Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site linus.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!smk
From: smk@linus.UUCP (Steven M. Kramer)
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: War Games (definitely a spoiler)
Message-ID: <26930@linus.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 28-Jun-83 00:32:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: linus.26930
Posted: Tue Jun 28 00:32:42 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 28-Jun-83 01:36:55 EDT
Organization: MITRE Corp., Bedford MA
Lines: 33

I'm with you.  I'm mad that I paid my $2 (a matinee) and didn't get
a realistic account of how to blow up the world.  My note pad came
up blank.  My autodialer has been going full blast and the only
numbers I've obtained from Sunnyvalle (I'm up to 3456 on the prefix)
is the computer of a games company that is supposed to put a new
product on the market on Christmas!
	---
COME OFF IT!  What do you expect, the writers to be PhD's in CS?
Their profession is writing.  As far as being realistic, they had
a great many realistic things there.  The state-of-the-art had been
reached in many areas (like the voice synthesizer -- we have one --
and autodialers -- although I wouldn't have believed it 1.5 years ago myself)
although one of the fatal flaws is expecting a 1972-3 vintage (the
guy died in 73 remember??) machine to still be operational and expecting
the machine to learn that fact on its own ...

	Being a person who gets PAID to penetrate operating systems
(don't worry, it eventually comes from your tax dollars and helps
guard against OTHER who would do the same but get paid thru ANOTHER source),
I could see many things that occured as happening.  In net.unix-wizards,
many people are beginning to wake up to the idea of computer security.
The idea of authentication, Trojan horses (called trap doors in the movie),
physical security, modem control, overriding are ideas that are
brought out in the movie.  Whether or not they are truly realistic
utterances of these concepts, how secure is your system??

	Give them a break.  It was good entertainment!

	No flames please.  Send them to /dev/[dn]ull
-- 
--steve kramer
	{allegra,genrad,ihnp4,utzoo,philabs,uw-beaver}!linus!smk	(UUCP)
	linus!smk@mitre-bedford						(ARPA)