# Presentation: 349882

## THE ULTIMATE HACKER SETI Signals May Need to Be Decontaminated 

- Dick Carrigan
*Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory*
*Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510, USA (carrigan@fnal.gov)*

- Cocconi and Morrison close their famous 1959 SETI article in *Nature* with the comment “*The reader may seek to consign these speculations wholly to the domain of science-fiction. We submit rather, that the foregoing line of argument demonstrates that the presence of interstellar signals are entirely consistent with all we now know...We therefore feel that a discriminating search for signals deserves a considerable effort. The probability of success is difficult to estimate; but if we never search  the chance of success is zero.*”

## Introduction

- Topics
- Current SETI picture
- SETI messages
- The possibility of SETI viruses
- Interstellar signal transfer
- Denaturing signals
- Actions

- D. Carrigan-Fermilab            IAC-03-IAA.8.3.06  Bremen  9/30/03

## Current SETI picture

- SETI searches are pregnant

- D. Carrigan-Fermilab            IAC-03-IAA.8.3.06  Bremen  9/30/03

## SETI

- ETI searches (radio and optical) are now approaching a level where a substantial fraction of  sun-like stars out to several hundred light years have been monitored at least once.

- Credits: Allen Telescope, Harvard SETI

- D. Carrigan-Fermilab            IAC-03-IAA.8.3.06  Bremen  9/30/03

## Current SETI picture

- SETI searches are pregnant
- more planets than expected
- planets within range of our radio signals

- D. Carrigan-Fermilab            IAC-03-IAA.8.3.06  Bremen  9/30/03

## Extra solar planets

- A thousand or so sun-like stars within 100 light years have been searched
- At least 8% have Jupiter-sized planets (lower limit since measurements limit detection to Jupiter-scale)
- The fraction of stars with planets may be  higher so that a sizeable fraction of sun-like stars could have planets

- D. Carrigan-Fermilab            IAC-03-IAA.8.3.06  Bremen  9/30/03

## Current SETI picture

- SETI searches are pregnant
- more planets than expected
- planets within range of our radio signals
- Origin of life seems fairly easy
- computer "life"
- Earth may not be so “rare”

- The chance of detecting ETI has increased many-fold!

- D. Carrigan-Fermilab            IAC-03-IAA.8.3.06  Bremen  9/30/03

## Messages

**Electromagnetic or matter (DNA, silicon, spacecraft, ..?)**

- Want to get signal rate up!

**Message** **content**?

- D. Carrigan-Fermilab            IAC-03-IAA.8.3.06  Bremen  9/30/03

## Do analogies help?

- Sender of a SETI message will look to the stars but its core perspectives may be more like the ant’s than our human one.

- Moral arguments hard. Darwinian “Survival of the Fittest” rules.

- D. Carrigan-Fermilab            IAC-03-IAA.8.3.06  Bremen  9/30/03

## Artifacts and beacons versus messages

- D. Carrigan-Fermilab            IAC-03-IAA.8.3.06  Bremen  9/30/03

**Notes:**
Add artifacts

## Nature of a signal

- Radio’s advantage-speed of light
**BUT-need a receiver!**

- D. Carrigan-Fermilab            IAC-03-IAA.8.3.06  Bremen  9/30/03

## SETI viruses?

- Biological contamination from space samples is a remote but accepted possibility. SETI signals could also contain harmful information similar to a computer virus.

**SETI viruses?**

- D. Carrigan-Fermilab            IAC-03-IAA.8.3.06  Bremen  9/30/03

**Notes:**
Abstract
Bioastronomy 2002-Life Among the Stars-Great Barrier Reef July 7-13, 2002   D. Carrigan-Fermilab    carrigan@fnal.gov

## Biocontamination

- Possible biological contamination led to the establishment of a protocol for decontaminating material returning from space
- International Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) developed protocol through international space bodies and the United Nations

- D. Carrigan-Fermilab            IAC-03-IAA.8.3.06  Bremen  9/30/03

## Is a SETI virus just fiction?

- Received from Leslie Sage, Senior Editor of *Nature*, “While the subject does cross interdisciplinary lines this is not the main criterion we use for selection. Rather, papers should report deep new physical insights, ... We have been unable to identify such aspects in the paper. The general premise of the manuscript even lacks some conceptual novelty, as it has already been explored in the book *3001, the Final Odyssey* by Arthur C. Clarke.”

- D. Carrigan-Fermilab            IAC-03-IAA.8.3.06  Bremen  9/30/03

**Notes:**
Put in Analog cover

## One way versus two way signals

- Credit: http://www.sonic.net/bristlecone/

- D. Carrigan-Fermilab            IAC-03-IAA.8.3.06  Bremen  9/30/03

## Dangerous ETI signals

**Dangerous ETI signals**

- An intelligent system on a star fifty light years away detecting earth’s first radio signals could have broadcast a  return signal that would now be reaching earth. There are on the ordr of 400 stars within this fifty light year sphere. Tarter notes TV transmitters on earth can be detected one light year away with contemporary technology.

- D. Carrigan-Fermilab            IAC-03-IAA.8.3.06  Bremen  9/30/03

**Notes:**
Claris draw radio sphere under SETI

## human genome-3 Gbytes of DNA base pairs, actual information content is on the order of 0.05 Gbytes
typical education through graduate school subsumed in    1-10 Gbytes
“memory” of an acquaintance might require 1-10 Mbytes so 1000 people could be summarized in 10 Gbytes
lifetime of images stored on DVD might be 1000 Gbytes
knowledge base in a human brain-30 Gbyte range*. 6*109 people gives 1011 Gbytes to profile everyone on earth 
106 Gbytes of material printed every year

- typical education through graduate school subsumed in    1-10 Gbytes
- “memory” of an acquaintance might require 1-10 Mbytes so 1000 people could be summarized in 10 Gbytes
- lifetime of images stored on DVD might be 1000 Gbytes
- knowledge base in a human brain-30 Gbyte range*. 6*109 people gives 1011 Gbytes to profile everyone on earth
- 106 Gbytes of material printed every year

- Size of SETI signals

- *credit: D. Crevier. “The tumultuous history of the search for AI”. Basic Books-NY (93).

**Based on this anticipate long signals possibly interspersed with short lures**** **

- D. Carrigan-Fermilab            IAC-03-IAA.8.3.06  Bremen  9/30/03

## Electromagnetic energy needs

- *D. Leigh-Harvard thesis

- D. Carrigan-Fermilab            IAC-03-IAA.8.3.06  Bremen  9/30/03

## Electromagnetic energy/bit

- D. Carrigan-Fermilab            IAC-03-IAA.8.3.06  Bremen  9/30/03

## Interstellar information transfer 

- Larger separation between the sender and receiver requires more energy
- Bigger transmitting and receiving antennas lower the energy
- Better or more sensitive detectors help. For fundamental reasons this implies cold detectors.
- For electromagnetic signals the attenuation of the interstellar medium is important
- Antenna gain-the ability of an antenna to focus the beam. Bigger dishes with higher gain focus better
- For the example-the transmitter cost of a received electromagnetic bit is 4 Joules

- Energy to launch electromagnetic bit, transmit it through space, detect

- D. Carrigan-Fermilab            IAC-03-IAA.8.3.06  Bremen  9/30/03

## From 50 light years away a 1000 kW transmitter using a 10 GHz carrier (λ = 3 cm) could send more than 10 Kbytes/s. A 1 Gbyte program or computer encyclopedia would take a day to transmit and cost $2400. (This is only an order of magnitude more expensive than buying software on a CD.)

**Radio signals**

- D. Carrigan-Fermilab            IAC-03-IAA.8.3.06  Bremen  9/30/03

**Notes:**
Needs more work

## Optical and near optical signals

**Laser beam spread may be too small. Have to point with great care and lead star for stellar motion**
**Beyond 1000 light years signals in the visible suffer significantly from extinction **
**Background effects less important**
**Nanosecond megajoule laser pulse outshines sun**

**Optical and near optical signals**

**Different than radio SETI:**

**Cost per laser bit ranges from 10****4**** to 10****-3**** of a radio bit**** based on different estimates**

- D. Carrigan-Fermilab            IAC-03-IAA.8.3.06  Bremen  9/30/03

## Matter transfer

- Receiver is not needed, but landing, ...?
- Launch cost for DNA bit can be precisely determined. A DNA word with three base pairs is 1.44 bits
- Stellar escape velocity about 3*104 m/s or .0001 of the speed of light
- Then DNA bit is 10-16 Joules

- Panspermia with stellar perturbations: Gain = 4*108. Launch energy/bit is 0.03 Joules

- Surprising fact: sphere of DNA roughly 1 cm in diameter could contain an amazing 1020 bytes of information

- D. Carrigan-Fermilab            IAC-03-IAA.8.3.06  Bremen  9/30/03

## Panspermia, the flow of seeds of life across space

- D. Carrigan-Fermilab            IAC-03-IAA.8.3.06  Bremen  9/30/03

## Spacecraft case

-  Mission profiles:  ~ 107 kg Saturn rocket,  payload ~ 105 kg . Ion thrusters in infancy but better. Antimatter fuel-five nanograms is basket of batteries.
-  Payload: guidance rockets, crew (small robots?), shielding, decelerating gear,  information payload.
-  10 kg can be boosted outside the sun’s gravitational field.
-  Panspermia energy costs might not be so different..

- Note that the spacecraft approach has a very high bandwidth

- D. Carrigan-Fermilab            IAC-03-IAA.8.3.06  Bremen  9/30/03

## Matter transfer continued

- Receiver is not needed, but landing, ...?
- Launch cost for DNA bit can be precisely determined. A DNA word with three base pairs is 1.44 bits
- Stellar escape velocity about 3*104 m/s or .0001 of the speed of light
- Then DNA bit is 10-16 Joules

- Panspermia with stellar perturbations: Gain = 4*108. Launch energy/bit is 0.03 Joules
- Spaceship and DNA about same

**Electromagnetic and matter costs per bit are comparable**

- Surprising fact: sphere of DNA roughly 1 cm in diameter could contain an amazing 1020 bytes of information

- D. Carrigan-Fermilab            IAC-03-IAA.8.3.06  Bremen  9/30/03

## An ETI computer virus

- Virus Threat List
-  W32.Fishlet.A@mm June 10, 2002
-    W32.Chier@mm June 8, 2002
-       W32.Frethem.D@mm June 7, 2002
-         VBS.Chick.F@m June 7, 2002
-            Backdoor.AntiLam June 7, 2002
-              W32.HLLW.Nople June 6, 2002
-                 VBS.VBSWG.AQ@mm June 6, 2002
-                    W32.Shermnar.Worm June 5, 2002
-                       Backdoor.Tron June 4, 2002
-                         W32.Pet_Ticky.B@mm June 3,

**An ETI computer virus**

**Expert criticisms****:**
**Viruses use **_**known**_** features of system to find a portal**
**Idiosyncratic language is an unbreakable firewall**
**Download process seriously scrambles the signal content**
**ETI code too complicated and not earth-adapted**

**Raw signal in memory must bootstrap to status of operating program ****(can test this as a possibility)**
**Program must then untangle the inner workings of the host. ****(Is it possible to now build a diagnosis program to determine the operating set of an unfamiliar computer?)**
**Then learn how to translate unpacking program into local computer language**

- D. Carrigan-Fermilab            IAC-03-IAA.8.3.06  Bremen  9/30/03

**Notes:**
Need to work in comment about SETI@home

## Prophylactic measures

**Prophylactic measures**

- Keep downloaded SETI signals on machines isolated from analysis
- Fragment SETI signals into small packets and keep apart
- Quarantine on isolated computers and watch for aberrant behavior
- Check sums and program integrity checks
- Could SETI translation use one-time ciphers for operating codes?
- Beacons can be handled without as much care as messages

- D. Carrigan-Fermilab            IAC-03-IAA.8.3.06  Bremen  9/30/03

## Actions

- Revise item 6 of the present SETI signal detection protocol so data is more tightly controlled
- Rethink widely dispersed data of SETI@home
- Prepare to act promptly if a signal is found
- Convene a COSPAR type workshop of experts in SETI, computer security, cryptography, biological contamination, and archaeology

- 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*.

- D. Carrigan-Fermilab            IAC-03-IAA.8.3.06  Bremen  9/30/03