Bebo users release interstellar spamgasm at Gliese 581

A large amount of information compiled by Bebo users has now been beamed into space, aimed at a planet thought particularly likely to harbour intelligent alien life. The interstellar Bebo dump, known as AMFE (A Message From Earth), contains all kinds of information from the Web 2.0 teenybopper nerd portal. There are pictures …

[petebog]

We come in peace

Innit?

[Joe]

I for one....

Welcome our new emo social-networking alien overlords

Yes, that's the one... I'll just take it and be on my way....

[Matt]

Now we are in trouble

Oh bugger, could there ever a better reason for an alien race to come over here and give us a good kicking?

Seriously the best we have to offer another race is a bunch of Bebo users?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh great...

... so now the first communication we're ever going to receive from alien life will read

"Hahahaha ROFLLOLOLOL U r all losers zOMGWTFBBQ!? kthxbye!!!111!!!!"

How edifying for both our species that will be.

[MattW]

Alien invasion is nigh

One look at the mindless bebo drivel stream and they'll fire up their starcruisers and pop over for some easy pickings.

[Mr Spoon]

Oh dear...

I can't help feeling that any advanced spacefaring civilisation receiving a message like this would conclude that it were best to just put us out of our misery...

[Ben Mathews]

Oh great

Upon receipt of said message, the Gliesian fleet will mobilise to eradicate this quite obviously incoherant and pointless life form.

It's as if a million voices cried out and were suddenly in need of silencing...

[Dabooka]

Well when they do get it...

It'll confirm to them that intelligent life doesn't exist here

[Anonymous Coward]

We solved their problem.

Now they know there's no intelligent life here.

[Simon C]

How long before we start recieving

"Not satisfying your snurglflink, increase the size and girth of your kerplunknikit with 50% off our inglipop"

or

"Dear Earthlings,

I am a representative of our Galactic overlord Kim' Mushenki, who as I am sure you eleoquant perosn knows is ruler of 10 star quadrants. Kim' Mushenki presides over the treasury of 10 zingtil ingots, however it is locked....please provide......"

you get the rest.

/mines the one covered in tin foil with matching hat

[Anonymous Coward]

Transformers

Imagine how different the Transformers would have been had they really learnt our language from the internets?! Especially from bebo...

[Colin Millar]

Spamming a whole planet??

Marked - "your message has not been delivered for the following reason - the server's spam filter has rejected the message - you have been charged for this message at the rate of GD1 per population unit spammed. Please remit by return. Ah - wait - you actually owe us the earth - yes the whole thing - we will be round to take possession 2 weeks next Tuesday - vacant possession will be required"

[Anonymous Coward]

Better approach...

...would be to fire Bebo users at Gliese 581.

[Anonymous Coward]

An oportunity not to be missed

We now have a nice pool of humans to sell as slaves to any aliens intent on destroying us, we could strike a nice deal and also be shot of all our Bebo, Facefcuk and MySpace users.

(I think we'd have a hard time selling our virtual mental aslyum user base though, although I'm not quite sure how many people use Second Life now.)

[Anonymous Coward]

Pumps

These messages are possibly worse than just forwarding on all the various emails I get pumps, and rich people that want to give me money for no reason, I wonder do the alien life forms have western union?

[Aaron Harris]

IM

Not exactly Instant Messaging is it... 40 year round trip time, even BT can do better than that!

[Seán]

Oh oh

Surely the one universal constant would have to be a hatred of SPAM. On Earth it can be used as a sanity test. "Do you enjoy receiving SPAM?" anyone who answers yes is a mental and it doesn't matter what country, gender, age or background they come from a Yes answer indicates madness.

The only interpretation of a load of interstellar spam has got to be that it's a hostile act, a declaration of war in fact. If you want to test my theory just forward the content of your spam folder to one of your workmates and see how you get on.

[Adrian Jackson]

Re: Transformers

Don't know how their language would have changed, but they'd have been able to extend their thin and not so long exhaust pipes by inches, and at a very reasonable price too!

[Aortic Aneurysm]

Hopefully.

Some Aliens will intercept, relaise that there are far too many e-tards, and decide natural selection needs a hand.

[Mart]

er riiiggghhhttt

so let's say there is life there, who says there even going to find our message? is it aimed at one of their heads, it took nearly a year to find fosset and we were looking for him, what if our message lands in their desert?

[Anonymous Coward]

load of cack

what a load of cack! which gimp at bebo thought this would be a good idea...just a marketing ploy for bebo..like anyones gona give a sh*t and wait 40 years!

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously?

"Our bodies are made of bones ... We have senses. Smell, Taste, Sight and Touch. Without any of these things, we wouldn't live. "

Seriously? Have they completely forgotten humans can hear? I would argue (as would most people capable of basic reasoning) that it is possible to live without any of the 4 *cough* 5 senses. Perhaps it'd be pretty difficult to live without *all* of them, but could you certainly live with 2 out of the 5. Who educated these Bebo users?!

The future of our world is bleak...

[Gulfie]

[insert Deity of your choice here] help us all...

It's just like the scene from "Morons from Outer Space" when Mel Smith introduces the human race to the Biro. Who on earth allowed Bebo to become Earth Ambassador to the Universe? I can see the HHGG entry now...

Earth: Harmless, with a very, very low IQ bipedal life form. Avoid at all costs.

Mine's the one with the Heart of Gold in the pocket. Beam me up, Scotty.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Brilliant strategy!

I can see how things would play out at the receiving end...

1. uproarious laughter

2. some wise inhabitants would argue "they coudn't be that stupid. There's no effin way"

3. laughter subsides as prevailing thinking decides it must be a cunning trap set for the unwary.

4. invasion plans cancelled

5. puny beboids and earthfings continue in smug ignorance of how narrowly they avoided destruction

[Nate]

Let's just hope...

...that:

A) Zaitsev and whoever else might be aiming the telescope is off by a degree or two (I'd even settle for a few seconds of error)

or

2) Our Gliesian pseudo-neighbors aren't sitting in the right place at the right time when our spamvertisement reaches them.

We only need one of two in order to be saved from intergalactic humiliation.

[Martin Lyne]

Imagine..

Being an alien scientist, receiving this huge data stream one day, then rushing to decode it. To understand what these new aliens have to say..

Then reporting to the Alien President (or whatever) the decoded information. Some banal drivel from youths who want to act (but can't be bothered to use correct punctuation or grammar when sending THE FIRST FUCKING MESSAGES TO A POTENTIALLY INTELLIGENT SPECIES) and doubtless some who say "I don't know what to put here, huur!"

You never know your luck though, they might come here and offer > 90 IQ humans a chance to colonise other worlds. Worth the cost of cryogenic insurance I think.

Did they think to include some sort of dictionary at least? Not Alien-English obviously.. but for their reference.

[Dr. Mouse]

@ Aaron Harris

"Not exactly Instant Messaging is it... 40 year round trip time, even BT can do better than that!"

However, it is approaching the average time it takes to receive anything from the DVLA, unless it happens to be a bill of some kind.

[Vladimir Plouzhnikov]

Transmission to the stars?

Has anyone verified independently that the transmission has actually been sent? It would not be beyond belief to suppose that the last working 300B valve burned out long time ago (during Brezhnev administration, perhaps) but the Ukrainian operators just "forgot" to tell the Bebos about it somehow...

[Anonymous Coward]

Beam me up there's no intelligent life here

Good heavens. We actually sent out a message like that?!

Well... we can always hope they will never manage to translate it. If they do, they may decide to lob a few rocks our way, wait for the dust to settle, then move in after the pests have been exterminated.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sigh...

There's the basis for a really good Douglas Adams book in there somewhere...

[Anonymous John]

March 2029?

We're due to have a near miss from Asteroid 2004 MN4 on April 13, 2029. If they've got FTL travel and decide to give it a slight nudge, we've got a problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasted opportunity

We could have sent them a Rick Roll.

But anyway, anyone 20 light-years away will already have received up to 40 years of broadcasts.

[Anonymous Coward]

Look on the bright side

Sending that kind of drivel may have just saved the earth from being invaded. They will look at it and decide it's better to just wait a few more years for things to implode here and they can take over without firing a single shot.

Of course the really scary part is what if we receive a message back in 2049 that reads "zOMFGOGGLES U r l00serS... teH epic fail ROFLCOPTERS!11111!!11!!

Tux, cus only the penguins can save us now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Too quiet

21 lightyears is a long way, and free-space loss increases rapidly with distance. With any luck, the signal strength of this embarrasing message will drop below the noise floor long before it reaches anyone intelligent.

[Murray Pearson]

Whew!

With any luck I'll be on my death bed, or incinerated and scattered across the Rocky Mountains, before the response arrives.

[Anonymous Coward]

21 light years away

Our tentacled overlords on Gliese 581 will currently be enjoying 1987-vintage episodes of Blind Date then.

[adnim]

Confirmation

Radio and TV signals have been emanating from this planet for a long time. If any of these signals have been picked up by intelligent life in the vicinity Gliese 581 we have just confirmed what they have been thinking all along. Who had the ridiculous idea of beaming the thoughts and feelings of social networking site at another star system? Did not beaming the thoughts and feelings of our greatest philosophers and scientists occur to them?

[Steen Hive]

Ponds

"Perhaps in the form of ponds."

Yawn. So one race of pond-life is shouting at another through interstellar space.

[Anonymous Coward]

With any luck

With any luck they might come to earth and purge us of the (then) ageing bebo generation and their spawn. I live in hope.

[Anonymous Coward]

sympathy

Then: "Apathetic bloody planet. I've no sympathy at all."

Now: "Illiterate bloody planet. I've no sympathy at all."

Obligatory tip of the hat to Mr. Adams.

Paris 'cos she looks like she's crying which is what we should all be doing if twitfacebookspacebos are our new interstellar ambassadors.

[Will]

Nicole

Methinks Nicole is in for a lifetime of disappointment and exploitation.

Just a guess.

Will

[Kanhef]

Useless

Chance of life existing there? Small. Chance of a civilization using radio communications: very small. Chance that they'd be listening for signals? Slightly more than zero. Chance that they'd notice, decode, and <i>be able to translate</i> it into their own language? Absolutely nil.

[John Savard]

Another thing about that planet

Wasn't that the red star with a rocky planet orbiting it that was several times more massive than Earth? Then, in that case, this silly message will mean that, when that planet blows up due to an Oklo-like phenomenon in its heavy core, it's greatest scientist will send his infant son to some more *sensible* planet... and we'll miss out on having Superman here to help us!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Your message

orsom 2 hear frm u at last earth dudes. can u c me waving? wat about now im flashing the porch lights?? holler back wen u get this!

ps. u sound hot wanna cyber ?

[Attachment: LOLCAT.jpg 148Kb] Download Y/N ?

[amanfromMars]

Re We're buggered

"If there is intelligent life out there, they will exterminate us for sure now!" .... By Anonymous Coward Posted Thursday 9th October 2008 22:47 GMT

Do you think they would Beta Neutralise Opposition/Encourage Attention and Subliminally Invite QuITe Alien Investments in Covert Proxies ..... by IntelAIgently Collapsing Corrupt Capital Control Systems ..... which Covert Alien Investments would Stop/Repair/Replace?

Would you be buggered when they know of Danegeld Power for Remote Control and Man's Pathetic Weakness and Vulnerability through the Root of All Evil, the Love of Money? Do you not witness the Blind Panic as they Scrabble about like Demented Fools trying to Save a Failed and Corrupting Artificial Power System?

Do you also think that they would inform you that the Media Picture Shows that you View and which are Shared/Printed/Broadcast/BroadBandCast are that which are used by Present Old and Decrepit Controllers to Milk your Resources and Energy for their Own Gratification and Obscene Personal Reward?

Hello, Ukraine ....Pleased to meet you. Nice welcoming site ... http://ieti.org/index.html.

One Trusts in Global Operating Devices that the Reg space-battlefleet & interstellar-colonisation desk will be Fit for Future Purpose too and Host HyperRadioProActive Steganographic Messaging.

[Anonymous Coward]

A good representative sample of humanity

Seems like a good idea really. After all, there are far more Facetards around than Nobel Laureates.

[Vic]

This would explain

...why I woke up this morning with an alien voice ringing in my head going, 'Would you like us to destroy your brainless overlords? We will offer you freedom in exchange for resourcessss........'

I didn't understand it at the time but it all makes sense now. Thank you, new extra-terrestrial overlords. Please go ahead. When I am governor of your newest territory, you will be welcome to take some resources (you can't really do a worse job of overexploitation than us, can you?) in exchange for some new technology that will automatically zap anyone who writes stupid messages.....zzzap. Damnit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats it, were toast.

"Overwatch Commander Zerg. We have located a planet that appears to be populated entirley by Sixth formers, University students and morons"

"Deploy the Death Ray."

[TeeCee]

By sheer coincidence....

.....the transmission sent renders as a picture of a bag of hammers in a popular Glieseian digital graphics format.

(Or it bloody would if there were any real justice in the Universe).

[Dr Patrick J R Harkin]

They sent a load of pictures as well.

I hope they remembered to send the JPEG decompression algorithm too.

Oh, no, wait.

I don't.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh well ...

... that's us fucked then!

[goggyturk]

Hyperspace Bypass?

Do the Vogons live there? If so, we're all fscked.

[Dave]

Shannon's Law - or thank F*** for entropy

In information theory, entropy is a measure of the uncertainty associated with a random variable. The term by itself in this context usually refers to the Shannon entropy, which quantifies, in the sense of an expected value, the information contained in a message, usually in units such as bits. Equivalently, the Shannon entropy is a measure of the average information content one is missing when one does not know the value of the random variable.

We can safely presume that the Gleisians have absolutely no preconception about the actual information content of this drivel (no expected value); it will appear only as a pseudo random sequence and will be computationally infeasible to decode. indeed, it may be so plausibly random as to be ignored upon receipt as noise.

Perhaps, we can use bebo-space-face-drool here as initialisation vectors for block ciphers and digital signatures... hmmmm

[Maty]

drat

That's given the the Galactic planning council the perfect excuse for routing the hyperspace freeway through our solar system. Bring on the vogons!

Leave my coat - I want Ford Prefect's