And how do you go from hacking the OS to inserting artificial signals into the data in a convincing way? Radio telescopes aren’t black boxes run by operators. They are scientific instruments operated by people intimately familiar with the hardware.
Also, just in OUR lab we have 3 versions of Windows (yes, that includes XP, I have to apply for a waiver every year by promising never to connect it to any network) and probably 5 different distributions/versions of Linux in regular use. Like I said, they are NOT updated eventually. Each computer has specialized or custom built hardware. For most of them, we can’t get newer drivers that work with newer versions of the OS, so they will never be updated. We don’t even install security patches because they are off the network. They will be used as is until we get the money to replace the hardware, or it is broken beyond repair.
The last observatory I worked at, the telescope control software ran on an Apple ][e. In 1999, and as of that time, there was no plan to replace it. They’re probably still using it. That’s what the original software was written for, and it worked, and nobody at all wanted to re-write new software (especially since it might break everything), so they just kept that ancient Apple running.
Assuming that you can even find anyone who knows enough about the Apple ][e to write the hack, how are you going to get it onto the computer? You can’t disguise it as a legitimate update, because there is no such thing as a legitimate update for an Apple ][e any more, and even if there were, the operators would never touch it, because it works now, and nobody wants to break it.
I’m not saying we should give up, I’m just saying that it would be the wildest stroke of luck to pick up that kind of signal because it would have to be sent by a civilization that is at the same point of development as ours and, thus, using the same technology.
Slightly off-topic, but as much as I enjoyed the book and film, the whole concept of faking it also seemed to hinge on Hadden somehow having access to advanced knowledge of materials and technology that could be embedded in the falsified signal in order to build the machine. With that in mind, the faking of the signal seems like the easiest thing to pull off.
What makes you think EM-spectrum transmission is a technology that’s going to become obsolete? We could all be cyborg transhumans with pocket AIs cruising the clouds of Jupiter in our flying cars (finally!) and we’ll likely still be using EM transmissions to cover any distance.
The correct answer, just from my nodding acquaintance with the development of the local SKA is “how many you got?” And that’s one that’s being developed currently. Most of their equipment doesn’t even use “operating systems” in the sense you’re using it, it’s all embedded systems and custom boards. Good luck hacking that from the internet.
Hmmm, hadn’t though about a multi-beam. Makes it a lot harder. Then again, I guess if they are looking for that one object, they won’t be quite so worried about any other beams - but signal in them would be a dead giveaway.
That is why I said you need to sync the different transmitters - probably using GPS as a ready to roll time reference (much easier than distributed atomic clocks, and vastly cheaper.) If the VLBA or similar was used you would need to spoof each dish, which would add to the complexity. But generating the correlated signals is vastly easier than the systems needed to re-correlate them. You know what you want the final resolved signal to look like a-priori.
The whole point of a multi-beam (or multi-horn) radio telescope is to compare the two beams and reject any signal that’s seen by both beams at the same time, because that’s external noise. It only picks up signals that appear on one beam (or one beam then the other, at the right time delay, as the object moves across the sky).
VLBI requires clocks with absolute accuracy on the order of 0.1 ns. GPS is only accurate to 15 ns or so.
Computation is much easier, but the accuracy requirement for the signal is the same. If the interferometer is measuring the phase difference to 0.1 ns, any signal with larger phase difference would appear as positional error or drift.
You can get a long term stable oscillator with better jitter than 0.1ns with a conditioned oscillator and use the GPS signal to condition it. The raw phase noise in GPS is not so good, but you can work around it - knowing your receiver is stationary is a good first step. The accuracy of GPS is only limited by the accuracy of the clocks on the satellites. The phase noise you get from issues like ionospheric propagation differences will average out (or can even be compensated for.) Alternatively use Galileo. It is gob-smacking how well you can do with GPS if you try.
That 0.1 ns jitter is over how long a period? A VLBI observing run is many hours long.
VLBI already uses GPS, but only to sync the atomic clocks. I think if they didn’t need the atomic clocks, they wouldn’t be using it.
Of course you could just use your own atomic clocks to spoof the signal, since we are already taking about substantial investment to generate the fake signal.
Yeah, that would push things. Can get 10ns long term with a high end GPS disciplined clock, but it isn’t going to cut it for any sort of long term observation.
Aaargh! Reported for violating “NO SPOILERS” rule.
[
Just kidding.]
Well, how about this. We have mastered interstellar space travel and have a fleet of ships exploring a significant part of our galaxy. Your ship happens to be stationed at the NEAREST star to us which, I believe, is Proxima Centauri. I send you a message. You get if FOUR YEARS LATER. Remember, you are our CLOSEST ship. How about ships that are ten light years away; fifty, one hundred?
I repeat, it’s not a workable form of communication for an advanced civilization that is exploring interstellar space.
So that observatory does nothing with it’s data? It just sits there on one of those adorable little machines that you just made me nostalgic about?
I don’t have to get to every observatory, after all, didn’t everybody tell them to get some new hardware and software? Well they didn’t and they missed the biggest event of the century when all the other observatories picked up the signal from Vega.
I wouldn’t even bother getting so close to the radiotelescope hardware, I’ll be after the point where they store the data or communicate with other computers. And they’re likely to be unable to determine how that data got on their disk or in the feed to the outside world. The thing about hacking is that it doesn’t follow the rules.
As of when I was there, the data made its way from the Apple to another computer running OS/2 Warp over a direct serial-cable connection, thence to a PC running Windows 3.1 over a closed intranet connected to only a dozen computers, thence via an Exabyte high-capacity removable-disc drive to another PC running 3.1, and finally from there over the Internet to assorted other computers where it was analyzed by the astronomers. How do you propose to hack into that filing cabinet full of removable discs, and to remotely flip the read-only switch on the casings?
EDIT: And even if you do find a hole in this eccentric hodgepodge of systems, every observatory in the world has its own unique eccentric hodgepodge of systems, so you’re going to have to come up with a new attack for every single one of them.
You can repeat that all you want, but it doesn’t change the fact that we are not only looking for civilizations that are exploring interstellar space. There’s really no point anyway; they are much more likely to find us than we are to find them.
This is probably the best protection they have. Hacking one of them, or a small percentage of them won’t make headlines from a report of a brief signal from Vega. I assume they’ve discarded results already that were only picked up from a single installation.
It would seem that the easiest way to fake a signal from Vega, is to receive a real signal
and some govt agency will do all the work for you to make it “faked”
Communication via photons might not be workable, but it’s better than all the alternatives.