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Science

Researchers Warn of Extraterrestrial Hacks (vice.com) 16

Posted by msmash from the stranger-things dept.
dmoberhaus writes: An astronomer and astrophysicist have published a new paper to arXiv examining possible scenarios where an extraterrestrial message received on Earth is malicious. This ranges from unsubstantiated threats ('We'll supernova your sun!') to super advanced AI that promises the cure for cancer but takes over the world with microbots. The ideas are pretty far out there, but serve to underscore the inherent risk with SETI efforts. Nevertheless, the researchers argue that the benefits of establishing contact with ET far outweigh the risks .
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Researchers Warn of Extraterrestrial Hacks More

Researchers Warn of Extraterrestrial Hacks

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  • Oh, yeah! Now I remember. It was on /. yesterday!

    Do our editors actually, you know, edit? Or is that just soooo 20th Century?

  • That's why they're all being deported.

  • Which animal has a memory span of less than 6 hours?

    The Slashdot Editor.

    https://science.slashdot.org/s... [slashdot.org]

  • Them aliens sure hacked Slashdot good!

    Sometimes I think the editors intentionally posts dupes just to rile people up. This article was a hilariously good choice.

    - greger

  • With the scenarios given, how exactly does SETI increase the risk? Does the AI obey old school vampire rules where it can't come to our planet unless we invite it? Are the aliens, who are capable of inducing a supernova in our star, not advanced enough to know we're here unless we answer (which of course would take potentially 1000s of years for the response to reach them anyway)?

    Entities powerful enough to do the things described don't need our permission. If they want to destroy us, we probably wouldn't e

  • What could we possibly offer aliens? The idea that they might want to eat us for mere food is ridiculous. If they exist, know about us and can reach us, and want something nefarious, we can probably do nothing about it. They may well have been civilized for over a million years and have technology, intelligence, philosophies, and understanding so far beyond us that we are mere insects to them.

    Why should they want to simply harm us? Easy enough for an advanced, powerful, space faring civilization to ex

  • Security researchers are really in danger of becoming "The Boy Who Cried Wolf". Maybe I should go into business selling Alien Hack insurance. The odds of having to pay a claim would be astronomically small.

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