Bulletin board
Bulletin board system (BBS) operators reported an unusual rise in activity in 1984, which at least one sysop attributed to "WarGames" introducing viewers to modems. The scenes showing Lightman's computer dialing every number in Sunnyvale led to the term "war dialing" (earlier known as "demon dialing"), a technique of using a modem to scan a list of telephone numbers in search of unknown computers, and indirectly to the newer term "wardriving".