Wardialer

1 definition found

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:

  wardialer
       
           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)