It’s 1983 and David decides to use his ISMAI 8080 microcomputer to randomly call out to various phone numbers and hack into unassuming victims computers. He finds one that provides a list of games. One of which looks exceptionally fun. Global Thermonuclear War. He initiates the game and thinks it’s the coolest thing ever. What he doesn’t know is that he just hacked into NORAD and has begun a real-world scenario of impending nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. This may sound kind of familiar. It is the plot for the movie War Games starring Matthew Broderick (Lasker & Badham, 1983).
While that may be the plot for a movie, the real life existence of malicious hackers was and is a very real threat to the security of the United States. According to "Computer Hope" (2014),” a malicious hacker is usually referred to as a black hat or criminal hacker, which describes any individual who illegally breaks into computer systems to damage or steal information”. Over the last three decades, this threat prompted the creation of many preventive measures by the US Congress. One of which was the Federal Information Security Act of 2002. This act requires that every federal agency must develop, document and implement an agency wide program to insure that information and information systems are not without information security. This blanket of security also extends to United States assets, contractors and other sources ("Nist Detailed Overview", 2014). Over the years, theft and the manipulation of digital data has not been an exclusive problem to the federal government. The entertainment and gaming industry has had their fair share of problems as well.
In 1994, David LaMacchia was indicted by a federal grand jury for his role in sharing copyrighted software applications and games over various websites he created, Cynosure and Cynosure II respectively. Under the current laws of that time, he could not be held liable for any kind of copyright infringement. The current laws held, that for one to be found liable, one had be making or receiving some kind of commercial profit. He was not. Cynosure was an electronic bulletin board where individuals upload software and games. LaMacchia would then move that data to another website, Cynosure II, for anyone with a password to the site to download whatever they wanted free of charge (U.S. V. Lamacchia, 871 F. Supp 535, 1994). This loophole through the system was closed in 1997 when the 105th United States congress enacted the No Electronic Theft ACT (NET Act). This act provided criminal prosecution for those individuals who engaged in copyright infringement, while not making or receiving any commercial profit (Peters, 1997).

Lasker, Lawrence (Writer), & Badham, John (Director). (1983). In Leonard Goldberg (Executive producer), Wargames. Seattle, WA: MGM/UA Entertainment Co.
NIST Detailed Overview. (2014). Retrieved from http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/SMA/fisma/overview.htm
Computer Hope. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.computerhope.com/jargon/h/hacker.htm
U.S. V. LaMacchia, 871 F. Supp 535. (1994). Retrieved from http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/law/st_org/iptf/exhibits/1997012301_dismiss-order.html
Peters, M. (1997). U.S. Copyright Office: No Electronic Theft Act of 1997. Retrieved from http://www.copyright.gov/docs/2265_stat.html