, everything else can be taught on the job.

[@chefsanders9151]

Dasha @21:05. LOL... that is SOOOO adorable. No-Fly lists didn't really exist until 911. The world before 911 was COMPLETELY different than it is now

[@techman2553]

Learning electronics in the 80's was so much fun ! Everything was simple lego blocks of circuits and functions, and if you learned the basics, you can take apart most gadgets and figure them out and have some idea of how to manipulate them. Now, everything is much more complicated, and yet you can do so much more with a handful of parts. Recording the tones from the door keypad and playing them back to open the door could have been possible if the door lock was using a simple DTMF decoder chip, which is basically the chip or lego block that can understand the audio tones and turn them into numbers. The chip wouldn't know the difference between the tones from the keypad or the tones from the tape recorder.

[@gizmoswr679]

My daughter was a USAF Missileer, she spent 3 years in a Minutemen III silo in North Dakota. She's in weather service now. When I was in the USAF 1976-2000, my job in Greenland was to detect those same missiles from the other side.

[@rbrtck]

David doesn't have an IP address, because he doesn't have an Internet connection. He connected directly through the phone network using a modem. The WOPR computer was programmed with a "back door" by Falken, so it probably didn't care about people logging in from strange phone numbers.

[@BigTroyT]

The "security" was simply not using a listed phone number. It never occurred to anyone that someone would "war-dial" all the phone numbers on an exchange, note the ones with modems, and then try each system - and of course, that's REALLY what was actually going on, even long after this movie came out. Computer security lagged WAY far behind, and didn't really START to get serious until the Internet started to allow public connections in the early 90s - and even then, early attempts were quite a bit less than 'robust."

[@SurvivorBri]

Dasha you are so intellectual. And you really feel things deeply. Not too many people get choked up at the part where we learn that Falcon's family died so tragically but that is a sad moment. Ally Sheedy's sensitivity to it was sweet.

[@Stogie2112]

"Wargames" reference in "Captain America: The Winter Soldier"! When Steve and Natasha walk into SHIELD's old underground control center, Natasha starts up the old computers. Computer: "Initiate system?" Natasha: "Shall we play a game? [looks at Steve] It's from a movie...." Steve: "Yeah, I know..."

[@Jskew]

So a really interesting part of REAL history, there was a Russian general in charge of nuclear missals and the radar went crazy showing American bombing them. He didn't feel right about it so he told his men to not fire the missals. It was a false alarm but if he had reacted differently it would have killed millions of people. His decision saved million of lives. Much love and keep on keepin on J.

[@BadHatHarry23]

Yes, his name was *Stanislav Petrov,* he was a lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Defence Forces who would end up playing a key role in the *1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident.* *Link:* en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov

[@Jskew]

@@BadHatHarry23 See more people should know these facts. People are good people sometimes judgment is wrong!

[@Roikat]

Actually he didn’t have authority to fire missiles, his job was to inform the Kremlin. Which he did not do, anticipating they would screw up. He made the right call, but got in substantial trouble for it.

[@Jskew]

@@Roikat We are all just lucky he was a good man at the end of the day.

[@eatsmylifeYT]

My son is in charge of the missals in the church he goes to.

[@YoureMrLebowski]

11:40 "Next time, just take her to movies." Dating by Dasha. 🥰

[@RiffHarvester]

1:05 "To the right of the launch room, there's a placard that reads 'ANY ONE URINATING IN THIS AREA WILL BE DISCHARGED'. In the previous scene, the arriving team says see you in 24 to the guard... Long shift = temptation to just use a bottle instead of going through exit protocols."

[@jonathanhill4366]

My dad was a n Air Force officer from the 50s to the 80s. I don’t think kids appreciate how scared we all were of nuclear annihilation. It seemed like it was right around the corner. I remember being in 4th grade stationed in Germany talking on the school playground about how the base we were on would be the first target the Russians would nuke when WWWIII happened. Glad it didn’t happen. A lot of the computer stuff was nonsense, but then also a lot of it wasn’t, and I think this movie is actually Important to how the USA thought about protecting its cyber systems.

[@jayeisenhardt1337]

Never have to be afraid if ya live close enough to base. Washington D.C. Andrews Air Force One all gonna be hit so hard you wont even know you're gone if they do hit. Would they even bother giving people a warning? Just seeing the president fly away then everything gone in an instant would probably be the first strike scenario. I guess the bit older or way further out thought they had a chance to survive.

[@blueboy4244]

@@jayeisenhardt1337 I grew up reasonably near a missile base - and yeah.. figured there was really no point in 'being prepared' as we'd be fried instantly anyway

[@userxl41drn301]

Yes. It was a good thing that the U.S. didn't start WWIII.

[@justindavison5920]

This movie is one of the most accurate depictions of hacking in a movie, most of what was done was actually plausible at the time. Things have obviously changed in 40+ years, but no other movie I have seen puts in the same amount of effort to be realistic instead of stylish.

[@Cheepchipsable]

At that time it was security by obscurity, and expense. Very few people knew how it worked or had the money to buy the equipment to do it. You needed a dedicated phone line too, otherwise you could not call or receive calls.

[@ghyslainabel]

1 thing that did not change is the human factor, like the password list in the drawer. Modern hackers pass more time to convince people to give them the passwords than to guess or brute force them.

[@mrwidget42]

The S-100 boards in the kid's computer were made where I was a software geek in the 80's. The CPU was a CompuPro 8/16 dual processor. I wrote the boot firmware for it.

[@gregorygant4242]

Must have been a small sized firmware not that firmware in general is big in size even today.

[@mrwidget42]

It was a 2708 EPROM, which was a 1Mbx8 memory array. It allowed 8 different processor families to each be allocated 1Kb for primary bootstrap, set by address bits 10-12 at the device. They were: 8080, 8085/8088, 8086, 80186, 80286, 68000, NS32016, and one left for expansion.

[@gregorygant4242]

@@mrwidget42 That's 4 mega bits right not M Bytes? The rest ,well you lost me there ,I'm not a computer geek . Could that chip be erased by sunlight as well because I know UV light erases it ?

[@mrwidget42]

Don't know why, but always thought 8Kb and put 2708 there. 2764 I blame Intel. UV light will erase it, which is why production chips always have opaque labels on top of the quartz.

[@BigTroyT]

His computer (first released in 1975) was fairly obsolete by the time this movie was made, but that actually makes some sense since most middle-class suburban kids wouldn't have a NEW multi-thousand-dollar computer with all the peripherals. Plus, the IMSAI 8080 is both a cool-looking rig AND wasn't all that well known among the general public, both of which made it a good movie prop. Had it been something more familiar and pedestrian - an Apple II or an IBM PC or a Commodore, there would have been less of a mystery and that might have hurt the movie some. Seeing a big box with a bunch of colored switches on it that you don't recognize was actually more convincing to the average person IMO.

[@norwegianblue2017]

Gotta love early 80s cyber security. Passwords were short, no numbers or special characters and zero encryption. "In 1983, several notable personal computers were available for sale, marking a significant year in the evolution of home computing. Here are some of the key models: Apple IIe: Introduced in January 1983, it featured 64 kilobytes of RAM, a 1 MHz 6502 processor, and included ProDOS and Applesoft BASIC1. IBM PC XT: An enhancement of the original IBM PC, it came with a 10 MB hard drive and 128 KB of RAM2. Commodore 64: Although released in 1982, it continued to be a popular choice in 1983 due to its affordability and extensive software library3. TRS-80 Models (aka 'Trash 80'): Radio Shack released several models in 1983, including the TRS-80 Model 100, Model 4, and Model 2000"

[@ironknuckle143]

Yep. Imagine a biography of you and your password is your son's name in 2024.

[@rbrtck]

@@norwegianblue2017 Modern passwords such as "123456", "abcdef", or "password" are still often easy to crack using a simple "dictionary" attack.

[@dennisboon6651]

@@rbrtck These are default passwords of a lot of routers and modems which people tend to forget to adjust. admin/admin admin/1234 etc etc

[@noneofyourbz4007]

Romy and Michelle hadn't finished their formulation of the sticky notes adhesive yet so that's why passwords had to be taped to secretary's desk.

[@BigTroyT]

"We invented Post-Its!"

[@gallendugall8913]

Fun Fact! The laws were so far behind the tech that nothing he did was technically illegal at that time. The US government did try to charge some hackers with "trespassing" but those cases got thrown out.

[@Cheepchipsable]

There could be espionage charges, depending where you were hacking.

[@ramstrong1961]

Matthew Broderick became famous playing Ferris Bueller (1986) and his girlfriend Jennifer played by Ally Sheedy became famous for her role in The Breakfast Club (1985)

[@Knight_Who_Says_Nee]

It was the combo of Ally Sheedy's "Breakfast Club" role, and her role in the first "Short Circuit" film about Johnny-5 the sentient robot, which also starred Steve Gutenberg.

[@BizzyX78]

----- @Non_Descript_Individual ----- - The 'Smoking'-joke always kills me... If you know, you know! -----

[@GetFitwithDogs]

About the moral dilemma of grades in this movie... While it *is* true that when you grow up people do not care so much about what grades you made - nor about how much effort you put into getting good grades - there is a much deeper truth at play. The thing you take with you as you exit school isn't so much the good grades... but the *effort* and the *discipline* you put in to get them. As an adult, your grades may not follow you around as much as it seemed they would when you were a kid, what does follow you around is the self-discipline and hard work you trained into yourself without even knowing it. That is invaluable when you're an adult. The lesson is to never regret working hard for grades that no longer matter, because the true achievement is working hard and achieving a goal.

[@GetFitwithDogs]

Jennifer is correct in the movie. Not just morally, but she isn't training herself to take shortcuts. She has her head on straight because she wants to travel through hardship to get to the actual reward of building herself up authentically.

[@Hexon66]

Absolute hogswollop. Secondary education in the USA has always been farcical. Initiative, discipline in one's own interests, *and valuing critical thinking* ,along with the lessons of social interaction, has always been more advantageous than gathering of arbitrary scoring of date memorization and the regurgitation of jingoistic history. Once they know most kids are beyond the age to blindly recite the pledge of allegiance indoctrination, grades are just a way of enforcing conformity.

[@GetFitwithDogs]

You sound very confused. I never spoke on the education itself, but on working hard to achieve a goal. You can certainly do that *outside* of traditional schooling as well, but that was never the point here. The point is that if you dedicate yourself to working hard towards good grades, while the grades themselves may be inconsequential later on, the discipline you exercised was beneficial to you. As someone who employs people, I don't care what someone's grades were, I care more about their work history and work ethic. It just so happens that there is a correlation between someone who worked hard to get good grades and who works hard at work.

[@gibbletronic5139]

​@@Hexon66 you really need to be more careful. If you continue revealing the truth about the education system, then your willful disregard for authority will go onto your PERMANENT academic record!

[@Norp-i7m]

Maybe the real good grades were the friends we made along the way.

[@joemaxwell3902]

I'm so glad Dasha did this one, it's such a thought-provoking movie.

[@Cheepchipsable]

Back then maybe, but all we thing about now is thank bog the auto dialler is illegal and how often people are being scammed and hacked...and the unwillingness of companies to do much about it.

[@timothyburrows9622]

A scenario close to this played out in the Cuban Missle Crisis. A Soviet sub (no communication from Mosow for days) thought war had broken out. However launch the missles required three people to give the order and a Soviet officer refused, they surfaced, and found out that there was no war. Had he given the order none of us would probably be here today.

[@CollideFan1]

Vasily Arkhipov was the executive officer on the B-59. He should be more famous than what he is, he did save the world from nuclear war after all.

[@Trifler500]

Sounds like the basis for the book+movie Crimson Tide.

[@Xanman64-p6q]

This movie cemented Allie Sheedy as my first celeb crush.

[@rbrtck]

Put butter on corn with the break is a pretty cool life hack--both get buttered more quickly and easily, which is nice.

[@shawnmiller4781]

Helps if it is cooked first

[@CharlieHarper-d4x]

Such a flashback to my childhood. 👍 Parenthood, high spirits, crazy people, short circuit 1+2 . All great underrated films from the 80s .

[@SilentBob731]

I'd add The 'Burbs and Stay Tuned, off the top of my head.

[@rickdeleon7386]

High Spirits! You're the only person I've ever seen mention it! I cackled out loud when Liam Neeson squawked about his "behoogies".

[@CharlieHarper-d4x]

@@rickdeleon7386 Iv got a decent 80s film collection on dvd . 👍

[@garychambers6848]

Meanwhile.....In real life........... Stanislav Petrov was a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Air Defence Forces who could easily have lived an accomplished but historically unremarkable life. But on 26 September 1983, an unforeseen set of circumstances led to him preventing nuclear armageddon and saving hundreds of millions of lives. On that fateful day, Petrov was working in a Soviet control centre when a warning system alerted him to a string of incoming American nuclear missiles. But rather than following orders and launching a counterstrike on the US, Petrov waited, and the warning was revealed to have been an error. Even in the tense history of close nuclear calls during the Cold War, Stanislav Petrov’s story stands out as especially terrifying. Arguably, given the scale of the disaster that his cool-headed heroism averted, his name should be more widely celebrated.

[@oaf-77]

Another similar 80s movie you might like is ‘Cloak & Dagger’ (1984)

[@FrancisXLord]

Bumping this comment. Cloak and Dagger stars Henry Thomas (Elliott in E.T.) and co-stars Dabney Coleman (McKittrick in Wargames). It's a Hitchcockian spy thriller for kids, made 17 years before Spy Kids. I don't expect Dasha will react to it, but we can but dream.

[@CaddyJim]

*#Dash** probably won't see this but her interest in the guys who have to turn the keys & what if they have a dilemma. I think she would enjoy learning how in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis Soviet naval officer Vasily Arkhipov prevented Soviet submarine B-59 from launching it's nuclear torpedo at US Navy ships, preventing Nuclear War*

[@davefranklin4136]

The movie is loosely based on the events of 9 November 1979, but the problem wasn't from an outside source. In NORAD/Cheyenne Mountain, exercise data was inadvertently routed to the various watch centers, but not tagged as exercise data. I was working in the mountain a few years later (~1985) on a program called SPADOC, and as a result of the 9 November 1979 event, we had to have two-person control on our test message media (big two-foot diameter disks) at all times. It was a major PITA. BTW, the tour thing is accurate too. Prior to 9/11 at least, there were always a couple of tours a day. We would have to suspend tests because of the unclassified tours. For another intriguing old movie (pre 1979) on the topic, see Fail Safe.

[@arraymac227]

A favorite film ever since it came out.

[@EusebioPerez-i4g]

Thank you for reacting to a great classic 80's movie.

[@davidludwig1492]

If you enjoyed this movie, you might like something a bit sillier. A movie called Spies Like Us. It's a movie made in 1985 starring Chevy Chase and Dan Akroyd. I'm sure you'd like it.

[@bjgandalf69]

Dasha, smart thinking about the idea of multiple attempts from the same IP address, however this film was made and takes place at least 15 years before the internet was something civilians could access.

[@TheMajorActual]

In the 80's, what the kid was doing was not unusual in the US. "Phone Phreaking" was definitely a thing - I knew people who could whistle tones through a common house phone and get access to a phone company maintenance trunk line; that's basically what he did to get out of the dispensary room, just using some tools. The payphone hack was also really common....These things were all very simple, if you knew how to do them -- which was why AT&T/Ma Bell and the FBI went crazy trying to find anyone who laid hands on a phone company technical manual.

[@Boomerbox2024]

"They did not detect multiple login attempts?" sounded so ADORABLE! The sentence trippingly off your tongue would have been a collection of meaningless nonsense sounds back then. This movie came about at the dawn of the age of personal computers. What computers were like back then was so different from anything you have experienced that you might not think they should be called computers at all.

[@Cheepchipsable]

No, computers were the same, just slower and less with CLIs rather than GUIs. The number was probably unlisted and only known to a few, which is why they didn't bother with counting login attempts. All of those functions took run time which was more expensive back then. It may have even locked him out, but just didn't inform him. Then reset after several hours. He didn't brute force his way in he used social engineering. Don't forget it's a movie and improbable things happen.

[@robertshields4160]

15:45 This is James Tolkan. He also played Principal Strickland in Back to the Future. Kids are always causing problems wherever he goes.

[@pvanukoff]

David Lightman is such a slacker.

[@Cheepchipsable]

Funny seeing so many recognisable actors in this movie from TV as well.

[@campagnollo]

“Wouldn’t the computer pickup multiple login attempts from the same IP address?” He was using a dial-up connection with an acoustic coupler modem so he was logging directly into the computer. Btw, the dial-up connection was 300bps. Today’s connection can go up to 1Gbps!!! Even WiFi is faster; 300Mbps.

[@shawnmiller4781]

We had the Atari cradle modem 200 hundred baud and if somebody slammed a door it would loose the signal. That modem has made a lot of movie appearances…..see Sneakera

[@philmullineaux5405]

The military guy in the opening scene.... Mr Blonde reservoir dogs! The list of movies from this director 80-90s is spectacular! Bird on a Wire, drop zone, short circuit, blue thunder, who's life is it anyway, American flyers, stakeout, point of no return, Nick of time, and others!

[@guitarman8462]

You must put " Empire Of The Sun " on your list. It's a #1 film by Spielberg . 👍

[@rbrtck]

David's computer was kind of old even by that time, but of course it was still usable. In this movie, he is only using it as a terminal (remote display and keyboard) to connect to other computers.

[@shawnmiller4781]

Yup. They went with the idea that it was older gear he was scrounging

[@rbrtck]

@@shawnmiller4781 I like that idea, as it emphasizes his resourcefulness. Ironically, however, the IMSAI 8080 would be a rare find these days, and probably worth several thousand dollars.

[@Itsjandz105]

Pretty remarkable that a movie from 1983 can ask the question about how much decision making should be taken out of the hands of human and handed over to machines? That questions is even more relavent today (driverless cars, AI etc). So ahead of its time.

[@Buskieboy]

Using a slice of bread to butter your corn is so genius! ☺

[@captainchaos3667]

Calling all phone numbers in an area code to find computers like that is called "war dialling", after this movie.

[@Chris_Marrero]

This was such a fun nostalgic reaction to watch! Glad you enjoyed it.

[@jahu5440]

Good old movie, nice to see Dasha's reaction.

[@scottdarden3091]

Dasha the movie isn't showing it, but the Russians would be seeing what the Americans are doing and they would be preparing for war also. So yeah they might not pickup the phone.

[@AlanCanon2222]

Also the Americans would be reluctant to explain the actual problem in detail, because it would reveal a strategic weakness (computer security).

[@scottdarden3091]

@@AlanCanon2222 and too much pride, to tell Russia we screwed up

[@khalidcabrero6204]

Why would the Soviets be seeing anything? This is all simulations inside NORAD computers. Unless they had spies on the inside, they wouldn't have seen anything. And, as the movie later reveals, they did call the Soviets, and the Soviets denied it. That call was probably the first the Soviets heard of anything going on.

[@Cheepchipsable]

They did speak to the Russians. The Soviets saw the planes scrambling, but not the trajectories on the screens, that was internal to the US computers. One of the Presidents would randomly scramble planes and have them fly toward the USSR then turn away, because he wanted to keep the Soviets scared by being unpredictable.(Either Eisenhower or Johnson IIRC)

[@JoeCool7835]

Fun fact: The robotic voice of "Joshua" was provided by John Wood, the same guy who played Dr. Falken.

[@Stogie2112]

NORAD is the acronym for "North American Aerospace Defense Command", the U.S./Canadian-led military organization that provides air and space defense warning systems for all of North America. The continental U.S. NORAD headquarters are located at Peterson Space Force Base near Colorado Springs, Colorado. The Canadian NORAD Headquarters are in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The Alaskan NORAD headquarters are at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, near Anchorage, Alaska. In the film, "Interstellar", we see what was left of NORAD when Joe and Murphy Cooper were taken by TARS inside the complex.

[@rbrtck]

Stanislav Petrov went through something like this in the Soviet Union in real life during the same year this fictional movie was released, saving the world in the process. He wasn't a hacker, but he did help prevent a nuclear war in his own way. Look his story up. He was neither rewarded nor punished for doing something that was supposedly wrong to save the world. No one was going to punish him, of course, but he could not be rewarded, either, because that would have meant punishing everyone who was wrong, including some high-ranking individuals, so nothing happened.

[@gibbletronic5139]

Dasha has already reacted to other Matthew Broderick classics like "Glory" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" but I can't be the only one who would like to see her reaction to "Addicted to Love" or "Ladyhawke." Geek culture really didn't take off until about twenty years ago. Before that, anybody who knew anything about computers was a total social outcast. This was a very different time to be alive. Computers were not well understood by the general public yet, so passwords were usually not properly secured. Also, there was virtually no security at airports, (anyone could greet new arrivals as they exited the plane) and the no-fly list didn't even exist at that time. And yes, all of the hacking tricks that were shown (making a phone call without money or using a tape recorder to jam an electronic lock) actually used to work. Another good early movie to watch about computers and hacking would be "Hackers" with Angelina Jolie.

[@BigTroyT]

Even if a "No Fly List" existed at that time, it would likely be 100% paper-based and would require mailing out updates to all the various airlines, meaning it would take weeks for a new addition to the list to make it out to the front lines.

[@robertmckenna3994]

The United States has never been at DEFCON 1 (at least not officially). The only two times the US has been at DEFCON 2 was in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and 1991 in the first days of Desert Storm.

[@gregorygant4242]

Does the US military still use that scale now ?

[@robertmckenna3994]

@@gregorygant4242 Yes, they are only occasionally announced publicly.

[@PaulthePhilosopher2]

Regarding "multiple login attempts from the same IP address", this was all before IP addresses existed. But true, this is bad security. For a direct dial system a much better security system would be to call the system, the system answers and then hangs up, then the system calls a preprogrammed phone number. Then it can do the logon procedure but only if you were calling in from the correct phone number in the first place, which at the time meant there was physical access security because phone numbers were hardwired to certain locations.

[@paulalexandredumasseauvan2357]

wow! this is an oldie, but goldie. enjoyed your reaction! 👍☺

[@Stogie2112]

18:35 "This kid is a genius....it's maybe for his own bad?" EXCELLENT. 👍👍

[@rbrtck]

@@Stogie2112 Yes, he's bored in school, but instead of doing something productive when he's ignoring his teachers and in his copious spare time, he causes trouble using his gifts. Why isn't he developing his own games instead of trying to steal them? This guy is lazy and subversive.

[@Stogie2112]

@@rbrtck .... He's still a child. An older child, but still a child. He represents millions of teenagers who go through the same phase. I've read studies that show how even adults, when presented with much idle time, tend to select "naughty" activities quite often. Idleness is the Devil's workshop! Bored people young and old tend to get into trouble.

[@rbrtck]

@@Stogie2112 Sure, all of that is true, and my point is that he's just a typical loser with a small amount of atypical knowledge of computers, not some kind of genius.

[@no2party]

I suggest checking out Enemy Mine for a really underrated 80's Science Fiction movie.

[@johndough8115]

Dasha, if you like this one, there is a somewhat similar film called "The Manhattan Project", where a genius kid, builds a Nuclear Bomb. Its quite good. Other than that, Id recommend "Spies Like Us" A comedy about nuclear war, starring Chevy Chase and Dan Ackroyd (actors from Ghostbusters / Vacation movies). "Real Genius" - Is a geeky comedy about a Genius Teen, that builds a high powered Laser. "The Saint" - Action movie about a Free Energy device (starring Val Kilmore, the same lead actor in Real Genius) And finally.. Two great younger kid starred action films: - Cloak and Dagger (Children get wrapped up in a dangerous Spy game) - Iron Eagle (Young Kid + his friends, Steals a military Fighter Jet, to try to save an important person) Id place The Manhattan Project last in my list of likeability... and Spies Like Us, first.

[@mickaelpagnier39]

Thanks for your channel, your work, your so sympathic naturalness !

[@lazyperfectionist1]

28:39 "Winner: None" And _that's_ the point. The underlying principle of nuclear brinksmanship is that the conventional principle of escalation means that a war between two nuclear superpowers has no winners, because it has no _survivors._

[@dr.burtgummerfan439]

Not every country subscribed to that philosophy. Some still don't.

[@periechontology]

His girlfriend here was the weird girl in The Breakfast Club (Allison)

[@kellymoses8566]

One major step of launching a US ICBM that they missed is the fuel valve code. Before launch the fuel needs to be pumped into the missile and the pipe has a closed valve that can only be opened by entering the correct code.

[@dennisboon6651]

I am guessing WOPR already took care of that. Don't overthink this. This is a movie.

[@MrLivewire1970]

I saw this at the Drive-in when I was 13. I've always loved this movie. I ended up working as an admin for a large insurance company. I ran a test environment and had a group of servers named from movies. WOPR, HAL and Sal 9000, Mother from Alien, and of course, Skynet.

[@pollyester303]

Just a light-hearted edge of an anilalation movie... Ha, the 80s... who's misses that time

[@susanlawens3776]

Vasily Arkhipov and Stanislav Petrov, two Russians officers who probably prevented WWIII. They refused to launch missiles, deducing that the information they received was probably wrong, and they were right.

[@stevenflogerzi1955]

No IP addresses back then, point to point modems using the analog phone system. 09:50 also they did not have no fly list's back then. 21:02

[@dennisboon6651]

TCP/IP was from the 70s and used in ARPANET later on. He just didn't have access to it.

[@DaveWraptastic]

Really cute that you think the US would call Moscow and be like: oh you are not doing anything? Okay thanks bye. As if they would trust anything the Soviets said, and vice versa for that matter

[@joekerr7975]

Dasha look up Vasili Arkhipov if you want to know how close we came to nuclear war in 1962!

[@tobaobokoomi1693]

He wanted a car for his birthday. He got a computer.

[@BigTroyT]

How's that for being born under a bad sign?

[@PjRjHj]

June 1983, WarGames premieres Sept 1983, Soviet lieutenant colonel Stanislav Petrov prevents a Soviet nuclear first strike

[@Rampage0303]

I loved arcades. To bad they are no longer around. When I was a kid we would go on the Black Sea for vacation and that was my favorite thing to do in the evening.😃

[@lmcgregoruk]

Pretty much died around the time of the Dreamcast, since Naomi Hardware was basically negligible in difference from a Dreamcast. I know NEO-GEO did that earlier, but that was far more expensive. PlayStation 1/Nintendo 64 era was probably when people started having near-arcade experiences in home consoles.

[@iainmulholland2025]

Now watch By Dawn's Early Light, older film but just as good.

[@gregorygant4242]

Dasha,the computers weren't sophisticated enough back in 1983 to detect multiple logon attempts like today . Great movie from the early 80's .

[@Cheepchipsable]

You mean software. They could do login attempts but either didn't bother because you would need to know the number which was probably unlisted, and it may have locked him out but simply not informed him. Those functions took CPU run time and space which was much more xpensive back then. Also he used a social engineering hack, not brute force.

[@gregorygant4242]

@@Cheepchipsable Also no internet back then no IP address he just connected directly to the main computer via phone signal.

[@Via-Moderna]

The computer he has is an IMSAI, and the reason it has switches all across the front is that it didn't use a keyboard and you had to set the switches to enter numbers. Also total memory size was usually 16k bytes. The movie used it as a prop because they thought it looked cool. The only think it was good for was to learn some basic programming concepts.

[@lurkerrekrul]

I don't know if the idea was invented for this movie, but after this movie came out, programs to make a computer automatically dial a series of numbers, looking for other computers, became known as "War Dialers". The act of using them was called "War Dialing". Ironically, this wouldn't have actually worked in the movie. David was using an acoustical coupler to play computer sounds into the phone and listen for the responses. While it COULD dial the number by playing the proper tones, it would have no way to hang up the phone in order to make the next call. For that, you needed a "modem" directly connected to the phone line, bypassing the actual phone completely. As for security, back in the late 80s, I heard about a local phone number that was supposedly connected to a digital sign somewhere. I called it once, it connected and I got a command prompt. I tried typing a couple things, but didn't know what I was doing, so I just hung up. There wasn't even a password on it.

[@ButchPerdition]

Great reaction. Watching it in theaters was a trip when I was 7 years old. 😊

[@dogawful]

The not knowing how to swim thing always cracked me up. While there is Lake Washington to swim in on the east side of Seattle, people don't really go swimming in Puget Sound. It's really cold all year round. Even if you were a strong swimmer, you'd get hypothermia. If you somehow could survive the cold, you'd likely be taken way off course by the current. I know it's just for laughs in the movie of course. I did take that ferry years ago. I see it from a distance when I walk the hills at Chambers Bay.

[@lazyperfectionist1]

8:38 "It doesn't _identify_ itself." And that should _tell_ you something, David.

[@ChurchOfTheHolyMho]

"He's got the launch codes!" - well the actual US missile launch code had been "00 00 00 00" In 2004, one of the guys who used to turn the keys (Dr. Bruce G. Blair) wrote a memo that "00000000" was the actual code for approximately 20 years (so, like 1962-1978? (or later?)) The "00000000" story was picked up and reported in several places in 2013, and the US government responded in 2014 and basically said ~"um. no it wasn't." In 2015, Dr. Bruce G. Blair (Princeton University) responded basically with ~"then explain these facts." lol. (if I got some minor details wrong - simply check out any of the articles... )

[@TheAtkey]

20:04 There wasn't a no fly list in the 1980s it wasn't until 1996 that you had to have an ID that matched the name on the ticket. Friends and family used to be able to come right to the gate to see you off or welcome you when you arrived. One of my fondest memories was when my aunt and uncle meeting us at the airport after our flight arrived 7 or 8 hours late the board just said delayed and my aunt hugged us so hard. A passenger had a heart attack or something and we had to make an emergency landing halfway there. They probably wouldn't allow this anymore but we were advised to say on the plane but weren't made too I think the onboard bathroom couldn't be used on the ground or my mom and sister didn't want to use it so they left and went into the terminal and on the way back to the gate they realized they forgot their boarding passes they told the ladies at the gate and they just responded "that's all right go ahead"

[@groneberg7385]

My guess is yes, David will still be in trouble even if he saved the world in the end. But not officially, they can't make it public that a 16-year-old kid broke in their systems. He would likely end up in an unofficial Prison. The Clever way to handle it would be to let him go, pay for his education, keep an eye on him and hire him afterward.

[@lnwolf41]

This was a time when home computers were just starting to come to the public, so actual security measures were rather poor. when he activated the payphone, there were a group of people that figured out a way to trick the phone lined by clicking the disconnect button in a certain sequence, so you could make long distance phone calls for free. (they were called phone freaks) There are 2 other movies made before this one @ Fail Safe, during a war game, a relay burnt out, and a bomber thinks it is on a real mission. 2nd movie @ Clouses, The Forbin Project, a computer system designed to run all military operations for the U.S, it is sealed deep under a mountain, they switch over to it and it finds the Soviet Union has done the same thing, they both talk, to each other, and things go crazy. Both are very good movies.

[@LessellGibbs]

Fun fact: Shortly after Wargames was released in Cinemas in Australia High School kids all over Sydney started using the phone hack, and it worked! Of course the phone company was quick to fix the issue with a simple price of insulation. Ps. Love your reactions, great work.

[@saaamember97]

Stanislav Petrov and Vasily Arkhipov should both be celebrated as American heroes too. Or, even World heroes, for that matter! I was in the U.S. Air Force, during the last years of the cold war, and they saved millions of lives.

[@chrism7395]

25:00 fun fact: the jeep crash is real; the stunt driver was meant to crive straight through the gate, but it got tangled up in the wheels and caused it to lose control

[@MathMan271]

Just to clear up something: The Payphone YES that was a real thing. NO it was NOT something called "phreaking," which is entirely different. all you needed to do back in the day was connect the ( - negative) inside the mouthpiece to the internal common ground of the box. it was the reason the phone companies started making them all one piece so you couldn't unscrew them (although you could still do it through the mouthpiece holes for a while until they changed it). Parents used to do it all the time when they were younger, and i even did it once myself.

[@earlbrown]

Not mayo. He was spinning his corn on buttered bread.

[@positivelynegative9149]

Films that deal with the Cold War are lost on kids these days. They simply can't understand the impact it had on daily life.

[@Cheepchipsable]

Of course not.

[@Beddoe42]

Great Reaction ! For more Matthew Broderick I suggest 'Biloxi Blues' (1988). It also stars Christopher Walken.

[@BKPrice]

This movie shows how important the advancement of the computer game industry is. It has prevented entertainment-starved nerds from hacking into government agencies and nearly starting a nuclear war simply because they wanted to play a video game.

[@rasmuswi]

Very few people had a modem in 1983 so they could let their computer call another computer. Which means very few would have tried to randomly hack other peoples computers. Which means security wasn't considered very important. It was common for large computer systems to ship with no administrator password at all, and let the buyer set a password. If they wanted to, not everyone did. It's also fascinating that he uses so many techniques that were in common use back then, like tricks to call for freee from payphones, recording touch tone sounds and replay them, and so on.

[@arraymac227]

'...from the same IP address.' Thinking that IP addresses and the 80s overlapped: priceless. UPDATE: Mainstream IP addresses being mainstream since only standardized in September 1981.

[@bruinbro23]

Matthew Broderick in 3 good movies in 80s, this in 1983, then Ferris Bueller's Day off in 1986, then Project X in 1987, him same so smart gets him in trouble! With young Helen Hunt, (Cast Away/Twister), with smart chimpanzees in Air Force, a secret project, will really like it! Breakfast Club movie, Ally Sheedy is Alison it in, quiet, makeup at end. She's too in 3 80s movies, this 83, Breakfast Club 85, and St. Elmo's Fire 85. This movie has 3 in Breakfast Club movie, kind of like a sequel, just graduated in college, 7 close friends trying for careers, great soundtrack, she has short hair in it. Looking as beautiful as ever 💕

[@Stogie2112]

"Glory" (1989) is his best film, IMO.

[@josephamesdacey6442]

Theres an awesome documentary called "the man who saved the world" about how a Russian soldier was in the situation in the beginning

[@rbrtck]

David: "Please stop playing the game." Joshua (WOPR): "As you wish, Professor Falken." Movie is over. 😄

[@pippilongstockingfan]

15:49 That's the principal from "Back to the future". Jesus, didn't that guy ever have hair?

[@MattB2603]

I don't think he ever had hair. He's been bald his whole life.

[@Stogie2112]

James Tolkan also played Commander Jardian, Maverick's and Goose's CO in "Top Gun".

[@chadhapps4805]

The year after the cuban missile crisis, 1963, the Moscow-Washington hotlne was established which is a direct line of communication between the pentagon and the Russian ministry of defense to have direct communication to help prevent nuclear war from srarting because of incorrect information or misunderstandings