The Time I Almost Started World War III

Back when I was an undergraduate, back in the mid-1980's, things were different: the US was in the middle of the Cold War, the news was filled with ominous stories about if the U.S. was going to deploy nuclear missiles in Europe, and if so how the Soviets would respond, etc. Computers were much more primitive back then: there was a mainframe, to which various terminals were connected; at each terminal, there was a plain text login screen, where you typed in your login name and password to log onto the mainframe; once logged in, you typed in your commands to "compile program X" or "remote login to site Y"; and then, once finished, you logged out. There were no fancy graphics, no mice to use; just plain text. Still, it's amazing what kind of havoc you can wreak with a plain text screen ...

So my roommate (a computer science major) and I were enrolled in an introductory computer science class; because we were enrolled, we had computer accounts on the mainframe. There was also another computer science major -- call him M -- who always acted like he was superior to the rest of us. And maybe he was -- I didn't know him that well, maybe he was a hotshot computer programmer for all I know -- but when he'd talk to me, his comments were always of the form "well, I'M a computer science person, and you're not as smart as I am", and his attitude annoyed me.

About halfway through the semester, my roommate figured out a way of "faking" the login screen: he wrote a computer program that LOOKED like you were logging into the mainframe, but in fact you were running HIS program. My roommate showed me his program one night at the computer lab, and he said that we could use it to trick people into typing their passwords. (What we would do with the passwords, he didn't say, and he probably didn't have a plan; I think he just liked the idea that we could fool people.) I told him that capturing passwords was thinking small, that he needed to think *big* -- "Here," I told him, "let me take your program and make a few changes." So I took his code and then started adding my own program to it ...

So here we are, in the computer lab, at about 10pm at night. There are only four of us in the lab at this point -- me, my roommate, M, and a woman from our class who was staying late to finish her assignment. My roommate secretly logged into one of the terminals and then put our computer program on the machine; it LOOKED like an ordinary terminal at this point, but it was actually running our program. I then went up to M and said, "Pssst, my roommate and I figured out a secret website to the Pentagon! Let's all try to log in; I'll take THIS machine" -- taking up a terminal next to the "special" terminal -- "and why don't YOU take THIS machine" -- of course pointing out the terminal that was running the secret program. "Let's all try to log in," I continued, "and let's see what happens."

So I sit down, and pretend to try to "hack in"; meanwhile, M is at the "special" terminal, also trying to log in. I had actually set his terminal so that it would automatically reject the first login attempt he tried -- it would look suspicious if he got in on his FIRST try -- and it was set up to automatically accept his second login attempt -- I didn't want him to get frustrated and give up before the trap was sprung. So it was just a matter of waiting ... and so I sat, pretending to type, waiting, waiting, when suddenly ...

"Guys! Guys! I got in! I got in!" M exclaims loudly. I pretended to be shocked. "You did? How did you do it?" He leaned over conspiratorially. "The password is REAGAN -- all caps." "Wow," I said, "good thinking!" (We are never so confident as when we're explaining something, even if we are wrong, and so his boasting about figuring out the password just cemented in his mind that, yes, he outsmarted all of the computer geeks at the Pentagon.)

So now the computer displays a (fake) command prompt. I say, "here, let me try something, I've seen the film Wargames." I typed in, ">initiate tango delta". The computer replied, "Command authorization not found. Access denied." Of course, this was staged; the computer would have rejected ANYTHING I typed the first, because that's what I told the program to do. Likewise, the computer was designed to accept anything I typed the second time ...

I mumbled, "no, wait, I forgot the authorization code" and typed in ">initiate tango delta access=alpha". And the computer, as it was programmed to do, responded with

"Command authorization accepted. Warm-up sequence started on systems Titan, Minuteman, Jupiter."

M freaks out. "Oh my God! THOSE ARE MISSILE SYSTEMS!" I feigned shock. "They are?" (As if I hadn't been paying attention to any of the daily news reports.) I asked, "Did I launch?" "No," M explains to me, "it's just the warm-up sequence, see?"

The computer waited a few seconds and then -- as programmed -- displayed "Unauthorized access node detected. Logging out." The original plan was to try to get M to log back in, but he was seriously freaking out right now. "Oh my God," he mumbles, pacing back in forth in front of the computer. "Oh my God. Ohmygod."

My roommate and I can barely contain our laughter. We even share a laugh with the woman in the computer lab: everytime M turns his back, we point at him and whisper, "Can you believe he's falling for this?" I had visions of taking this joke further: I mentally started writing scripts about "Initiating preemptive autofire of chemical weapons targeting Berlin, C3I failsafe initiated, launch in 30 minutes unless deactivation code sent" and then watch him panic as he tried to log in to stop the launch. But it was getting late -- it was probably midnight at this point -- and I thought, okay, I've had my fun, I have computer class tomorrow, I'm calling it a night. My roommate and I left.

The next morning, I'm in class. The woman from the computer lab leans over and asks me, "Did the FBI really call you?" I was shocked. "What? No, there was no FBI call, the whole thing was a joke! Why would the FBI call?" Well, it turns out that M was freaked out; REALLY freaked out; so freaked out that he apparently called the State Department (?!) to apologize for starting their missile systems(?!?!).

And I was told that there was a pause on the other end of the line, and the gentleman on the other side said, "Son, you been had."

So that's how my roommate and I convinced a classmate that we nearly unleashed nuclear armageddon on the world. And maybe we almost did end the world ... if I had done the whole "chemical weapon pre-emptive strike" scenario I had envisioned, maybe he would have freaked out worse and phoned NATO HQ; or maybe even the Kremlin to apologize for the impending attack. I can only imagine how THAT would have gone (the Soviets had put their subs on alert when Reagan joked about "bombing Moscow in five minutes"; maybe they would have done the same thing if someone called warning them about an imminent chemical weapons strike on Berlin...)

As it was, though, we didn't end the world in a rain of nuclear fire. The only tangible result was that M didn't speak to me for the rest of the semester.