Analysis of Ethics in Film - WarGames

The film WarGames is about a teenager (Matthew Broderick) named David Lightman who tries to hack into the system of a company who makes computer games, so he can play the games for free. He thinks he accesses the computer company's site when he sees a list with games such as Chess and Backgammon, but the list also has games that David doesn't recognize, such as "Global Thermonuclear War". David decides to play "Global Thermonuclear War", and he has a choice to play as the U.S. or the Soviet Union, so he chooses the Soviet Union. He then gets to choose what cities in the U.S. he wants to hit with nuclear missiles. As it turns out, David actually hacked into the WOPR, a war-game at NORAD that simulates attacks so the U.S. can be ready if the Soviets try to attack. When the computers at NORAD showed that the "Soviets" had launched their weapons and were going to attack the U.S., they thought it was real, and did not know that someone had hacked into the system...but even when they caught David, they thought he was working for the Soviets and that the attack was real. David stops playing the game, but the computer (Joshua) continues to play--its ultimate goal is to win the game.

The ethical issue in this film is hacking. David hacked into his school's computer system to change his grades, he hacked into a travel agency and booked 2 plane tickets to Paris, and then the biggest of all was that he hacked into the WOPR at NORAD.

In this film, the media just reported what they believed to be true--which was that the U.S. thought they were going to be attacked by the Soviet Union. Since NORAD believed this to be true also, the media had no reason to suspect otherwise.

I think the ethical issue would've been more realistic back when this movie was made than it is now. Back in the early 1980s, computer systems probably were not as secure as they are now, so it would not have been that difficult to hack into. The way David hacked into the system did not seem all that complicated, which makes it seem somewhat realistic that it could actually happen--back then at least. I believe that if the movie had been made in the past several years, he would not have been able to hack in that way because the system would've been more secure.

I think this film might make people think they can hack into a system like NORAD's since it did seem rather simple.

The law enforcement officials in this movie were jerks. They would not listen to anything David had to say, and they wouldn't hardly even listen to Dr. Falken, who is the one who created the WOPR. They actually thought that David was working for the Soviets. They didn't even look into what David was telling them to see if he was telling the truth. I believe in reality, the law enforcement officials would've at least checked in to what David was saying.

I would hope that someone could not hack into a system like NORAD's now. I admit that I was a bit on edge when David was hacking in and playing the "game".