Happy MilwaukeeDay! In 1983, the 414s, a group of young tech-savants, made national headlines for hacking into major computer systems, sparking a conversation on cybersecurity & leading to new laws. hackinghistory cybersecurity
, David Lightman, played by a fresh-faced Matthew Broderick, sits in his bedroom, plunking away on a boxy computer using an 8-bit Intel processor. As text flashes across the screen, David’s face lights up; he believes he’s hacking into a video game company, but the unwitting teenager is actually facing off against a military supercomputer. “Shall we play a game?” the computer asks ominously. In the film, the subsequent showdown triggers a countdown to World War III.
While the 414s’ antics didn’t spark a nuclear conflict, they did ignite a national conversation on computer security — long before cyberwarfare made headlines and modern-day hackers like Julian Assange became household names. Plus, the media frenzy fueled by the group alerted U.S. legislators that new laws were needed to combat computer crime.
Winslow found he wasn’t the only one who gravitated to these early computers. In high school, he joined an Explorer Scout program focused on computing and tech, sponsored by IBM, where he met most of his fellow would-be hackers. The members met right after school in downtown Milwaukee to program computer code together.
The gang saw themselves as explorers, harnessing their curiosity to learn more about how the systems worked. Mostly, the 414s were looking to get their hands on computer games. Throughout 1983, though, the group’s activities grew bolder. At one point, they hacked into Security Pacific National Bank in Los Angeles, which had billions in assets. That spring, the 414s infiltrated a computer at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
“I had gone to bed a little late the night before; my mom came down and woke me up,” says Winslow, who came upstairs to find the agents sitting at the kitchen table. “They [said], ‘We’d like to talk to you about what you’ve been doing with your computer for the last few months.’"Winslow, Wondra and another member were all charged by the federal government and faced the possibility of jail time. But because Patrick was a minor, he wasn’t at risk for prosecution.
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