I do not comprehend.

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"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song

Good (fun) reading on this topic:
Greg Bear, "Forge of God" series
1. The Forge of God (1987)
2. Anvil of Stars (1992)
(Fiction.)

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Measure once. Cut twice. Power tools are fun.

"You are on the way to destruction!"

Wikipedia: All your base are belong to us (and more direct to the All Your Base video: official home)

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0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 ...

Oh. I always wondered what "All your base are..." meant. I'd seen people say it in Age of Mythology.

__________________
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song

For great justice!

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Did I say fifty light years or did you just push it back that far to fit your argument? I believe I clearly admitted that distance would be a determining factor in this scenario, however, it is still THE most plausible way of attacking Earth. And considering the fact that I wrote a lot and all you could do is come up with an argument you made up yourself, I guess I'm on the right track.


Oh, I get it... so because some really bad sci fi movie used this idea as a plot line then the idea must be really bad... is that the logic? Pffftt...

There are around ten or so stars within ten light years of us. If a hostile civilization rose up in any of those systems they would have absolutely no problem doing any of what I said. Twenty years IS a long time, but our technology is, and will be for a long time to come, based upon binary code, and even though the last time I bothered to look at an assembly language instruction set for Intel microprocessors was at least eight years ago, I'd be willing to bet the microprocessor in my shiny new laptop will still run the same instructions. Some of the hardware level code might run into difficulties, but I'll bet I could still manipulate files and most of the things I'd need to do to learn more about the operating system.

How much do you think TCP\IP has changed in the last twenty years? Also, do you believe that just because us privileged people can afford to buy shiny new computers every two years that everyone on Earth does the same? I seem to recall this big hub-bub around the turn of the century related to a Y2K problem that had everyone scrambling to update their legacy systems, and the number of very old computers still doing jobs that were VITAL to our planet's infrastructure were a great concern.

You would readily believe that life could form anywhere but have difficulty believing that an intelligent culture could hack our computer systems over a tiny span of ten to twenty years?

I could go one further with this argument and say that if they are too far away, then it would be far more economical to send ships closer but not all the way, and attack us from those advanced positions. However, that argument itself is crap because it would take them hundreds or thousands of years to even partially close that gap in ships.

The only practical way for a hostile stellar race to attack, conquer, and defeat Earth would be through information warfare. Just like a virus that can attack your body and use your own cellular machinery to destroy you, an alien race could do the same to us. And think about this a little bit. A virus is an evolutionary accident. It has no intelligence and it is a matter of debate whether it can even be considered to be alive. All it is, is information. Information that your cellular "microprocessors" take in and execute blindly. A deliberately engineered virus would be a frightful weapon... and that is exactly what the alien code would be.

All the alien code has to do is get in and build enough of a structure so that more powerful code can be run. If the code that initially infects the system is well designed then it would learn how to improve itself and adapt to changes in computer systems over time. If it could do that much, then the rest is history, because, as I mentioned before, all it has to do is provide a virtual machine to run the true alien AI that would cause the big problems.

The cloning attack would probably be even easier because we'd be so hot to build an alien to communicate with that we'd do it long before we were ever able to really model or read the genetic code to see and comprehend the nefarious instructions contained within.

Sure, we'd take precautions and keep it locked up, but being trusting folks we'd let it out sooner or later... all it would have to do is play on our emotions and wait.

Earth itself may be about one hundred years away from being able to launch an attack just like this. Any civilization that is modestly more advanced and hostile would get us... it's that simple.

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The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible.

Arthur C. Clarke

The Brain Science Podcast

Look, from Wikipedia... "C is a general-purpose, block structured, procedural, imperative computer programming language developed in 1972 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system.[2] It has since spread to many other platforms. Although C was designed as a system implementation language,[3][4] it is also widely used for applications. C has also greatly influenced many other popular languages,[5] especially C++, which was originally designed as an extension to C."

I can still write code in C and compile it on my machine. The compiler needs to adapt the language to the machine, but well-written C code, or any other code for that matter, can stand the test of time as long as compilers are updated and available.

So, to pull this whole thing off, all the alien culture would have to do is get a program (runable binary code) onto one of our machines that has a compiler and then it can pretty much do whatever it wanted to. The rest of the alien programming can arrive as source code which could be compiled. Iterative waves of improvements like this could rapidly build up into a very dangerous threat.

If I had enough time I could write a program in C that compiles a computer language I can make up myself. And by enough time I'm talking about months not decades or centuries. Once I had that, I could create a new version of my compiler on any machine that has a C compiler. It could be an Apple, a PC, a minicomputer, anything.

Just because we haven't figured out how to write code that can learn and evolve doesn't mean it can't be done. We WILL do it in the next hundred years (and this is such a conservative estimate that I doubt any computer scientist would disagree and say it would take longer).

And yea... our individual PCs are obviously too weak for much intelligence to be possible... but our own brains are a network of interconnected stupid cells that can't think, yet somehow the network is capable of intelligent thought... so the AI would obviously need to be a distributed system running on millions of machines around the world, but that would only make harder to kill since cleaning its' code off of one machine would be like having a few neurons die... no big deal at all.

If our existing internet was not sufficient for it to use against us, it would simply have to wait, slowly improve itself over time, and when our computers are fast enough and we are dependent upon them enough, it could strike. It literally could sit in our networks plotting against us for a hundred years if it could stay hidden.

If spaceships filled with conquering alien space marines were sent at the same time the code was sent, they'd be a stone's throw away from home by the time the AI wiped out the human race.

(I simply can't believe anyone is arguing against this method of attack... it's too obvious, it's the only practical way to do it, and it is far more plausible by a huge long-shot than any other methods described.)

__________________
The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible.

Arthur C. Clarke

The Brain Science Podcast

In order to write a virus that can hack into our sytems, they'd still need to know something about how our computers work, and the security software it runs. How can they learn that from ten light-years away? Even our TV and radio transmissions rarely go into detail about what kind of virus protection we use.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Given that computers are based on Universal Turing machines that work on fairly simple mathematical/logical principles can we really say that an attacking virus needs to be specific to our technology? Mathematics is after all considered a type of "universal language" so it doesn't seem completely far-fetched that an OS-generic virus could be engineered. Who is to say that some of the viral activity occurring today isn't of alien origin? I read somewhere that the source of most virus's are never found so perhaps we are under attack after all and are successfully defending ourselves.

As far as the main argument goes I think that not acting in a certain way because of an as yet unquantified and largely unquantifiable risk may be logically sound but it is also emotionally, intellectually and philosophically unsatisfying. Given that, it comes as no surprise to me that various groups have been attempting contact. It may not be smart, but it certainly is human!

Sure... and we only send Internet data packets through undersea cables because bouncing them off satellites might cause them to leak out to alien civilizations right?

(Why do you guys always push the distance limits as far as you can? I said ten stars within ten light years, not ten stars at ten light years.)

I'll point out that today there are more "access points" for injecting evil software into the system than ever before because the world is littered with Wi-Fi transceivers (and, of course, none of those signals ever leak out into space either... right?). Now Wi Fi is about ten years old. It has been in wide-spread use for only about half that time. However, there is already a Wi-Fi infrastructure in many cities and with set standards it is doubtful the signals will change in structure much since every time a standard is changed there is great expense involved in upgrading hardware. I seriously doubt that many of our tx/rx standards will change significantly in twenty years. Even if they do, I am certain there will still be twenty year old technology in use twenty years from now. Sure, there will be latest and greatest stuff that us privileged types will be using, but the old stuff will still be in use somewhere.

I can still read baudot signals off shortwave... and that crap is ancient technology... this planet is like a sieve. As for our security software... pffft... our own government wants to spy on us too bad to let that get very good. And if they can stay one step ahead, I'm sure any slightly advanced civilization would have no problem with it.

__________________
The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible.

Arthur C. Clarke

The Brain Science Podcast

Actually, no. WiFi signals are short-range, far too weak to make it out of the atmosphere. And let's say for the sake of argument that they live at Alpha Centauri, for the sake of simplicity. Scientists have already determined what it would take to detect us from there, right?

And you seem to be making the common mistake of assuming that aliens follow the same technological/indistrial path we did. There's a lot of roads that lead to Rome, ours is just one of them.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Wi-Fi isn't the only method of transmission and if you think the signals are too weak to make it out of the atmosphere you're dead wrong. They might be too weak to make it out of the atmosphere and all the way to a distant star but I'm fairly certain they can be received by satellites in orbit with adequate receivers. But, again, you're just picking on one part of the whole. Wi-Fi isn't the only radio transmission method going, it's just one of many. The best bet would be to hit the broadband satellite links, but if they know about Wi-Fi receivers because details about it were picked up in all the Internet traffic that is blasted into space, they wouldn't have to pick up any Wi-Fi signals, they just have to send data the receivers would make use of.

And no, I'm not making any common mistake about assuming aliens will follow common technological/industrial paths. Electromagnetic energy is pretty common, even in places that aren't Earth... you might even say it's kinda universal. To claim that any advanced race would not harness electromagnetic energy for communications purposes is absurd. What faster method would there be?

But, for the sake of argument, lets say they don't use electromagnetic energy for communications. You're telling me that a planet with scientists studying the universe would just ignore electromagnetic energy? That they would be thoroughly incapable of detecting our very loud omni directional blathering? Earth outshines the Sun in the radio spectrum. They'd see this bright spot rotating around a distant star and just ignore it? Or be too apathetic to bother trying to learn about it?

The laws of physics don't change once you walk out of the neighborhood of Sol. Even SETI assumes intelligent species would be bright enough to figure out some fairly obscure crap that most humans couldn't figure out, and they sent it to stars 25,000 light years away... what a colossal waste of time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_message

If little green men 25,000 years in the future can pick up those few photons that make the journey, and decipher it, what good would it do them other than knowing we once existed out here. Rational scientists did this... what I'm suggesting is childs-play by comparison to what they expect of aliens.

__________________
The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible.

Arthur C. Clarke

The Brain Science Podcast

Sorry, I forgot to address this...

Yes, lots of roads lead to Rome... think about that for a few minutes. Does it matter what road you took as long as you get to Rome? Now if you said "Many roads lead away from Rome", then I'd understand why you'd say that, but I think by using that quote you only undermined your own argument.

__________________
The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible.

Arthur C. Clarke

The Brain Science Podcast

Good thing I didn't suggest that, then. What I was getting at is that maybe their computers don't work like ours. Or their methods of coding, their mathematics, the way they think and reason, or any number of steps that they'd have to take to actually do what you suggested.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

I would expect the way they code would probably be different, but who knows. Information is information, it doesn't matter how you process it, only that you can process it. They don't have to build one of our computers, they can simulate our computers on on their own computers and run the code in the simulation. Then they can mess around with it all they want. Simulated computing devices are commonly used by programmers around the world so this is no-brainer stuff here.

Now just the opposite is true, as I explained several times already, once they get a foundation built in our system, they can simulate their computers on our systems and run their code here. So let's say they have some special technique for producing AI that is far more simple on their computers than on ours. If our individual computers aren't fast enough they could simulate their computer virtually by using a network of our computers. This distributed virtual machine could appear to the program to be no different than the alien's computers.

Once the AI is running, it can study our systems and improve itself by adapting to it in real time without the 10-20 year delay. And it can start spying on us, learning how to infiltrate secure systems, and gathering the data required to improve its' position.

Suppose the AI realizes that our computers are hopelessly primitive and it could take a hundred years for us to get to the point where our computers would allow it to run with full intelligence and full strength. It could either leak technologically advanced ideas in subtle ways to speed up our progress, or it could open a bank account and make money by selling ideas to people/corporations/governments on the condition of complete secrecy. It could even use those advanced ideas to begin destabilizing human society by creating huge technological imbalances that would start wars.

Imagine if the United States suddenly found out that some country like Iran was developing computers that were ridiculously more advanced than our own. Do you think for a second we'd sit back and wait for them to put them to use against us? Not a chance. I'd bet we'd be bombing them within a week of confirmation of their technology. And we'd get in there and steal the plans and use them to build our own computers.

Sell the right technology to the right countries in a strategic fashion and you could push the entire globe into war in no time. It wouldn't be difficult to destabilize the power structure on Earth and cause huge problems.

In the mean time the AI is building up some nice bank accounts which it could use to start companies to create alien technology or clone aliens, or hire evil humans to do its' dirty work...

I could go on with this stuff forever.

(I can't help but be reminded of Wintermute contacting an alien AI... what a great story element.)

__________________
The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible.

Arthur C. Clarke

The Brain Science Podcast

Human programmers, using human-designed computers. Tells us nothing at all about alien technology or methods.



Yes, it makes for entertaining science fiction. It doesn't tell us what might really happen, though.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"D