knudsen@ihnss.UUCP (06/29/83)
Shortly before WarGames came out, everyone at Bell Labs got a notice about cleaning up our computer security personal practices. The first item mentioned was "Don't write down your password or access codes in an obvious place" (like the school principal did in WG). Second was "Don't use spouse's or kid's names for passwords; anyone who knows you well can guess those" (like ... hey, no spoilers!). Overall, I was impressed with the realism... like "It's deleted the whole password file" (you know, as in /etc/passwd). LIsten, compared to the usual computer SF flick, this film is solid. Most others were written and directed by the same acid-head who built the WOPR set (yes, I laughed out loud when I saw that...here, 2001 should have been borrowed from, to get graphics scrrens instead of flashing lites). As for those university computer hackers, I got a Master's from MIT and I recognized a few people in those two parodies. I think their dramatic purpose was to convince the girl that David wasn't really such a NURD after all! In summary, this movie seemed real because it draws on lots of "war stories" and legends and culture of the computing world itself, INSTEAD of feeding incestuously on the cultures of SF (bad SF, I mean), TV, and pop culture. And I didn't find it anti-technology (I'm sensitive about that too, Lauren), but rather "Let's be careful how we use it!" mike k