[tombert]

My wife and I just rewatched WarGames for the millionth time a few nights ago.

The level of cybersecurity incompetency in the early 80's makes sense; computers (and in particular networked computers) were still relatively new, and there weren't that many external users to begin with, so while the potential impact of a mistake was huge (which of course was the plot of the movie), the likelihood of a horrible thing happening was fairly low just because computers were an expensive, somewhat niche thing.

Fast forward to 2023, and now everyone owns bunches of computers, all of which are connected to a network, and all of which are oodles more powerful than anything in the 80s. Cybersecurity protocols are of course much more mature now, but there's also several orders of magnitude more potential attackers than there were in the 80s.

[viraptor]

> Cybersecurity protocols are of course much more mature now

At technical level, sure. At the deployment, configuration and management level, not quite. Overall things are so bad that news aren't even reporting the hospitals taken over by ransomware anymore. It's still happening almost every week and we're just... used to it.

[LinuxBender]

That modem setup in Wargames is still a thing for many organizations including some banks and telcos. Not naming names but I suspect the modems will be around for a very long time. Some have a password on their modem but they are usually very simple. Their only saving grace is that they are usually in front of a mainframe speaking proprietary MML that only old fuddy duddies like me would remember. There are a few of us here

[rft]

> proprietary MML that only old fuddy duddies like me would remember.

Security through obscurity helps only until someone gets curious/determined. I have a personal anecdote for that. During university I was involved in pentesting an industrial control system (not in an industrial context, but same technology) and implemented a simple mitm attack to change the state of the controls while displaying the operator selected state. When talking with the responsible parties, they just assumed that the required niche knowledge means the attack is not feasible. I had the first dummy implementation setup on the train ride home based only on network captures. Took another day to fine tune once I got my hands on a proper setup and worked fine after that.

I do not want to say that ModbusTCP is in the same league as MML, but if there is interest in it, someone will figure it out. Sure, you might not be on Shodan, but are the standard/scripted attacks really what you should worry about? Also don't underestimate a curious kid who nerdsnipes themself into figuring that stuff out.

[LinuxBender]

Security through obscurity helps only until someone gets curious/determined.

Absolutely. It just weeds out the skiddies and tools like MetaSploit unless they have added mainframe support. I have not kept up with their libraries

The federal agencies I was liaison to knew all the commands better than I did and even taught me a few that were not in my documentation which led to a discussion with the mainframe developers.

[FridayNightTV]

> I suspect the modems will be around for a very long time.

No they won't.

'Dial up' modems need a PSTN line to work. The roll out of full fibre networks means analogue PSTN is going the way of the dodo. You cannot get a new PSTN line anymore in Blighty. In Estonia and the Netherlands (IIRC) the PSTN switch off is already complete.

[pavlov]

Surely there’s a vendor that will sell you a v.22bis modem that works over VoIP if that’s what your two mainframes need to sync up, and you’re buying the multimillion dollar support contract…

[pixl97]

>'Dial up' modems need a PSTN line to work

Cable company here (US) still sells service that has POTS over cable modem. Just plug your modem into the cable modem tele slot and you have a dialton. Now, are you getting super high speed connections, no, but that's not what you need for most hacking like this. Not that I recommend hacking from your own house.

[LinuxBender]

I should have restricted that statement to include the United States of America. PSTN's are still utilized, deployed and actively sold in most of the US. As a side note I recently tried to get a telco to remove a phone line and two poles and they refused to do it. Their excuse was that they might one day run fiber over it despite there already being a fiber network here. I hope they do as my fiber ISP really does need a competitor. If they really do run the fiber over those poles vs burying it that would be amusing.

To your point I am sure some day the US will stop selling access to the PSTN but some old systems will hold on for dear life, government contracts and all. Governments are kindof slow to migrate to newer things.

[Kon-Peki]

> As a side note I recently tried to get a telco to remove a phone line and two poles and they refused to do it.

You need to align their incentives with yours: wait until it gets windy out, knock the poles down, and demand that they come fix it.

[LinuxBender]

I've been secretly hoping an over-sized big rig would take them out but I would not want anyone to get hurt. They are the only poles within a few miles and are an eye-sore.

[heywhatupboys]

what does this have to do with a "modem" per se?

[LinuxBender]

The parent comment was about the movie Wargames and the questionable security of the 80's that is still in use today. That security in Wargames was a modem that provided access to a subsystem of the WOPR mainframe named "Joshua". Joshua had super-user privs on the mainframe.

It was likely meant to be a temporary means for the system architect to monitor and improve the system after it was deployed but then life changing circumstances may have distracted his attention away from decommissioning the modem. The movie still holds up today and is worth a watch. Actually it may be more pertinent now than ever.

[tombert]

Yeah, when we were rewatching it, we were kind of amazed at how well it holds up, all things considered.

I think what makes it likable for me is that it's all on the cusp of believability. Obviously LLMs weren't quite mature enough to do everything Joshua did back then (and probably not now), but the fact that the "hacking" was basically just social engineering, and was just achieved by wardialing and a bit of creative thinking makes it somewhat charming, even today.

With the advent of LLMs being used increasingly for everyone, I do wonder how close we're going to get to some kind of "Global Thermonuclear War" simulation gone awry.

[dylan604]

i still love the phreaking scene trying to make a phone call where he uses the can pull tab to ground the phone. it was more of a phreaker vibe than trying to whistle into the phone or social engineer an operator or just happening to have a dialer on him.

[k12sosse]

> wardialing

Get a load these guys honey, you could just dial straight into the airline.