David Scott Lewis was part of the early generation of computer hobbyists who built their own machines, learned through trial-and-error, and paved the way for the hackers and tinkerers who would follow in their footsteps in the next few decades. As a college student in the late 1970s, David met two screenwriters who were working on a script about a brilliant scientist and his teen protege. That story eventually evolved into the script for WarGames and David became the inspiration for Matthew Broderick's character, David Lightman. Dennis Fisher sat down with David to talk about his introduction to hacking, his involvement in WarGames, and how he's stayed involved in the scene throughout the years.
If you'd like to contact David, send an email to decipher@threatcasting.net.
David Scott Lewis was part of the early generation of computer hobbyists who built their own machines, learned through trial-and-error, and paved the way for the hackers and tinkerers who would follow in their footsteps in the next few decades. As a college student in the late 1970s, David met two screenwriters who were working on a script about a brilliant scientist and his teen protege. That story eventually evolved into the script for WarGames and David became the inspiration for Matthew Broderick's character, David Lightman. Dennis Fisher sat down with David to talk about his introduction to hacking, his involvement in WarGames, and how he's stayed involved in the scene throughout the years.
If you'd like to contact David, send an email to decipher@threatcasting.net.
Welcome to decipher podcast. My guest today is David Scott Lewis, who, if you listen to our earlier episode on, on war games, you will know is the inspiration for Matthew Broderick's character. Uh, David Siteman in more games and I am super excited to have David on as my guest today. We've been trying to work this out for a couple of weeks now and um, war games is one of the seminal movies for me and I think a lot of people in the hacker community. So it's really a great honor to have you on the podcast today. David, thanks so much for taking some time.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Dennis. Yes, I, I listened to episode seven on war games a couple of times, so I'm, uh, ready to correct things I heard that were not correct and to fill in the blanks on some things.
Speaker 1:Perfect. That's great. Yeah, absolutely. Um, so I guess let's just start at the beginning. Um, you know, I, I read a ton on the movie before we did the podcast and I've seen it dozens and dozens of times, but you never know what to believe on the Internet anyway. So, um, I know that the writers, a lasker and parks, um, talked to a bunch of security experts while doing research for the movie and the original script wasn't exactly what came about to end up being more games, but how did you end up, how did the writers end up getting into contact with you originally?
Speaker 2:Okay, well that's, uh, through a friend. A friend of mine was working as a secretary at the William Morris Agency in Beverly Hills. She was Marty, a secretary and Marty Conn is James Caan, the actor, his brother, and he was at the, I'm not sure he still is, but at least at that time he was representing, I'm not sure it was both Larry and Walter or, but at least one of them, he was representing at least one of them. So she was the introduction. Um, what they were looking for originally, the whole idea was the, uh, they were looking for, their idea was a kid who was going to become a stephen hawkings protege. That's what the whole basis was. He won a science fair and that's it. It had nothing to do with nothing at all about this. So when they met me, that's when I went into a different direction. And this was back. Oh, this would've been back. I, I believe probably in 78 or 79.
Speaker 1:Oh. So it took that long because the movie came out in 83. Oh yeah. Okay. And so at that point were you, were you a high school student? Were you at an, out of school at that point or what, where were you?
Speaker 2:Uh, I was in college at that point and I was um, yeah, I won't discuss too much of that, but um, the, but I have, but they had a, I had done a lot of hacking at that point and that's kind of where they got their, of their inspiration to go with an under completely different direction based upon what I kind of told them about what I did for fun and other things that I did. And that really kind of culminated, it was again, it was very different than the, than the Stephen Hawking protege idea, obviously. And it has really not much to that. The Hawk, the Falcon character is based on hockey and so that still stayed in the movie, but the idea of a protege now that really, I don't really see that from the movie. I mean, I guess there are certainly those links of David perhaps taking over from Falcon at some point, but it was much more a, of a closer relationship and how they perceived it in their original idea.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I would like to see that movie, honestly, the Falcon protege movie, I think it'd be pretty good because you never really got to see too much of talking, you know, there's the one scene at his cabin there or sequence at his cabin and then the part where he comes back to norad and that's kind of it, you know, aside from like the old, like newsreel footage that they show at the beginning where they kind of figure out who he is. Um, but I would like to see more on him for sure.
Speaker 2:The problem that I have with their original idea because I kind of poo pooed it very quickly and said science fair, you know, the idea that he was just, they don't, they don't have a, they both went to Yale, but neither of them have a stem background of both Larry and Walter. That's how they met each other. They met each other at Yale and as undergraduates and they just didn't. Yeah, it just really was to me was just kind of goofy. So again, it just wound up going in a whole different direction. Um, my idea behind it, and Walter talked about this on the 25th anniversary when they were at Google and you probably saw that Walter talked about it and I even forgot some of it when I watched it, I thought, oh my God, because it was Ali and it was about space based weapon systems and Sdi and of course I had remembered that but the, but the detail that some of the things that Walter said and that, those were all my ideas, those were not their ideas at all. Okay. So the whole idea of space space weapons and Sdi and all that, you know, in high school I had been a member of the United States Refugee Institute, which no longer exists, but it was like a strategic warfare society. You can think of it as Herman Cornish and actually the people involved were actually have worked with Herman Kahn. So it was the thermonuclear crowd, Rand Corporation and so on. And so there was that. I was, um, I was a member of Sia, which still exist, which is really kind of like the premier organization dealing with cyber. And then also the old crows, the association world grows and electronic warfare. So I knew a lot more, you know, in the movie, it's kind of like David doesn't really know any of this stuff, but in fact I was involved. I was attending monthly meetings at Hughes aircraft, the green monster in Culver City for the old crows, the La Air Force station, which is where ultimately Samhsa was there, the space and missile systems organization way back when, the space division, uh, eventually, uh, this is all in also a toward an Elsa Gundo. So I was attending all these meetings so I have much more knowledge and what's perceived in the movie. And I think one thing to bring up is that a lot of what's going on here is, is that the rand corporation, you know, people talk, I think in episode seven, the commentators had said, well, it's like this university thing. It wasn't, it was the Rand Corporation and in the movie in Seattle. So what does that Pacific northwest labs. So it's, so the fictional is the PNL, uh, in, in Seattle. But in reality it's the Rand Corporation. And actually the library scene and all of that, which is very accurate, believe it or not, is actually at the university research library at Ucla. So, uh, I lived on Wilshire, Wilshire Boulevard was one bus to get to ucla and it was one bus for me to get to the Rand Corporation. And back then ran. Didn't have any real security. You could just walk in, do whatever you want. Willis, where I would say the two key advisors were myself and Willis Willis. Where was the computer security guru at that time? Nobody knew more than Willis where, um, I can't remember. I believe, I think his name, I can't remember his name. There was somebody at Sri as well and I wish I could remember his name, but he, Don Parker I believe, but, but Willis where was the key guy and myself were the two key people that were really involved. But, but you know, Willis, where it was more of from the Rand Corporation perspective, you can kind of get the think tank element to it versus character, character development or anything. He wasn't involved with that.
Speaker 1:And the thing that I love about the lightman character in the movie is He's obviously kind of proficient at computers, but he's not really, you know, they don't portray him as an expert, like a hacker, like you just mentioned, he just kind of stumbles onto this system while he's looking for a video, a video game company in Sunnyvale I think it is. And then just kind of a, you know, uses his knowledge that he has his and also kind of just common sense and a little bit of engineered it to kind of get through the rest of the plot. But you know, how much of like the, how much were you involved in helping them shape, you know, lightman the character itself as well as kind of the accuracy of the, the hacking and you know, computer scenes.
Speaker 2:So I would say a lot to both questions. The character was more based on me than anyone else by far. He had met, they had met with other people, but very few people actually had any impact on the character. There's even lines that I said. So the screenplay was written a place called retreat productions, it's on sweetzer in Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, and that's where it was written. It was physically written there. And matter of fact, when it was first written, it was sold to universal. It was not sold to mgm. Uh, I believe actually there was one that either Disney or a paramount also had it at one point after universal, but it was original. Universal was called the genius, the original screenplay. And what happened, it was kind of funny when they were doing it was this whole idea that I came up with on this space space, laser weapons and charge particle beam weapons and all of that. And then they, they basically just scrapped it all. And based upon what I told them, they said that's the character. So David Whiteman in the movie, He's thinking these things. Of course we don't see that right? But, but that's what they're not. So they're basing it very heavily on what they see me doing now. I took, I took Larry one time out to Santa Ana to uh, and in southern California, Orange County to a meeting of an organization we called PCC, didn't have any official acronym meaning, but it was a very early days, mostly hp, 84, 65 users. This might be before your time, Dennis hpc users and such, the HB 65, 67 and so on. 80 five people at 85. So it was kind of like an hp users group early days. And I showed Walter, I'm sorry Sir Larry, how to hack. So, and that was his, I think that was probably the first time they actually ever saw any real hacking. I won't say what I hacked, but it was a little, it was a little out there and, and he and he, you know, that was, I think the first time we actually had ever seen anything regarding that. And I, and I'm still friends with Larry. I don't talk to Walter at all. But uh, you know, Walter became a big shot. He was like second in command or in commandos, Spielberg's studios and so on. So he went off and did a lot of things like that. I still see each other. I don't get to la very often, but when I do, I'm Larry and I usually, every time I get to La we'll get together and have dinner. So we still see each other every so often. Oh, that's cool. That's great. Um, so you mentioned you were in college when, when you ran into these guys were, when they found you, what was your kind of introduction slash inspiration into the hacking culture? Oh yeah. Great question. So there was a segment on 60 minutes. This has never been set anywhere. It's called, it was called dial. He letteri dial he for embezzlement and it was a segment on 60 minutes and when I saw this, 60 minutes was kind of, it was different. I mean all the ads were by honeywell was kind of futuristic, the whole thing. Yeah. Sixty minutes is different. It was a different flavor back then. So I saw the segment on 60 minutes I wrote to, you know, by snail mail, I wrote to 60 minutes ask them for a copy of the transcript, which they sent me for free and you know, by snail mail and I got it and I had gone over it many times and I said, yeah, this is, this is something, this is something to run with. And that was my inspiration and looking into it. But what I did was, you could think of it as white hat had, if it wasn't a lot of what you saw would be accurate from the movie, but it wasn't like, oh, they didn't know, you know what I mean? So there was a white hat, because remember I'm a member of Apsia, I'm a member of the old crows, you know, I'm going to these kinds of meetings and I know these kinds of people. So, so it wasn't, it wasn't, uh, you know, trying to break into play games or something. By the way, that's the Blue Cube. They talked about the Sunnyvale facility. I don't know if they ever mentioned this anywhere in any, like Larry Walter ever mentioned this in any of their public interviews, but the blue cube is what they're referring to in Sunnyvale and the Blue Cube then tied into norad and you could either say directly as they show in the movies who sunnyvale or through the La airport station back then to the blue cube and then hop to norad. So yeah, so a lot, but I don't know. I don't know if they ever mentioned the Blue Cube, but the blue cube is the facility that we're referring to in Sunnyvale. So that's not fictitious. I mean that's really there. So yeah.
Speaker 1:All. So the 60 minutes kind of got you interested in it and then you know, how far did you think that this was going to become a career for you or did you figure it was just kind of a hobby at that point?
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely not a career. If I would have thought it was a career, I might be the director of Central Intelligence now. That would've been. That would've been great foresight on my part. Let's put it back in perspective. So that was the January 75 issue of popular electronics. Everybody knows about that. I was in the twelfth grade then when that came out. But then also, you know, back then it was a hobbyist environment. Uh, there were two main computer magazines that we always to read each month there was David Hall's creative computing, which was on the software side and then bite, which was on this side. Yeah, there was David, there was animos Warren's books on microprocessors, there was a horse altair and inside, and you have those two were the two main ones and you're using paper tape and there's the La Computer society. There's all sorts of. It was, it was all hobbyist, so it's hobbyists when that interest in military applications, that was my angle. So, so that's where I came into it. I had an interest in what was going on from the military perspective and then I was a pc hobbyist so. Well we didn't call them pcs that. But yeah, basically what we would think of today as a PC hobbyists. So that's how I know, but it's the, it's the hobbyist culture and that's something that certainly the young people today have no relation, no, no understanding of it all, no feeling for any of how it was really a hobbyist culture. But this is ham radio operators who did hacking.
Speaker 1:It's funny because the hobbyist part of it is an interesting angle that definitely doesn't get talked about anymore because that's, you know. Yeah. I think they, I grew up outside of DC and my dad was very early into the computer scene as well and you know, built a early machines and then we had like ibm machines and apple tubes and that kind of stuff. And I clearly remember going to early computer conventions in downtown DC with him or in Maryland or northern Virginia and you go to buy components or software, you know, you, there weren't a lot of places to buy software back then. Um, and you'd have to go to these conventions and people would trade things and that kind of stuff and talk about what they were building. It was, it was really interesting time.
Speaker 2:It was the first computer store in the world was that, I can still remember this, eight slash 20 Broadway in Santa Monica called the computer store so aptly and that's where a lot of the stuff was the bite and bite magazine, I think people were franchising the name. I actually don't know the legal structure, but it was called bike stores and there were stores I'm pretty sure was licensing the magazine's name and, and they'd propped up all over the place, but it was really a computer store in Santa Monica. I used to hang out there. I was there when it opened and I believe this is September 75, the first computer store in the world. So it was really, um, it was really a hobbyist culture and that's the way to kind of look at it. It was more of a hobbyist thing, but I personally had the interest in defense applications.
Speaker 1:Okay. And when you like, did you stick with the computer culture in and all of that through college and afterwards?
Speaker 2:I did, but I went off and sold my soul to the evil corporate world and I became an executive at Microsoft, oracle and Samsung. So, uh, so, okay. Which has its own story to it. But it's interesting because I don't really think there's anything about those three companies that's terribly interesting. So, uh, so anyway, I did that. I had worked in smaller companies as well, but uh, but then I also went to the, uh, to the evil corporations, right on the software side of the. So yeah. So I went, I went more on the corporate side and did, but I was the first director of he business oracle. I was having new markets at Microsoft when I was head of strategic planning for Samsung in the United States. So I really want the corporate, the corporate at some point, but it still was. All my heart and soul are always in this. I will always, uh, I will be a hacker until the day I die.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. That's good to hear. Um, so when the movie came out in 83, David, what did you go see it in the theater? What was your, what was your experience like?
Speaker 2:Well, I went to see it, so I got obviously disease, the, the, uh, the opening, but in Westwood, but also, yeah, I did see in the theaters, you know, it really wasn't that popular when it first came out. It became, in some ways I think we're, game's evolved more into a cult movie. I can tell you, I did see it a few times in some of the larger theaters. This is all in Los Angeles. I'm living in La at the time and there really weren't that many people. I mean it was, I believe it was the third largest or fourth largest grossing movie in the US for that year. I'm not sure about that. And you may want to check that third, fourth, fifth. But I am the world. I think it was the third after training places and return to the Jetta, which, oh, you know what guys? Yeah, not bad. So it'd been very well worldwide. Um, so, but I didn't see a lot of people in the theaters when I went there. I think it kind of took off over time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it definitely did. I think, you know, I definitely remember seeing in the theater and it was one of those movies that, you know, early cable culture I think helped a lot when everybody started to get cable. This one ended up being on I think, you know, on like USA and tbs and places like that pretty often and I worked at a video store when I was in high school in Virginia and I, I can remember renting more games like dozens of times, you know, just on my own and just because I could get it for like a dollar and I just bring it home on a Friday night and watch it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So yeah, that's just my observation of my memory of how it was in theaters. Right. I agree with what blockbuster and all of that. I'm sure there were. I don't actually know how the sales were generated, but it certainly seemed to pick pickup. I think one of the things you said in episode seven when you talked to Jeff Moss, I thought, well, there might've been some miscommunication. Jeff told me and actually kind of segues into my interview at Def con in 2008 when I was, when I had a fireside chat with Jeff or a that Jeff Kahn is the name is based on war games and, and the whole inspiration for this really comes from war games far more than anything else for what ultimately became deaf guy. And I think even today, you know, if we can go to def con, the kids sections at def con still show wargames and sneakers,
Speaker 1:which I love. I think that's great. It's awesome. Um, yeah, so it, yeah, the movie did really well. I just looked it up. It, it grossed$79,000,000, which you know, in the eighties, that's a lot of money outside of star wars. Like you know, that's a, that's a really nice amount of money. That's when movie tickets cost$2 and fifty cents,$15
Speaker 2:and nobody was expecting that. Nobody was expecting it would do that. Well. But um, yeah, it ultimately did. And of course as I think you mentioned and other people have mentioned then it kind of led to sneakers. But I don't think the ties between wargames and sneakers are as tight as a lot of people say. I think that's misleading. They wrote, they wrote sneakers on the, on the Twentieth Century Fox studio set. And I had visited him. I wasn't involved with sneakers, but we had talked about that sneakers are supposed to be the physical security, cyber security and war games. So the mentality of it, you know, people may, there's a link but it's, it's not really as tight as a lot of people think they really were different movies.
Speaker 1:Oh, they're completely different. They're both classics. I mean sneakers I think is one of my two or three favorite movies of all time. It's, I just love it. It's, we're, we're getting to that one on this podcast at some point. So we're saving that one for a, you know, a two hour long talk. But um, when, when you were dealing with the writers and when the movie came out, how much did, like where you did your friends and family and everybody know that you were involved with the development of the script? Everybody knew. Okay. Yeah, I wouldn't have been able to shut up about it either. I'll tell you that,
Speaker 2:but nobody has seen, but nobody knew what would ultimately become. That would become like a hacker classic or what a hacker was. Right. So it's like, okay, so I'm some goofy movie. It's like, okay, who cares? So nobody thought anything of it. Everybody knew, but nobody ever thought anything of it. So it wasn't a big deal.
Speaker 1:Okay. And when it came out and when you sell the premier and everything, what did you like it? Were you pleased with the way that it turned out?
Speaker 2:You know, because you know, you're looking at it from. So there was a screenplay. So like I said, the, the, the original idea was their idea. Larry Walter was about the hawking hawking, Stephen Hawking protege. Then my idea was all the space based weight laser weapons system. The original screenplay was different. It was more of a, David was more of a, Neil is a lie, it's kind of character, you know, referring to the Matrix in and Mr. Robot. So David was a little bit darker in the, in the screenplay, that part I didn't like because I thought my character, my personality was better captured in the movie than it was in the screenplay. The screenplay hackers would love it because the screenplay was very accurate. It was more in depth on the hacking side. And then ultimately the director Batam figured there's no way you're going to be able to put this on the screen back in that timeframe that people would have zero idea what you're talking about. So, so a lot of the stuff that people would appreciate, I think I still have a copy of the original screenplay and I should put that up someday. I don't actually have it physically with me, but uh, but I do have a copy and I should put that up online at some point because I think people would really enjoy reading the screenplay. They wrote a book after the movie and the book I never read, but Larry told me the book was, was a little bit goofy and the way they, you know, how that works. So. But the screenplay I think, I think hackers would enjoy reading. I think a lot of people would enjoy reading the screenplay. I just didn't like that, the David characters, but he's still a good guy, just like Neil's of the guy and Elliott's a good guy. He's still a good guy, but there's a little darker element to it than what we see in the movie where he's just basically just having fun in the movie.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's the thing. Like what? Like they kind of portray, you know, Matthew Broderick is really good at kind of playing like a, not a, he's not bumbling, but he's just kind of like, he's really interested in this one thing. Not much interested in school. Doesn't really seem to be interested in girls until like Allie sheedy, you know, hits them over the head with the fact that, you know, she's got a crush on him at some point, but he, he kind of just like, you know, you kind of a goofball like wandering through life, like most 17 year olds are.
Speaker 2:Right. I would say that's certainly the way it's portrayed in the movie and in the way it's not, there's purpose and even in the relationship, uh, with the leg. I got a girlfriend at that time that I have been. I was with her for 11 years, um, my high school sweetheart and I worked together for 11 years, so, so, so it was different the way it was portrayed. I think, again, more accurately in the screenplay, that was my group. A lot of questions I get because they know the girl and they said was it was Allie sheedy based on her and the answer in that case they had met her. We had dinner the first time we really talked about this was at a steakhouse chuck steak house on Third Street in West Hollywood and they took us to dinner. Larry and Walter took myself and my girlfriend at the time to dinner and they met her, but they didn't interact with her very much. So. So there really wasn't much of um, yeah, I was, she didn't like it. She didn't like it. I like that. And, you know, if she's actually, um, she became an engineer at huge electronics that Hughes aircraft, which ultimately came to use electronics working on star. So, you know, she's working on some pretty high level stuff. So that is not what you would think Allie sheedy's character would it become after watching the movie. Right? You wouldn't think she's become an working on star.
Speaker 1:I didn't even, a little bit. Not. I think in the, uh, in the episode we did on the movie, I think we talked about, you know, what do we think that a light bends character was doing after, you know, the story ends at the end of war games, you know, does he go on to become a hacker? Does he become like a security consultant or something like that. Um, which is, you know, does he end up, is one of the characters in sneakers, you know, six years later, um, which is kind of an interesting thought exercise. But, um, so you, you mentioned, you listened to that episode in a, there were some things in there that we didn't necessarily get right.
Speaker 2:Uh, there were many things, but honestly I wouldn't know where to begin. We'd have to act. I actually had recorded some audio notes for you and it was so I thought, my God, I'm not going to give you this, so let's just, let's just talk about it and clear up some, some things and other things. That's fine.
Speaker 1:No, I mean it's not meant as a historical document.
Speaker 2:Yeah,
Speaker 1:definitely not. No. Um, so did you, during the production of the movie, did you get to go to the set at all or, or anything fun like that?
Speaker 2:I did and it was pretty cool and matthew brought her, was a really nice kid and yeah, so I did, but at that point it was really, at that point mgm had it, it was filmed at mgm, um, so in, in, uh, in culver city and I wasn't, um, I wasn't very involved at that point. At that point. When you're making a movie, it takes on a life of its own and it's a very different process than running the screenplay in a, in a little and a nice office in West Hollywood. It's just very different, so I wasn't very much involved with it at that point.
Speaker 1:Okay. Gotcha. So how much did you pay attention to the way that like the hacker culture evolves, you know, after, you know, after you were kind of out of, out of it in, into the corporate world, um, how much were you watching? What was going on? Is that the hacker culture evolved as the Internet kind of exploded in the, you know, in the nineties and two thousands.
Speaker 2:So it went kind of the way. It didn't surprise me. I wouldn't say I would have that. I would have predicted it had I predicted it honestly, I wouldn't have just stayed in the industry. I would have stayed totally focused on it. Second Cyber, probably cyber more than it set my definition, be cyber being it sec for defense and military. So just simply say, so I would have probably stayed on the cyber side. Um, so that's what I would've done had I been able to see that I was. But again, remember I'm coming at this as a hobbyist and although I'm interested in the cyber aspects of it, I'm still, but the hacky part was more as a hobbyist and so yeah, if I would've seen that I observed it. I wasn't really surprised by it, but, but I didn't see it as like a career opportunity for myself at that time. I really didn't. I don't know if there would have been much of a career. So let me taste it. There was a, there was an organization called the computer security institute, CSI. I don't even know if it still exists. That might still exist. It does, it does, it does. That's, that's kind of interesting. But back then, so I was a member, I was a member of CSI and they gave you the manuals that they gave you an all and you know, what it was, it was all auditing how boring added to me for any accountants that are listening to this. But uh, just pull my teeth out or I'll enjoy it more than auditing. So. So yeah. So, so, so, so this is the career path. I'm seeing zero interest. Okay, don't just shoot me now, take me out of my pain, I don't want to do auditing. So, uh, and it was auditing like accounting, auditing and I just had zero interest in it. So. So, uh, yeah, that part, the way it's evolved in that sense certainly was interesting, but it wasn't, I don't think it was really clear to anybody at that point that that's the way it would evolve.
Speaker 1:No, I don't think so. I mean it was much earlier than know, you know, in any three when this movie came out, it was another, you know, 10 to 15 years before the security industry itself started to even develop, you know, the career path was not really there unless you were, as you said, maybe working in government or starting your own firm somewhere.
Speaker 2:Exactly, yeah. A 100 percent agree. So yeah, I didn't see that. One thing. One thing I don't want to forget mentioning is the AI component of this. Yes. You know, I do talk about it when I gave a presentation this year at def con last year at Def con and I also gave a presentation at the Air Force Cyber Convention tied to Maxwell and this year I was kind of one of the, the main maintenance speakers, sort of kind of a keynote speaker and one thing about it is, and that's overlooked by a lot of people and if you think about it, war games was the first movie to show ai in its own time. And what I mean by that is certainly you saw how bad hell is projecting out from 1969 to the year 2001. Right? And everything you're seeing in science fiction is about artificial intelligence. Looking to the future. Ai was about, I'm sorry, war games had ai in its present time. In fact, you know, when they, when they go through, when Davidson and the university research library at what is the reality of that is, you know, they show falcons maze. Oh this is another thing that comes up to you will fall, you know, falcons is on the cover of scientific American. So, so in this alternate universe, it should be assumed that falcons maze is well known. Can I remember when I listened to episode seven? But you're not the only ones to make this, this observation. They kind of say like, oh, falcons, maize and so on. But remember though, this is on the cover of scientific American. So in this alternate universe, Falcons maze is very well known. This is not an obscure kind of thing. So, so there's falcons, maize and, and nobody mentioned, um, the article in the Atlantic, although I didn't agree that it should be in the, in the Atlantic, that's where they put it, but in the Atlantic on bluffing and nuclear war, but then the, then the thing that people really kind of don't see is when David's looking up Volkans a dissertation and his dissertations on ai and he's in, he wrote it at Mit. And that's really the idea of learning systems. And I, and I like to emphasize to everybody and anybody listening to this, this is learning systems, not machine learning. Okay? There's a big difference. I'll even give you another example. You know, even today when I give talks about this, because I do stuff on, I give talks on hack back, I'm pretty sure that's a whole nother issue. But anyway, I give talks on hack back so this comes up and ai and cyber force and you know, when I ask people in the Ai Community, I'm sorry, the cyber community seems to think they understand Ai. And then I asked a very simple question, which two universities are the leading research universities right now in ai? And the answer is I'll usually get are good answers. Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, Mit, and they're all raw. Okay. It's the University of Montreal and the University of Toronto. So, so, so then I go back to the people and say, well, if you think about Ai, it's like if somebody said, well, okay, tell me about ancient Greek philosophy, but I never heard of this guy named Plato, you know? And it's like, you know, I don't think you really know that much about ancient Greek philosophy then. So, and that's my point is that I think the cyber community kind of doesn't know much about Ai. I think there's really not a lot of people, even though, believe it or not, there's roughly 100 papers published each week relating at least in some ways the ai in cyber, but, but that being said, uh, I don't find that there's a lot of people that really have a pretty good understanding in the cyber community then it set of Ai. I think that's, they think they do, but they can't answer a very simple question like that. And that to me is an indication they don't know.
Speaker 1:In your movie is when we mentioned Ai, Matthew Broderick says Falcon is one of the original leader or originators, I think, I forget the phrase he used, but he says, you know, he's one of the pioneers of Ai. And I'd forgotten that until I went back and watched the movie again a few weeks ago. And I wonder how much, you know, I don't, I don't think anybody in 1983, it was thinking about artificial intelligence in the general public.
Speaker 2:So in all honesty, dentists, they were. There were three, there were three, there were three companies back then, Lmi list machines incorporated. Symbolics and inference and those were the three big companies back then. Itch Kai and 84 was in the ucla or 86. Was it ucla? Eighty four. 80 six maybe. Maybe not for anyone but one of those too. And so yeah. So, so actually ai was, was having a good time back then. Um, ai was, wasn't the AI winter at that point. The winter came after that. So all the main winter came after that period. But at that time, yeah, a I actually was, was kind of a hot topic back then.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess I was 10 or 11 whenever the movie came out, so I had no idea what the hell they were talking about. Anyway. Um, you know, that's as most 10 year olds, you really don't have any understanding of how that kind of stuff works. But yes.
Speaker 2:So David also dentists just remember back then, you know, ai, what did ai mean? And that expert systems for the most part. So it wasn't anything like what we normally would talk to me. I think people, if they look back at, at people dealing with labels and supervised machine learning and they would throw up visits, Ai, this is statistics. That's what it is, guys. You can call it big data. You can call it what you want, but it's statistics. Okay. That's all it is. You're just giving statistics, sexier branding. Um, and I know when I say this to ml people, they kind of like, you know, they kind of, they're not happy to hear that. I'm kind of on the other end of the AI circle. So I go to Itch Kai. I still go to ai conferences. So the international joint conference in ai in Stockholm, I was there and I, and I go to conferences still in ai, technical conferences, academic conferences. So I'm more on the complete opposite end of the machine learning crowd. I'm in the complete opposite space where there are soft computing meets ai and, and kind of really what I think the more interesting things are, but that's very typical of the David Whiteman character.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I really, you know, as you said, you seen seem to be kind of of two minds of the character, like the way he came out on the screen as opposed to the way he wasn't a screenplay, but I liked the way that the character kind of evolves over the course of the story too, you know, he clearly learns more about what's going on, the way that, you know, get some insight into kind of the, the defense industry and the military industrial complex there and sees how kind of the research world is treating these kind of topics through Falcon.
Speaker 2:Exactly, yes. I totally agree. That's true. I think. I think that's, that's typical of the way I am. I'm 60 years old and I think that's still typical the way I am today and I think that that was accurately, I think portrayed as that aspect and I think that's something that Larry and Walter Sawn me very quickly, uh, when they first met me and that's one of the things they liked about basing things on, on my character too, to the extent that they did
Speaker 1:well. It's an, it's a really cool story. And it's been a super, it's been a real pleasure having you on the podcast, David. This is, this is amazing. I'm really happy that we got to do this and I really appreciate you taking some time out on a, on a weekend to do this with me. It's been a great time.
Speaker 2:That's great. Good. Good. I mentioned one last thing before we. A nice backdrop. A aspect.
Speaker 1:Yes. I completely forgot to ask you about that. Please go ahead.
Speaker 2:Okay. Yeah. So because this is something that really isn't talked about, Standards Law Petrov, they had a movie that came out, the man who saved the world and in September[inaudible] 83, he decided not to launch a strike when they saw five missiles seemingly coming from the west coast of the United States to the Soviet Union. And you know, there's a movie based upon where the movie's kind of goofy. I thought I, and I've seen the movie and the movie is, it's a good, it's a good portrayal of him, but it's not, it doesn't really go into anything that would really interest us from a hacking or any of that perspective. Um, but, uh, and there were some other clips about him that came out in the history channel, but uh, but there's some, there's some things that have been published and we know that war games related to the computer fraud and abuse act and Ronald Reagan thought and what happened. That's the opening scene in dark territory and the book dark territory talks about our president Reagan responded to war games. And so when I thought that's a great way to open a book, right, dark territory and it opens with war games, but, but this is the thing we really don't know about. You know, there was some things that were said when he passed away a couple of years ago, but something that had been said, he had mentioned that he, he didn't believe what he was seeing. He thought it was fake. Why Ghana movie? Well or no, like in the movie, we're not really sure. There's a lot of things that are obscure, you know, war games came out just before this incident occurred. Um, and, and we, we had read, I had read things that he was actually in Germany at that time or somebody had been, you know, thinking about it from this perspective. He's a Russian missile commander and war games comes out two to three, well in Europe two months prior to this incident, whether he had seen the movie or not is debatable, but um, you can pretty much guarantee that they were talking about the movie, especially given the heightened tensions between the US and Soviet Union at that time and they're a paranoia about us launching a first strike and here's a movie about this kind of stuff and there's some reference that he has to the idea that like in the movie, just maybe it's not real and we'll never know that. I know. I think that could be the real legacy of war games that we'll never really know. I mean, did war games and to what extent did it impact his decision? Not to say this is real and then we wouldn't be having this talk right now. So that's very true. Yeah. And it's unfortunately, no, I didn't. I thought he had died many years earlier and and I had just found out just recently that he actually died just two years ago and somebody should have actually asked him about this to really clarify what was the role of war games, to what extent, you know, it could have been many fact. One other factor of course would be that the Russians would have never thought that we're going to watch five missiles, remember five missiles with 10 to 12 warheads, you know, it's 50 to 60 missiles and you can do a lot of damage to the Soviet Union. Would that many words with. So it's still, but still they didn't think that. I understand there's that part, but just that, that one thing he evidently one time said about like in the movie in the movie and what other movie could that be? The only thing, there's only one. There's only one, so maybe that's a good way to conclude to conclude this podcast and we'll never know, but maybe war games helped save the world. I love it. Perfect. Excellent. David, thanks so much for your time. This isn't a real pleasure for me. Thanks again. Thank you, Dennis. Bye. Bye.
Speaker 3:Take care.