Edward SnowdenTalks Alien Communications With Neil deGrasse Tyson

An anonymous reader writes: Edward Snowden, the former contractor who leaked National Security Agency secrets publicly in 2013, is now getting attention for an odd subject: aliens. In a podcast interview with astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, Snowden suggested that alien communications might be encrypted so well that humans trying to eavesdrop on extraterrestrials would have no idea they were hearing anything but noise. There's only a small window in the development of communication in which unencrypted messages are the norm, Snowden said.

Comments

Re:Maybe they don't even use RF

[BoRegardless]

Like Lasers, which allow them to use less power if they are transmitting their own data amongst there own solar system or galaxy.

Re:Maybe they don't even use RF

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Snowden means to say, that if you have an uncompressed data signal there will be many repeating symbols which would stand out if we could see it.

However compressed data and encrypted data has ideally a pure random distribution of symbols, and therefor we won't be able to differentiate it with background noise (unless it is powerful random noise).

We know this is true because our own encryption methods are already ideal enough that we can't differentiate it from random noise. Compression algorithms come close but still detectable at the moment.

Re:Spread To Sub Thermal

[bmo]

GPS has been de-fuzzed for the civilian side since the Clinton administration, because differential GPS made it TOAB useless.

During fuzzed NAVSTAR GPS:

Sit on known point. Calculate the vector of the fuzz. Use this vector for the rest of your survey. Get same results as Military. EVERYBODY did this.

Because it was that easy to beat.

After GPS fuzzing: Use GPS as designed, which makes it actually more useful for commerce. Instead of a toy for the military and land surveyors, it became useful enough for airlines and other transport.

The accuracy you get with GPS is dependent on your antenna and electronics and how many satellites it can see. That's it.

Last I checked the Russians have launched GLONASS and current phones /also/ use GLONASS along with NAVSTAR GPS for navigation, and other competing systems are in the works for China, India, Japan, and Europe at last check.

So even if they bring back fuzzing to NAVSTAR GPS, there are going to be enough systems in orbit to make it more than obsolete.

Which is a good thing. There shouldn't be one country in control of navigation.

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BMO