Of course, someone probably should've explained that this was a movie to President Reagan, because it put the fear into him something fierce. Unfortunately for hackers and future torrenters everywhere, the Reagan administration neglected to hire anyone with actual technological know-how to write all the laws about technological know-how. That was why Kevin "The Condor" Mitnick ended up tossed into solitary for eight months after his prosecutor referenced the most impossible parts of WarGames as something he might do.
"A prosecutor told a judge that if I got near a phone, I could dial up NORAD and launch a nuclear missile," Mitnick explained. "I never hacked into NORAD. And when the prosecutor said that, I laughed -- in open court. I thought, 'This guy just burned all his credibility.' But the court believed it. I think the movie convinced people that this stuff was real." Whoops.
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