The "SETI Hacker" Hypothesis
Mungos
By Leonard David
Microsoft may have to fork up big bounty bucks trying to unearth future
hackers, particularly when they are light years away on distant worlds.
Add one more worry to the computerized world of the 21st century. Could a
signal from the stars broadcast by an alien intelligence also carry harmful
information, in the spirit of a computer virus? Could star folk launch a
"disinformation" campaign -- one that covers up aspects of their culture?
Perhaps they might even mask the "real" intent of dispatching a message to
other civilizations scattered throughout the Cosmos.
These are concerns that deserve attention explains Richard Carrigan, Jr., a
physicist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois.
Those engaged in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), he
contends, should think about decontaminating potential SETI signals.
The so-called "SETI Hacker" hypothesis, Carrigan argues, is an issue of
interstellar discourse that should be taken seriously. We should exercise
caution when handling SETI downloads, he said.
Altruistic, benign, or malevolent?
Carrigan notes that Earth's early radio ramblings have already traveled some
fifty light years away. (A light year is the distance that light travels in
a vacuum in one year, equal to 5.88 trillion miles (9.46 trillion
kilometers).
Turns out that on the order of 400 stars are within 50 light years of Earth.
Any civilization out at that distance may have immediately responded and
sent a signal back to Earth. "Such a signal could be useful or possibly very
harmful to us," Carrigan suggested in a recent scientific paper presented at
the 54th International Astronautical Congress, held September 29th - October
3 in Bremen, Germany.
A key question is whether or not a SETI signal might be altruistic, benign,
or malevolent. "It would help to understand the motivation of a message
before reading too much of it," Carrigan said. Like Odysseus of Greek
Mythology, he added, "we may have to stuff wax in the ears of our
programmers and strap the chief astronomer to the receiving tower before she
is allowed to listen to the song of the siren star."
Message impact
The SETI Hacker concept is not new. It has been fodder for science fiction
writers over the years. But today, given the reality of scanning the heavens
for other advanced civilizations, it's time to take an analytical look for
means to "denature" SETI signals, Carrigan proposes.
New and exciting efforts like the SETI Institute's Allen Telescope Array,
for example, will allow a targeted SETI search to proceed 24 hours a day, 7
days a week. This new instrument is a joint effort by the SETI Institute and
the University of California, Berkeley. Because of its novel construction --
an array of inexpensive antennas -- it can be simultaneously used for both
SETI and cutting-edge radio astronomy research.
"That facility is powerful and ratchets up the possibility of an
extraterrestrial intelligence detection by large factors. I hope that well
before the facility goes into serious operation there can be a "messages and
message impact" workshop of technical people, non-SETI experts in computers,
languages, signaling, etc.," Carrigan told SPACE.com .
The character and size of an ET signal will shape the approach to treating
the signal content. Say that we're on the receiving end of a beacon with a
message of less than a hundred kilobytes repeating every 10 seconds or so.
That could be handled without too many precautions, Carrigan said.
Electronic condom
But for some SETIologists, there is the hoped for prospect of tapping into
some type of galactic Library of Congress. Carrigan notes that a signal from
the stars will have to provide some attractive "advertisement" or lure to
enlist the help of a host. Almost certainly, he adds, actual messages will
have gone through some sort of compression.
"The signal will have to carry the compression decoding algorithms embedded
in the message. On a first level it is to the advantage of the sender to
have the compression algorithm totally clear," Carrigan said. The message
size can easily be so large that the underlying intent of the message would
not be apparent, he said.
Striking the motherlode of SETI speak, however, could cause an overload --
an inability on our end to handle oodles of information. "Even an advanced
civilization might have to draw the line somewhere on the scale of message
transmission," Carrigan pointed out.
Yet even a beacon could point to a signal in a different wavelength band
where a message was coming in. "A message should be approached with great
care. It may be extremely dangerous," Carrigan warns. "Put simply, the
receiver needs virus protection."
Code of behavior
Ultimately, what may be needed is a protocol similar to the one for
biological contamination of a probe returning from space -- like that
discussed in handling surface materials brought back from Mars. The prospect
of a virulent microbe from Mars doing damage to Earth's ecosystem cannot be
dismissed.
Those engaged in SETI work have already hammered out a protocol to follow if
any ET signal is detected. But that code of behavior is more meant to avoid
public relation problems if a signal is announced prematurely, Carrigan
said.
"The possibility of a malevolent SETI Hacker signal must be assessed and
protective measures should be put in place prior to the receipt of any real
signals," Carrigan advises.
Look at the big picture
Is there a serious "threat" here?
"I think Carrigan makes an interesting suggestion. I don't think that
there's much to worry about, however," said Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer
at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California.
To begin with, Shostak said, all radio SETI experiments "average" incoming
signals for seconds or even minutes. This means that any high
information-content message is smoothed away...and lost, he said.
"No need to worry about alien viruses infecting our machinery," Shostak
added, "because this signal averaging is like a microbe filter, screening
them out!" For optical SETI experiments -- looking for flashes of
laser-carried chatter from ET -- this is less true, as these searches could,
in principle, rather easily record a large series of "ones and zeroes" that
might be sent our way on a beam of light, Shostak told SPACE.com .
Shostak said that you've got to look at the big picture.
"I don't think that, given the likely -- and large -- difference in
technological level between transmitting extraterrestrials and us, that we
would be suitable targets for either malicious infections or attempts to
'beam themselves here,'" Shostak said.
Trole
institutima.
Verovatno je autor hipotezu smislio da bi o trosku Fermi National
Accelerator Laboratory skoknuo iz Batavie, Illinois do Bremena, Germany...
Ovu ideju su (mislim na kontakt, a ne na nacin kako otici na konvenciju u
inostranstvo i ogrebati se za dnevnice) na mnogo profinjeniji nacin obradili
SF pisci (A kao Andromeda, Glas Gospodara... - ovo je prvo sto mi pada na
pamet).
Bio je sjajn clanak o "vanzemaljskom softveru" pre nekoliko godina u
hrvatskom Bug-u, gde je autor popljuvao Dan nezavisnosti - zbog vremena
potrebnog signalu da predje medjuzvezdana rastojanja, mora doci "tehnicke
zastarelosti" primljene informacije - analogija bi bila kao da pokusavamo da
rekonstruisemo tehnicki nivo nase civilizacije na osnovu pronadjenog aviona
iz Drugog svetskog rata. Da ne govorim o potpunoj nekompatibilnosti
eventualnog "ET-software"-a sa ovdasnjim masinama, otprilike kao kada bi
neko probao da ENIAC-om primi signal iz X-box-a. Problem komuniciranja
izmedju dve civilizacije je mnogo dublji nego prosta "razmena virusa".
Mixitron M. Storm
> Citajuci ovo, ponekad se zapitam postoji li inteligentan zivot u naucnim
> institutima.
Pre ili kasnije shvatiš da ima nešto i u lovi :( Ipak, ne bih mogao da
se izložim ovome za tu kintu...
Marko37
> The so-called "SETI Hacker" hypothesis, Carrigan argues, is an issue of
> interstellar discourse that should be taken seriously. We should exercise
> caution when handling SETI downloads, he said.
Jedna od najsmešnijih stvari koje sam imao prilike da pročitam. Podseti
me na scenu iz "Dana nezavisnosti" kada učitaju virus u vanzemaljski
kompjuter.
Pa ja nekad ne mogu da nateram dva ista kompjutera sa istim OSom da se
"vide", a kamoli da pomislim da će neki vanzemaljski program da se uvuče
u ljudske kompjutere... :)
--
A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.
Mixitron M. Storm
> "vide", a kamoli da pomislim da će neki vanzemaljski program da se uvuče
> u ljudske kompjutere... :)
Imaš onu Klarkovu teoremu iz 3001 da 'svaki kompjuter može da emulira
svaki drugi kompjuter', verovatno kad se izuzmu razni 8bitaši...
Trole
kompjuter u Vaseljeni nachisto pobrljavi.
Scenario je sledeci: project SETI ima i onaj mali programcic koji on-line u
hiljadama racunara zvace podatke, ergo, ET virus preko njega pocne da
spamuje preko maila i SMS-a, a usput zaposedne i alarme na automobilima,
daljinske upravljace i vrata na garazama, supermarketima i silosima za
interkontinentalne balisticke projektile. Nastavak je lako zamisliti >:)
Mixitron M. Storm
> daljinske upravljace i vrata na garazama, supermarketima i silosima za
> interkontinentalne balisticke projektile. Nastavak je lako zamisliti >:)
Aha, ulećem u tehnomarket evropa i marišem onaj widescreen samsungov
tft, taman pod veću jaknu a alarm na izlazu ne radi :)))