fike@psuvax.UUCP (06/21/83)
I went to go see WAR GAMES two nights ago and loved it.
I work for a defence contractor and could relate to a lot
of the red tape and combination locks at NORAD. Except for
a few scenes, the flick was realistic. I'm sure that those
people who are not computer or defense buffs would have a
very easy time believing what they saw.
My only question is: Why didn't Jacob launch the missle
after he had executed the command
to play tic-tac-toe ???
Respond: {allegra,burdvax}!psuvax!fike
brian fikedyer@wivax.UUCP (Stephen Dyer) (06/25/83)
True, there are lots of inaccuracies in "War Games", but what impressed me most was how faithfully it presented the hackers' computer culture. The movie's tone rang true, even if some details were incorrect (like the fact that his IMSAI's CRT just happened to use the same graphics protocol as WOPR, or that his ASCII-to-VOICE synthesizer didn't pronounce his typing--only WOPR's responses.) Ah, expediency!
bsw@cbosgd.UUCP (06/27/83)
With out a Spoiler, The movie was one of the best films I've ever seen (though a trifle unbelievable.). I liked this movie far better than Return of the Jedi. Plot and acting was good, and it was very action pact. Well, That my opinion anyway, Ben Walls cbosgd!bsw
TOPAZ:fantods@ucbvax.UUCP (06/27/83)
I can see where you have cause for complaint about the technical veracity in WarGames, but as far as movies go, it's no worse, and much better, than Star Wars. Space ships shouldn't act like they're in an atmosphere when they fly around making tight inertialess turns and going "WHOOSH! ROAR!" in a vacuum. I'd say that 2001 was the last movie that attempted definite veracity as far as outer space or computers went. WarGames comes somewhat closer than most. It's also a sugar-coated propaganda flick. That's what its maker intended. He was tired of leftist filmakers making films that only leftists, or strongly anti-war people, or what-have-you, would go to see. Why preach to the converted? So he made this movie to catch people at least nominally unawares, and come away feeling good about stopping nuclear holocaust. Everyone enjoyed the anti-war sentiment at private screenings except the high government officials he showed it to. They got all grumpy.
smk@linus.UUCP (Steven M. Kramer) (06/28/83)
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)joe@cvl.UUCP (06/28/83)
"COME OFF IT! What do you expect, the writers to be PhD's in CS?" No, I don't. But I wish I'd had the time to write down the names of all the well-respected firms that appeared at the end in the list of "technical advisors." I sure wouldn't trust them to tell me anything about computers.
welsch@houxu.UUCP (06/29/83)
I have read a number of reviews denouncing the movie because it is not realistic. The reviews are so strong that I wonder if the reviewers are afraid that the movie is too realistic. I find I can either find reasonable explanations for many of the objections or I am willing to give the director dramatic license. For example some "experts" have claimed the the baud rate that the hero's terminal is running at could not possibly have been as fast as shown in the movie. First, do we really expect an audience to sit there while the data comes up at 300 baud. Second, the terminal was not directly connected to the modem, but passed through a personal computer. The personal computer could certainly have driven the terminal at the speed given. Another example, the speech synthesis. The "experts" say WOPR couldn't possible have driven the unit. True, but who says the kid's personal computer couldn't have driven it. After all it was the hero who turned it on. The next claim is how secure our systems are. No kid could possibly break into them. I hope your right, but remember the military is where "Murphy's Law" came from and the term SNAFU. Face it, if there is a way to screw something up the military will probably find it. As for security, I recall a recent episode described on 60 minutes where a person stole top secret information from TRW, by walking out the door to buy some liquor. His big problem was bringing the secrets back to TRW. The same person later literally walked out of prison. Finally, the "experts" don't like the computer types shown. The computer types shown here were certainly more realistic than the hackers in TRON. To me they were diverse and funny. Cann't people laugh at themselves. In conclusion, I hope the film was not "realistic." I don't want the world to end in global thermal nuclear war. Larry Welsch
waltt@tekecs.UUCP (06/29/83)
If it was entirely technically correct, you wouldn't have a story, would you?%%EOF%%
caf@cdi.UUCP (07/02/83)
Don't expect Tron to be realistic any more than Alice in Wonderland. Tron is an allegory about "wheels", not science fiction. BTW, has anybody ever commented on the ethical issue of Flynn (the hero) using company computer time to develop his OWN games which he was planning to sell himself?? -- Chuck Forsberg Computer Development Inc Portland OR cdi!caf (503)-646-1599
pyle@ut-ngp.UUCP (07/02/83)
I saw Wargames this afternoon and thought it was quite good. Some
random comments:
As noted in someone else's message, I wish film-makers would quit
having equipment explode/short when a logical impasse is reached.
Of course, the impact of a CRT displaying an error message would be
substantially less on the general viewer.
As to the existence of a dial-up line, there was a brief mention made
by one of the FBI types that it was a connection that existed during
the development and testing of WOPR (aka Joshua) for use by one of the
contractors and that the phone company had screwed up and not removed
it as ordered. Of course, someone should have checked for just this
sort of oversight.
There was some very good casting, particularly in the two guys our hero
consults in the university (I assume) computer center early in the film.
I also liked the NORAD general (takes a plug of Redman just as things
start to heat up and later "I'd piss on a sparkplug if I thought it would
do any good.")
Keith Pyle . . .!decvax!eagle!ut-ngp!pyle
. . .!ucbvax!nbires!ut-ngp!pyle
pyle@utexas-11davidl@orca.UUCP (David Levine) (07/22/83)
I just returned from the late show of "War Games" and it seems
only appropriate to do a little late-night dialing-in, so I think
I'll send in a quick review and some observations before I go to
bed.
I liked it a lot! In fact, it was better than I'd expected after
reading about it on the net. I particularly liked the fact that
it made you laugh and cry without the more manipulative heart-
string pulling of "E.T." It had realistic bits (for example, the
jeep bit... in many other movies the jeep would have been able to
do that without undue problems, but here it caused realistic
effects, given strengths of materials) that made it believable,
and the unrealistic aspects of the computers (such as the fact
that modems in the film were more melodious than they really are)
were acceptable given the intended audience. I think this film
compares very favorably with "E.T." How does it compare with
RotJ? I'll reserve judgement until I've seen RotJ again.
Now on to the nitpicking details we are all so fond of...
That the kid had eight-inch disk drives I find acceptable. The
larger drives are older technology and therefore cheaper. I'm a
little less willing to accept the fact that he had a fast Diablo
printer (OK, we only heard it, but Diablo got credit for
providing hardware...), especially since he was using an olive-
drab (Army surplus???) acoustic modem. (He was at about 38,400
baud, but that issue's been dealt with elsewhere...)
Did you notice that the President's phone number was "dit-dit-
dit-daah" (the opening bars of Beethoven's Fifth, the "Victory"
symphony)? I also caught the bit about the prophylactic-
recycling facility (somebody else pointed that bit out on the net
a while ago).
Was the Professor's cryptic comment about "See path. Follow
path, find gate, open gate," some sort of unix-wizard in-joke?
Or am I reading too much into that?
It is entirely believable (not to mention necessary for the
audience) that a high-school hacker should have a voice synth
hooked up to the input from the modem. It's also reasonable that
the Government should have a voice synth on their big whopper
computer. But the same voice? Again, necessary for the
audience's comprehension.
Some of the above comments may seem a little cryptic (jeep,
Professor, whopper) but I'm just trying to avoid putting in any
spoilers. I HATE spoilers.
Now, how about a nice game of chess?
-- David D. Levine (...decvax!teklabs!tekecs!davidl) [UUCP]
(...tekecs!davidl.tektronix@rand-relay) [ARPA]
P.S. While driving home from the movie, I thought of a fiendishly
simple way to steal someone's password in Un*x...liu@fluke.UUCP (Jonathan Liu) (08/12/83)
Wargames unrealistic? I just heard on the news this morning that 12 people around the country are being charged with misuse of home computers. These incidents involved both business and government systems, and include a case in which someone broke into the computer of the Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory in New Mexico. I'm sure the evening paper will have more details. Jon Liu @John Fluke Mfg. Co. (summer intern)