Using a computer to dial telephone numbers within a given range, usually with the intention of finding a modem carrier signal. The practice largely predated the widespread penetration of broadband
Internet connectivity; at the time, many businesses, agencies, and individuals operated computer systems "on-demand" through telephone-
based modems, each of which might (or might not) offer a
unique (and possibly privileged) selection of information, as
well as possibly offering
access to powerful hardware or a platform for reaching other networks and systems. Usually, the wardialer would be covertly planted on a public, shared, or corporate phone
line, left to operate for a limited time, then retrieved so that any "positives" (phone lines returning a modem carrier signal) could be investigated
later from yet another location. The practice often went hand-in-hand with phreaking, for obvious reasons.
Today, some telemarketing and social research firms use similar programs (usually working from a digital phone book) to reach residential numbers in search of sales or social information. Also, on rare occasions,
people engaged in social engineering have used a form of this process to explore "gaps" in corporate phone listings to discover (and identify the owners of) unlisted numbers.
This term directly inspired the term wardriving, due to similarities between the
two practices: both return unpredictable results, both require real-world travel, and both activities are done for rather similar reasons. On the other hand, while wardriving is inherently focused on and limited to a specific geographic area, wardialing is a prototypical bruteforce process, much like
password cracking, and can theoretically be achieved from any location with a dial tone.
In the 1983 movie Wargames, a
teenager engages in wardialing and discovers a backdoor into the NORAD (NAADS) computer
system. He then accidentally runs a simulation which almost turns into World War III.
The wardialer is
dead. Long live the wardriver.
