[LINK] More on "I Love Lucy Signals"

[rfmcdonald]

james_nicoll picked the subject up at his blog, and the discussion's interesting, indeed. The cost of the telescope arrays needed to pick up our signals is key. Quoth carloshasanax:

Let's check Benford's numbers. The Square Kilometer Array has an estimated cost of E1.5 billion. The city of Chicago is 606 square kilometers. Using these numbers, the Honorable Richard J. Daley Array would have an estimated cost of E909 billion, or $1.24 trillion at today's exchange rate.

The current GNP of the United States is $14 trillion.

It's possible Gilster's writeup might be missing a step from Shostak to Benford. It's also possible that Benford gets his grasp on reality from his bro.

The discussion continues, with the question of whether or not the costs for large arrays would scale linearly taking on particular importance.

Go, read. I'm just a bit disappointed to find out we're not as safe as the original poster had hoped.