wardialer

1 definition found

wardialer - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  wardialer
  
     <security> Almost certainly a shortened version of "WarGames
     dialer", from the film WarGames.
  
     1. carrier scanner
  
     2. A program which attempts to break a password of known
     length by iterating thru all possible combinations of
     characters that could make up that password.
  
     This approach is not feasable for cracking most passwords
     these days.  However, as late as the mid-1980s, some
     long-distance companies required only very short numeric
     access codes (e.g. five digits) to verify the identity of
     their customers.  Wardialers were created which would, running
     unattended, call up long-distance providers' local connect
     numbers and iteratively try possible access codes.  Codes
     which worked were logged for later illicit use.
  
     These wardialers had a high success rate because of the small
     range of possibilities to iterate through, e.g. 10000 for a
     five digit access code, compared to hundreds of trillions of
     combinations for an eight-character alphanumeric code.
  
     Long-distance providers soon required longer passwords and
     took advantage of technology for rapidly tracing the phone
     numbers that wardialers were being run from, such that running
     wardialers became pointless and dangerous.
  
     (1997-03-16)