CACM_JOCCH_one-third_page_vertical:Layout 1 7/30/09 5:50 PM Page 1
ACM
Journal on
Computing and
Cultural
Heritage
Programming,
once the less-
rigorous realm
of “computing”
women, turned
into an intellectual
endeavor whose
most important
participants are
stereotyped as
exceptional, young
white men.
Hacker, but the perverse logic of the
militarized establishment and the bureaucratic, inflexible cogs that enforce
order within it. “The only way to win is
not to play,” is the moral—the film is
essentially a less artful “Doctor Stran-gelove” with a happier ending and an
upbeat, youthful protagonist.
◆◆◆◆◆
JOCCH publishes papers of
significant and lasting value in
all areas relating to the use of ICT
in support of Cultural Heritage,
seeking to combine the best of
computing science with real
attention to any aspect of the
cultural heritage sector.
of innovation. This is the Hacker as
portrayed in movies like “WarGames,”
“Hackers,” and “The Social Network.”
Yet the Hacker can also be a shadowy criminal, a libertine with arcane
and frightening powers, as shown in
films like “The Net,” “Swordfish,” and
“Takedown.” While these two depictions may appear disparate, in fact
they are two sides of the same coin.
The Hacker is hyper-competent, valuable, and ingenious. The Hacker is also
a rogue, but rogues can be tolerated to
a limited extent—and when the Hacker
steps over the line, repercussions come
crashing down. But most importantly,
whether the Hacker is a hero or a villain, he always has the same over-driven personality, and he always looks the
same: young, white, male.
Yet the portrayal of a rogue individual intruding on a computer system
turned out to be the film’s most influential legacy. In 1983 “WarGames” inflamed Capitol Hill with anti-hacker
panic, fulfilling its own stereotype of
a technologically incompetent establishment. Six different anti-hacking
bills were introduced that year, and
Congress was not bashful about the
impetus for legislative change—a
Congressman opened one of the first
hearings by playing a four-minute clip
from the movie. The first iteration of
the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
(CFAA)—already problematically overbroad, but fated to become worse over
time—passed in 1986.
By 1988, the CFAA was used against
25-year-old hacker Kevin Mitnick in
his initial arrest and conviction—one
of the first prosecutions under the new
statute—triggering a series of events
that would play out into a decade-long
drama during which he became a fugitive in a highly-publicized pursuit by
law enforcement.
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“WarGames” (1983), the first “
hacker movie,” was not really a hacker movie. Its novel depiction of unauthorized
database entry and phone phreaking
left a deep impression on moviegoers
of that era. The hacking is merely a plot
device to get at the real core of the film:
A critique of the Cold War and mutually assured destruction.
Mitnick’s real-life ordeal embod-ies the ever-present blurring of fact
and fiction within the Hacker Myth.
His prosecution was dogged by the
shadow of “WarGames”—according
to Mitnick, the prosecution convinced
the judge that the young man had the
power to “launch a missile by whistling
into a phone.” A claim so obviously absurd Mitnick later suggested that the
judge couldn’t have possibly believed
it, but had seized on an opportunity to
“make an example” of him.
Although his accidental breach of
NORAD sets off a chain of events that
nearly leads to an outbreak of world
war, Matthew Broderick’s character is
depicted as an innocent party trying
to do the right thing, despite adult au-
thority figures who seem determined
to misread his intentions as malicious.
The real enemy in the movie is not the
If the government really made
such a claim, it was no doubt influ-
enced by journalist John Markoff’s
highly controversial statements that
“WarGames” itself was inspired by
Mitnick’s intrusions into NORAD
(something Mitnick has denied he ever
did).
The details of Mitnick’s case, both
truth and wildly improbable speculation, would feed media representations
