critic@ihuxk.UUCP (07/05/83)
i saw wargames again over the long weekend, and enjoyed it even more now that i knew to watch for such things as the "urinating in the hall" sign and the "prophylactic recycling plant". i noticed two more bugs (which i tend to think of as self-inconsistencies, not just things we know can't be done). the first occurs when David first makes contact with jason, and is typing one-line commands on his terminal. the WOPR always responds as soon as the carriage return is typed, but on one occasion, david types a command split over two lines (actually, two separate sentences), and the WOPR waits until he is done typing the second line. sure, he could have typed a quoting character before the carriage return, but you know he didn't. the second occurred at NORAD. david is left alone in an ofice with a terminal. he logs on, and jason responds AUDIBLY ! now, even if you could swallow the voice synthesizer back at his place, you can't explain one at NORAD (none of the other terminals connected to Jason had a voice synthesizer) (it also spoke in the same tone of voice...so the two synthesizers had to have the same design). i agree with all the objections about the airline ticket. first of all, how did they (FBI) trace the reservations back to him? if they did connect them to him, then why didn't they pick jennifer up for questioning? why wasn't her phone tapped? if falken's island was "his land", why did the ferry stop there? all the systems shown had only passwds, not login/passwd pairs. is this common? (but i LOVED the movie anyway! and those two nerdly hackers were great, in particular when one tells the other "remember when you asked me to tell you when you're acting inconsiderately..."). Alexis Porras ihuxk!alexisp