Is SETI a Security Risk? 527
Dotnaught writes "Richard Carrigan, a particle physicist at the US Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois, fears the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) may be putting the earth at risk. As reported in the Guardian, Carrigan frets that alien radio signals could pose a security risk. The report cites a 2003 paper entitled "Do potential Seti signals need to be decontaminated?" but Carrigan's website has more details. Basically, he's calling for isolation of SETI computers and additional security measures. He writes, "To paraphrase Cocconi and Morrison for the possibility of a malevolent SETI signal ...the probability of a contaminated SETI signal is difficult to estimate; but if we never consider it the chance of infection is not zero."" Frankly, I'm more worried about some phishing malcontent then I am about the Grays, but maybe that's just me.
Re:Chicken and Egg. (Score:2, Informative)
I get the idea that Steve Jobs might have something to say about it as well.
To me, the idea that an outside signal can be manipulated and sent in just the right way to overflow our validation network is akin to shakespeare and monkeys.
However - I can see somebody managing to send dirty packets down to the clients after hacking the SETI central computers (somehow, lots of hand waving etc) to put bad data there which could exploit a seemingly trivial problem with the seti client.
Not aliens though.
Not necessarily from space. (Score:4, Informative)
Thing is you don't need to separate the data, you just need to make the processing software secure, in such a way that data is analysed and never executed, there's no chance of buffer overflow or other potential risks coming from the data. Simple as that.
Re:Chicken and Egg. (Score:5, Informative)
- someone could hack the server and send out malicious code with the next software update
- someone could hack the data stream and inject malicious data into it (assuming there really is such a thing as malicious data, which I find hard to believe).
- someone terrestrial could broadcast malicious data in such a way that the SETI telescopes pick it up and think that it's ET in origin.
- an ET could broadcast malicious data, after having picked up a copy of the SETI software and analyzing it.
- an ET could broadcast malicious data without knowing what the receiver is like (the worry describe in TFA).
Re:A classic example ... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Hmm... Is it just me or is this guy... (Score:3, Informative)
He's a physicist. If you thought the socially inept uber nerd was a dying or dead species, they aren't. Far from it really. Walk around Fermilab's cafeteria at lunch and you can witness some absolutely stunning samples. Even worse are the ones who carry these traits, and think they're far more intelligent than they are. The arrogance these guys can carry is indescribable.
Yes I'm generalizing, but it's hard not to. For every well adjusted, friendly physicist there's at least one other who thinks himself a living diety.
Re:Chicken and Egg. (Score:3, Informative)
I doubt there's a risk of ET hacking SETI@home and pwning the internet; they'd be working completely blind. The risk from alien signals is one that I think was raised by someone in Contact: what if they hack us?
Send down a message, prime number sequences and so forth, describe the periodic table, build a scientific vocabulary, the whole SETI thing. Then begin describing plans for a machine. Make it look like a spaceship. When built and switched on: boom!
A very cheap and efficient means of exterminating potential upstart rivals in the universe. No expensive, slow battlefleet needed, just a trick signal and we do all the work ourselves.
Re:Movie-plot threat (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Chicken and Egg. (Score:3, Informative)
"The technology of the signal", eh? Look, a signal is a signal. A radio wave is a radio wave--it is not also magically a sandwich. If we receive something, whatever it does will be done through our technology. If these ETs have something that allows them to view us instantaneously and manipulate matter over here, they won't be worrying about radio signals, and we'll have bigger problems anyway.
It's okay to think outside the box, just don't think outside of the laws of physics.