ET Phone Home Using Open Source
First it was bang, zoom to the Moon with open source, now open source will be used to find ET and other hopefully friendly aliens
By Alan Shimel on Thu, 04/22/10 - 10:05pm.
"Open the pod bay doors HAL". I don't know if the HAL 9000 ran open source or not. But the search for extra terrestrial intelligence (SETI) is turning to open source for help to find any ETs out there.
For many years the SETI folks have allowed anyone who wanted to contribute computing horsepower to help scan the heavens for potential signals from aliens could do so by installing a special screen saver.
12 cool ways to donate your PC's spare processing power
Alas after 25 years, using the custom algorithms the SETI folks developed, we have not found any evidence of ET intelligence. But as one person put it, all of the SETI listening over the years doesn't add up to taking an 8 ounce glass of water from Earth's oceans.
We need a better way of looking at this. Now Jill Tarter, the director of the SETI Institute says that they are going to take a different path. They are establishing setiQUEST.org. On the site they will put up all of the raw data they have gathered along with the search code they have developed.
The institute's vision according to Tarter is:
In the future, we hope that a global army of open-source code developers, students and other experts in digital signal processing, as well as citizen scientists willing to lend their intelligence to our exploration, will have access to the same technology and join our quest.
They are looking for people to come up with better ways to search through the data for patterns that would indicate intelligence. Right now those with DSP expertise are best suited to access the data, but the idea is to develop code that would let anyone sift through the data in search of ETs.
The actual software detection code will not be available until this summer though, if you are looking to help right away.
What a great use of open source in really contributing to a worthwhile endeavor!
Please visit the Open Source Subnet home page for more news, blogs and podcasts.
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As co-founder and Managing Partner at The CISO Group, Alan Shimel is responsible for driving the vision and mission of the company. The CISO Group offers security consulting and PCI compliance management for the payment card industry. Prior to The CISO Group, Alan was the Chief Strategy Officer at StillSecure. Shimel was the public persona of StillSecure as it grew from start up to helping defend some of the largest and most sensitive networks in the world.
Shimel is an often-cited personality in the technology community and is a sought-after speaker at industry and government conferences and events. His commentary about the state of security, open source and life is followed closely by many industry insiders via his blog and podcast, "Ashimmy, After All These Years" (www.ashimmy.com). Alan is now also a regular contributor to The CISO Group’s security.exe blog and podcast.
Alan has helped build several successful technology companies by combining a strong business background with a deep knowledge of technology. His legal background, long experience in the field, and New York street smarts combine to form a unique personality.
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