After finally overcoming the communication problems associated with talking to the other side of the world, we're joined by Mike Talks for a discussion about WarGames, the film that did for the 80s what Hackers did for the 90s, yet somehow without feeling anywhere near as dated as the latter.
It's an enjoyable film with plenty to celebrate, and plenty of relevant discussion points including how humans interact with artificial intelligence, and the many obvious security vulnerabilities that are on display. However we don't neglect our duty in highlighting some very disturbing gender roles, and we reluctantly stray onto the topic of Donald Trump.
Along the way, the team talk through their childhood gaming and programming experiences, Mike shares some (non-classified) military IT stories, Dan proposes an unlikely trilogy of technology films, and Neil gets sidetracked by background details as usual.
Oh, and if you've got an Amazon Echo, Google Home or Siri-enabled device in earshot, you're probably going to want to disable its microphone for the duration of this episode. We didn't, and paid the consequences.
References:
- Mike blog post: Programming - it was acceptable in the 80s...
- Wikipedia: Official Secrets Act
- Wikipedia: Korean Air Lines Flight 007 (shot down in 1983)
- Wikipedia: Able Archer exercise
- Wikipedia: 1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident (Stanislav Petrov)
- Wikipedia: Strategic Defense Intiative ("Star Wars")
- Wikipedia: Ditchling
- Wikipedia: Cuban Missile Crisis
- Box Office Mojo: 1983 US Box Office figures
- Roger Ebert's WarGames review
- Leonard Maltin's WarGames review
- Wikipedia: 8-inch floppy disk
- YouTube: Clip referred-to as the Tomorrow's World clip (it was actually the Thames TV show Database)
- Wikipedia: Micro Men (docu-drama about the birth of home computing)
- Wikipedia: The Computer Programme (1982 BBC instructional series about home computing)
- Wikipedia: Non-repudiation
- WhatIs.com: Four-eyes authentication principle
- YouTube: South Park - Cartman triggers Siri/Alexa/Google Home
- YouTube: Montage of Star Trek self-destruct sequences
- Gizmodo: Google anti-diversity memo
- YouTube: Thunderbirds "woman driver" scene
- Weta Workshop: Studio Tour
- Wikipedia: DEFCON levels
- Wired article mentioning John Lennon's proposed WarGames role
- Check Point: Overview of the Havij hacking tool
- YouTube: Troy Hunt - "Hacking is child's play - SQL injection with Havij by 3 year old"
- sqlmap
- Kali Linux
- Time.com: Avril Lavigne is the celebrity most likely to give you a virus
- Never Say Never Again - Domination videogame showdown
- Wikipedia: Zero-sum game
- Memory Alpha: Kobayashi Maru scenario
- Wikipedia: Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD)
- Neil's tweet of 120 different maneuver names from WarGames
YouTube trailers for films and TV shows mentioned:
- Return of the Jedi
- Octopussy
- Never Say Never Again
- Deutschland 83
- The Americans
- The Day After
- Threads
- When The Wind Blows
- The Terminator
- Colossus the Forbin Project
- Terms of Endearment
- Flashdance
- Trading Places
- Saturday Night Fever
- Staying Alive
- Superman III
- Fail Safe
- 2001: A Space Odyssey
- The Computer Programme episode 1
- The Last Starfighter
- Doctor Who: Genesis of the Daleks
- Hackers
- Swordfish
- Whiz Kids
- Automan
- Tron
- Mad Max
- WarGames: The Dead Code (terrible 2008 sequel)
- Star Trek: Discovery
- Blade Runner 2049
In two weeks, we'll be venturing into the world of James Bond for the first time, to discuss Pierce Brosnan's first outing as 007, GOLDENEYE!
Twitters: @TestSheepNZ @ScreenTesting @TheTestDoctor @neilstudd
Emails: [email protected]
Intro music: Arthur B. Rubinstein - WarGames Intro Theme Outro music: Arthur B. Rubinstein - Edge of the World
