Scientists Say Space Aliens Could Hack Our Planet (nbcnews.com)

Scientists are worried that space aliens might send messages that worm their way into human society -- not to steal our passwords but to bring down our culture. "Astrophysicists Michael Hippke and John Learned argue in a recent paper that our telescopes might pick up hazardous messages sent our way -- a virus that shuts down our computers, for example, or something a bit like cosmic blackmail: 'Do this for us, or we'll make your sun go supernova and destroy Earth,'" reports NBC News. "Or perhaps the cosmic hackers could trick us into building self-replicating nanobots, and then arrange for them to be let loose to chew up our planet or its inhabitants." From the report: The astrophysicists also suggest that the extraterrestrials could show their displeasure (what did we do?) by launching a cyberattack. Maybe you've seen the 1996 film "Independence Day," in which odious aliens are vanquished by a computer virus uploaded into their machinery. That's about as realistic as sabotaging your neighbor's new laptop by feeding it programs written for the Commodore 64. In other words, aliens that could muster the transmitter power (not to mention the budget) to try wiping us out with code are going to have a real compatibility problem.

Yet there is a way that messages from space might be disruptive. Extraterrestrials could simply give us some advanced knowledge -- not as a trade, but as a gift. How could that possibly be a downer? Imagine: You're a physicist who has dedicated your career to understanding the fundamental structure of matter. You have a stack of reprints, a decent position, and a modicum of admiration from the three other specialists who have read your papers. Suddenly, aliens weigh in with knowledge that's a thousand years ahead of yours. So much for your job and your sense of purpose. If humanity is deprived of the opportunity to learn things on its own, much of its impetus for novelty might evaporate. In a society where invention and discovery are written out of the script, progress and improvement would suffer.

Comments

Re:Maybe it already happened

[TheRaven64]

We got applied nuclear fission (and fusion soon after) at almost exactly the same time we got long-range rocketry working. Coincidence?

I enjoy this kind of conspiracy theory, but unfortunately it doesn't really stand up. Getting a working nuclear bomb requires high explosives (in shaped charges) to achieve the critical mass at a density that maintains a chain reaction for long enough. This is basically the same sort of chemistry that you need for rocket propellants. Nuclear fission reactors require materials science able to build the containment vessels, which are very similar to rocket exhaust jets in requirements.

Rockets are very old, it's only the advances in materials sciences that made large human-carrying ones possible. There's a long chain of discoveries going back to the 19th century the led to the discovery of fission, which is easy to achieve (though not to very useful degrees) once you can refine uranium. Refining uranium requires centrifuges that, again, depend on the materials technology to be able to build rapidly spinning things that don't fly apart.

Without the advances in alloys during the first world war, we probably wouldn't have had either rockets or fission in the second world war. As to fusion, once you discover fission is possible then fusion is pretty obvious and a Farnsworth Fusor is fairly easy to build (though building one that's energy positive is, so far, not possible).