Word Spy - war dialing

war dialing

n. A computer cracking technique that uses a software program to automatically call thousands of telephone numbers to look for any that have a modem attached.

Example Citation:

"WheelGroup will now try to gain access by avoiding the Internet and attacking XYZ's individual computers. It will use a method called war-dialing. Consulting the phone number on the business card of an XYZ employee, the hackers assume (correctly) that computer modems at the company will use the same area code and three-digit prefix. Waddell downloads a free program from the Internet called ToneLoc, written by hackers named Minor Threat and Mucho Maas. It comes with a manual that explains how to automatically call thousands of phone numbers within a specific range."
—"How We Invaded a Fortune 500 Company," Fortune, February 3, 1997

Notes:

This term comes from the 1983 movie War Games, now a classic in computer cracking circles. In the movie a young cracker (Matthew Broderick) is using war dialing to look for games and bulletin board systems. However, he inadvertently ends up with a direct connection to a high-level military computer that gives him control over the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Chaos ensues.

Categories:

Hacking and Hackers
Programming and Software
Telephones

Posted on February 17, 1997

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