In the early ’80s, two films likely had a greater impact on the national conversation surrounding nuclear weapons than any policy wonk or talking head. President Ronald Reagan saw WarGames, about a hacker who nearly triggers World War III, shortly after its 1983 release and issued a security directive that amounted to the first national policy on reducing the vulnerability of computers to hackers. That same year, The Day After, a made-for-TV film about a nuclear war with the Soviet Union that…

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