Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!genrad!decvax!watmath!bstempleton From: bstempleton@watmath.UUCP Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers Subject: Re: Comments on WARGAMES Message-ID: <5456@watmath.UUCP> Date: Mon, 27-Jun-83 13:00:06 EDT Article-I.D.: watmath.5456 Posted: Mon Jun 27 13:00:06 1983 Date-Received: Tue, 28-Jun-83 04:49:54 EDT Lines: 28 We read that the "humans are fallible and should be replaced by computers" issue is only dealth with in the first 10 minutes of War Games. This is true directly, but underneath I don't think it's hard to understand why you don't want a computer capable of launching all the missiles. And it particular why you don't want a russian one. Let's face it - there are bugs everywhere. Bugs crop up on code you "know" to be bug free. War Games could not get this message through to the public which doesn't understand programming, so the routine they chose (this is fantasy, remember) was to have a dormant AI program resident in the computer which was given missile control. A movie where they give missile control to a computer and a bug causes a big launch would provide no drama, and they have to have drama or they have no movie. Instead we got what I thought was a much better than expected treatment of computers. Sure AI is not that advanced (and wasn't in the seventies) and sure they would not use the games computer as the missile control computer, but that's the SF part. For those of you who wonder about the ability to login with just a single name, I have heard the DoDs concept of a secure computer is one in a locked room with armed guards and no remote logins. At this point, no passwords needed either, except for priviledged accounts. War Games tries to point out that this was the case, and they ordered TelCo to remove all incoming lines, and they screwed up. -- Brad Templeton - Waterloo, Ont. (519) 886-7304