10 Films That Shaped The Course Of History
2. WarGames (1983)
The invention of computers and networks in the 1980s didn’t come without its handicaps; along with all the benefits of moving systems of operation ‘online’, there came with it the risk compromise. This phenomenon became known as hacking.
Landing in pop culture in 1983 with John Badham’s film WarGames, this science fiction tells the story of a 17-year-old school kid who hacks into the Pentagon’s computer network, nearly triggering a nuclear World War III.
In some of the tensest moments in cinema, the closing moments of the play show a panicked Pentagon hall as the DEFCON nuclear war preparedness level increases rapidly from 5 to an unprecedented 1. Perhaps the most impactful scene of the movie, however, is when after this the computer runs all options for its nuclear war tactics and concludes that the “only winning move is not to play”.
Whether it was its exposure of the ease with which a military network can be hacked or the lose-lose nature a nuclear war scenario, the film shook the world, including President Reagan, who was so traumatised by it that it caused him to set up the first Presidential directive on computer security, NSDD-145.
More ironically perhaps, is the fact that the film inspired a generation of young hackers, including 16-year-old Bill Landreth, a convicted felon hacker placed on probation, who upon the release of his ‘memoirs’, mysteriously disappeared…