The Ultimate SETI Signal

Robert Carrigan (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory) drew quite a bit of attention last summer when he suggested that SETI signals could contain harmful information, perhaps created by a so-called ‘SETI hacker.’ Carrigan’s article has now appeared in Acta Astronautica, and it’s stuffed with beguiling ideas even if you find the premise unlikely.

“…will a SETI signal be altruistic, benign or malevolent?” Carrigan asks. “It would help to understand the motivations of a message before reading too much of it. Like Odysseus, we may have to stuff wax in the ears of our programmers and strap the chief astronomer to the receiving tower before she is allowed to listen to the song of the siren star.”

...

“The most important point is that large amounts of information can be transferred inexpensively at the speed of light even with current technologies. In addition, the message size can easily be so large that the underlying intent of the message would not be apparent.”

The paper, which belongs on the shelves of disks of anyone following the SETI search, is “Do potential SETI signals need to be decontaminated?” in Acta Astronautica 58 (2006), pp. 112-117.

Carrigan’s own site contains earlier work on the theory:

http://home.fnal.gov/~carrigan/SETI/SETI_Hacker.htm

The full Centauri Dreams article is here:

http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=522