[ExI] Interstellar message decontamination is impossible

Adrian Tymes atymes at gmail.com
Fri Mar 2 19:27:04 UTC 2018


Not really.  Just yet more hype mongering.  "OMG OMG ANNNYTHING IS
POSSIBLE THE SKY COULD BE FALLING OMG!"

As they say, we have literally no data about extraterrestrial
intelligences (other than that we have shown that certain types - with
transmissions we can recognize - do not exist in most of the galaxy).
Any path we choose is thus essentially random, no matter what
justification we think we have.

On Fri, Mar 2, 2018 at 6:54 AM, Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:
> Nothing Earth shattering here, but interesting nonetheless.
>
> https://arxiv.org/pdf/1802.02180.pdf
>
> Abstract
>
> A complex message from space may require the use of computers to display,
> analyze and understand. Such a message cannot be decontaminated with
> certainty, and technical risks remain which can pose an existential threat.
> Complex messages would need to be destroyed in the risk averse case.
>
> ...
>
> While it has been argued that sustainable ETI is unlikely
> to be harmful (Baum et al. 2011), we can not exclude
> this possibility. After all, it is cheaper for ETI to
> send a malicious message to eradicate humans compared
> to sending battleships.
>
> If ETI exist, there will be a plurality of good and bad
> civilizations. Perhaps there are few bad ETI, but we
> cannot know for sure the intentions of the senders of a
> message. Consequently, there have been calls that SETI
> signals need to be “decontaminated” (Carrigan 2004,
> 2006).
>
> In this paper, we show that it is impossible to decontaminate
> a message with certainty. Instead, complex
> messages would need to be destroyed after reception in
> the risk averse case.
>
> ...
>
> 6. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
>
> As we realize that some message types are potentially
> dangerous, we can adapt our own peaceful transmissions
> accordingly. We should certainly not transmit any code.
> Instead, a plain text encyclopedia (Heidmann 1993), images,
> music etc. in a simple format are adequate. No
> advanced computer should be required to decrypt our
> message.
>
> Our main argument is that a message from ETI cannot
> be decontaminated with certainty. For anything
> more complex than easily printable images or plain text,
> the technical risks are impossible to assess beforehand.
> We may only choose to destroy such a message, or take
> the risk. The risk for humanity may be small, but not
> zero. The probability of encountering malicious ETI
> first might be very low. Perhaps it is much more likely
> to receive a message from positive ETI. Also, the potential
> benefits from joining a galactic network might be
> considerable (Baum 2014).
>
> It is always wise to understand the risks and chances
> beforehand, and make a conscious choice for, or against
> it, rather than blindly following a random path. Overall,
> we believe that the risk is very small (but not zero),
> and the potential benefit very large, so that we strongly
> encourage to read an incoming message.
>
>
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