NASA remotely reprogramming Voyager 1 also means that aliens can reprogram all of our satellites.
They should make a Star Trek movie about this!
Oh, wait…
NASA remotely reprogramming Voyager 1 also means that aliens can reprogram all of our satellites.
Submitted 6 months ago by Crumbgrabber@lemm.ee to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
Comments
Kbobabob@lemmy.world 6 months ago
This is assuming that they would know and understand the code. Also, that nothing is encrypted but I guess encryption can be broken.
Lightborne@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I would doubt they would have encrypted anything on the probe back in 1977 when it launched.
NeptuneOrbit@lemmy.world 6 months ago
The ultimate security by obscurity. Do you have a 30m antenna? Can you point it exactly at the space ship with almost no error? Do you know what it’s code and protocols are? OK, please reprogram Voyager
Kbobabob@lemmy.world 6 months ago
OP says reprogram all of the satellites. So I would assume that would include the modern ones with encryption as well.
subignition@fedia.io 6 months ago
I would hope there is at least authentication of some kind...
bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 6 months ago
Yes, one entity being able to reprogram one piece of tech definitely means another entity is able to reprogram every other piece of tech that is slightly related.
djsoren19@yiffit.net 6 months ago
I mean, sure, technically. They’d have to know English, know the programming language that was used for the probe, know the transmission frequency that the probe accepts, know the boundaries and limitations of the probe so that they don’t actually force any errors, and presumably would need to crack the encryption preventing anyone else from reprogramming Voyager 1. They’d also either need to be able to generate incredibly strong radio waves through space in order to transmit their code, or they’d need to be close enough to us that we’d be able to detect their presence.
While that’s all technically possible, the odds of it happening are pretty low.
CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Crack encryption from the mid 70’s? If there even is any on the Voyager command signal, I couldn’t find a reference to any. But if there is, I’d think modern computers are up to the task.
They’d also either need to be able to generate incredibly strong radio waves through space
My guess is that THIS is the actual security feature.
Not to mention… who would even want to? There’s nothing to gain except slight infamy, if you could even prove you were behind it.
spujb@lemmy.cafe 6 months ago
the existence of viruses and zero day exploits probably also means aliens can reprogram your mom’s laptop but why would they want to?
Kolanaki@yiffit.net 6 months ago
Aliens would need to understand how systems.
I mean… Can you reprogram Voyager 1?
Laurentide@pawb.social 6 months ago
There’s a novel titled Glasshouse, by Charles Stross, where members of a far future civilization sign up to live in a simulated mid-20th century town. At one point the protagonist disassembles a flashlight and discovers that it’s just a flashlight-shaped case containing a small wormhole whose other end is in close orbit around a star. No one knew how to make an LED or incandescent bulb, or understood enough about early electronic components to hook one up to a switch and a battery. It was easier to make a wormhole generator and stick it in a metal tube.
RootAccess@lemmynsfw.com 6 months ago
Any alien species that is aware of our satellites is so technically superior to us they wouldn’t bother. The James Webb Telecope is our best, but we still aren’t certain we’ve named all the planets in our own solar system.
LemmyRefugee@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I saw a movie with Will Smith where aliens used TCPv4 to communicate their systems. So, why not?
tkk13909@sopuli.xyz 6 months ago
Probably not all of them. The Voyager probes were launched in the 70s and they don’t exactly need much encryption because they can only be programmed by someone with a massive transmitter.
Crumbgrabber@lemm.ee 6 months ago
As a member of the deep state, I can confirm this is true.
Ajen@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
Thanks OP
wildcardology@lemmy.world 6 months ago
You’ve been watching too much independence day huh.
echodot@feddit.uk 6 months ago
Can you reprogram the satellites? Because it must only be easier for you to do it than aliens at least you understand human languages.
Feathercrown@lemmy.world 6 months ago
If he was an aerospace engineer maybe
MidnightBanjo@lemmy.zip 6 months ago
All I can think of is alien adolescents reprogramming them to mess with humans. Fake invasion messages, alien memes. Like cowtipoing, but screwing with humans instead
CosmicCleric@lemmy.world 6 months ago
The joke is on the aliens.
Voyager’s batteries are going to run out real soon, and then they won’t be able to reprogram anything, it’ll be just a huge paperweight.
Muscar@discuss.online 6 months ago
Did you fall in the shower and hit your head before thinking this? It’s so incredibly dumb on multiple levels.
Voyager 1 isn’t even outside our solar system yet, at the moment of writing this it’s close to 15,200,000,000 miles from our sun, that’s 0.0026 light years.
the closest star to ours is Proxima Centauri, about 4.2 light years away, part of a triple star system called Alpha Centauri. It would take Voyager 1 over 16,000 years to reach it if it was going there, which it’s not. The first “close” (1.6 light-years) flyby of a star Voyager 1 will have is of Gliese 445, which is 17.1 light years away from us, in 40,000 years.
You seem to think that other stars are right at the edge of our solar system or something, that’s the only thing I can come up with that makes your post make any sense. Just because Voyager 1 is far away from us doesn’t mean it’s close to anything else. It has barely moved in astronomical distances, we will continue to be the closest thing to it for another 20,000 years.
CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Take your angry hormones outside kid. We’re trying to have a friendly discussion here.
teft@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Voyager 1 has been in interstellar space since 2012.
vatlark@lemmy.world 6 months ago
You have a lot of great things to offer this conversation, I’m not sure why all the aggression was needed.
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 6 months ago
There isn’t any aliens anywhere that we know of so it doesn’t matter
Crumbgrabber@lemm.ee 6 months ago
NASA has not approved this message.
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 6 months ago
How many times have you commented.
boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net 6 months ago
Aka Russia. They will have cryptographic authentication lol
smuuthbrane@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
By extension that means we can also reprogram alien satellites and probes. So why aren’t we??
radix@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Jeff Goldblum can upload a virus to take out an entire alien spacecraft. Probes are a piece of cake.
moistclump@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Jeff Goldblum is the alien.
SzethFriendOfNimi@lemmy.world 6 months ago
At least in the space odyssey series they had a weird kind of explanation for that approach. Unlike in Independence Day
DarkGamer@kbin.social 6 months ago
We haven't mastered SSH authentication via psionic tendrils
Car@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
Look at this human still using SSH. I bet they still process on old PCs instead of PC2’s
Feathercrown@lemmy.world 6 months ago
xkcd.com/1782/
Muscar@discuss.online 6 months ago
I SSH authenticate stuff via my psionic tendril all the time ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)