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I thought that
war dialing was essentially the same thing as what's described in the article on
demon dialing — that is, dialing every number in an area to try to find listening computers. This article only mentions calling a single number repeatedly. Comments? —
Arteitle 10:40, Mar 3, 2004 (UTC)
(I should add that "war dialing", as it's now described in the article, wasn't depicted in the film WarGames, but "demon dialing" as described there was. In the film, David dials every number in Sunnyvale in sequence looking for a particular software company.) —
Arteitle 10:45, Mar 3, 2004 (UTC)
I object to the recent changes to war dialing and demon dialing. I can find numerous sites that define "war dialing" as dialing a range of numbers, and "demon dialing" as dialing the same number repeatedly (though sometimes it's given as a synonym for the former). [1] [2] [3] [4] Unless someone can justify the recent flip-flopping of their definitions, I'm going to change them back. -- Arteitle 07:51, Mar 15, 2004 (UTC)
I've gotten what seemed like wardialing calls in the last year, in the u.s. I'm puzzled why the article refers to this in the past tense. The term seems appropriate for current practices, e.g. junk faxers and automated telemarketing calls. See [5]. -- Todd, Aug 15, 2005
Is there a reliable citation for war dialing predating the movie War Games ? What's the earliest verified description/incident? SJS 01:48, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
War dialing or wardialing is a method of automatically scanning telephone numbers using a modem, usually dialing every telephone number in a local area to find where computers or fax machines are available, then attempting to access them by guessing passwords.
The usage around the BBS scene I recall was that wardialing meant hunting for modems, without any implication of password guessing. Rather the intent was to find things like Corporate or little known BBSs that had free accounts, mail, forums, online games, or file areas; the free accounts might be useful in an area where there were too many callers and not enough BBS's -- if the main local BBSs were busy, users would settle for "any port in a storm"; having extra BBSs was also useful for diagnostics -- "I can't log in to FooBBS, anybody else have this problem?", etc.
There are ample usages of this sort on record. Therefore I'll modify the lead paragraph. -- AC 19:32, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
I realise that these laws no longer exist but would:
"The popularity of wardialing in 1980s and 1990s prompted some states to enact legislation prohibiting the use of a device to dial telephone numbers without the intent of communicating with a person."
imply that deliberately and knowingly calling an automated helpline would have been illegal in these states during this period? 77.103.132.143 ( talk) 14:34, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
I looked into the deal with 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(a)(8) (given as (a)(7) on article, the numbering is has changed since then). I was surprised to find out this is actually correct. This is discussed in Federal Register Vol. 68 No. 143, Rules and Regulations Implementing the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991, Paragraph 98 where the FTC maintains that war dialing is indeed prohibited. This rule was determined to be valid in Federal court [7]. I haven't been able to find a secondary source for any of this. Someguy1221 ( talk) 07:20, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
Doesn't Homer in one episode have a machine that calls every number in Springfield? abelson ( talk) 21:47, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
This article is a train wreck. "Hackers and crackers using war dialers" please. Why, because it has the word "war" in it?
This article was nominated for deletion on 27 December 2008 (UTC). The result of the discussion was keep. |
This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||
|
I thought that
war dialing was essentially the same thing as what's described in the article on
demon dialing — that is, dialing every number in an area to try to find listening computers. This article only mentions calling a single number repeatedly. Comments? —
Arteitle 10:40, Mar 3, 2004 (UTC)
(I should add that "war dialing", as it's now described in the article, wasn't depicted in the film WarGames, but "demon dialing" as described there was. In the film, David dials every number in Sunnyvale in sequence looking for a particular software company.) —
Arteitle 10:45, Mar 3, 2004 (UTC)
I object to the recent changes to war dialing and demon dialing. I can find numerous sites that define "war dialing" as dialing a range of numbers, and "demon dialing" as dialing the same number repeatedly (though sometimes it's given as a synonym for the former). [1] [2] [3] [4] Unless someone can justify the recent flip-flopping of their definitions, I'm going to change them back. -- Arteitle 07:51, Mar 15, 2004 (UTC)
I've gotten what seemed like wardialing calls in the last year, in the u.s. I'm puzzled why the article refers to this in the past tense. The term seems appropriate for current practices, e.g. junk faxers and automated telemarketing calls. See [5]. -- Todd, Aug 15, 2005
Is there a reliable citation for war dialing predating the movie War Games ? What's the earliest verified description/incident? SJS 01:48, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
War dialing or wardialing is a method of automatically scanning telephone numbers using a modem, usually dialing every telephone number in a local area to find where computers or fax machines are available, then attempting to access them by guessing passwords.
The usage around the BBS scene I recall was that wardialing meant hunting for modems, without any implication of password guessing. Rather the intent was to find things like Corporate or little known BBSs that had free accounts, mail, forums, online games, or file areas; the free accounts might be useful in an area where there were too many callers and not enough BBS's -- if the main local BBSs were busy, users would settle for "any port in a storm"; having extra BBSs was also useful for diagnostics -- "I can't log in to FooBBS, anybody else have this problem?", etc.
There are ample usages of this sort on record. Therefore I'll modify the lead paragraph. -- AC 19:32, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
I realise that these laws no longer exist but would:
"The popularity of wardialing in 1980s and 1990s prompted some states to enact legislation prohibiting the use of a device to dial telephone numbers without the intent of communicating with a person."
imply that deliberately and knowingly calling an automated helpline would have been illegal in these states during this period? 77.103.132.143 ( talk) 14:34, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
I looked into the deal with 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(a)(8) (given as (a)(7) on article, the numbering is has changed since then). I was surprised to find out this is actually correct. This is discussed in Federal Register Vol. 68 No. 143, Rules and Regulations Implementing the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991, Paragraph 98 where the FTC maintains that war dialing is indeed prohibited. This rule was determined to be valid in Federal court [7]. I haven't been able to find a secondary source for any of this. Someguy1221 ( talk) 07:20, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
Doesn't Homer in one episode have a machine that calls every number in Springfield? abelson ( talk) 21:47, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
This article is a train wreck. "Hackers and crackers using war dialers" please. Why, because it has the word "war" in it?