<P> The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) was enacted by Congress in 1986 as an amendment to existing computer fraud law (18 U.S.C. § 1030), which had been included in the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 . The law prohibits accessing a computer without authorization, or in excess of authorization . </P> <P> The original 1984 bill was enacted in response to concern that computer - related crimes might go unpunished . The House Committee Report to the original computer crime bill characterized the 1983 techno - thriller film WarGames--in which a young Matthew Broderick breaks into a U.S. military supercomputer programmed to predict possible outcomes of nuclear war and unwittingly almost starts World War III--as "a realistic representation of the automatic dialing and access capabilities of the personal computer ." </P> <P> The CFAA was written to increase the scope of the previous version of 18 U.S.C. § 1030 while, in theory, limiting federal jurisdiction to cases "with a compelling federal interest - i.e., where computers of the federal government or certain financial institutions are involved or where the crime itself is interstate in nature ." (see "Protected Computer", below). In addition to amending a number of the provisions in the original section 1030, the CFAA also criminalized additional computer - related acts . Provisions addressed the distribution of malicious code and denial of service attacks . Congress also included in the CFAA a provision criminalizing trafficking in passwords and similar items . </P>

When did the need for computer tampering laws become apparent