Could aliens use SETI@home to take over Earth's computers?

The Guardian Unlimited reports that particle physicist Richard Carrigan is warning that evil extraterrestrials could use SETI@home to infect the Earth's computers with malicious code. Since SETI@home, a project in which participating volunteers donate some of their computer's processing time to comb through signals from outer space in search of signs of intelligent life, distributes extraterrestrial data all over the world simultaneously, Carrigan says aliens could take over massive numbers of computer networks simultaneously. What they might do then is anybody's guess, but if Jeff Goldblum is still alive, he can always just send back a virus of our own and save the world.

[Via Boing Boing]

 

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