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Edward SnowdenTalks Alien Communications With Neil deGrasse Tyson

Posted by samzenpus on from the what-are-you-saying dept.

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.

2 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. Compression by penguinoid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sufficiently advanced compression could be indistinguishable from encryption (esp. if have a standard table to draw from).

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  2. Re:Maybe they don't even use RF by Intrepid+imaginaut · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Or just as likely, highly directional communications. They're the only type that would be of much use over interstellar distances anyway, and unless they happen to be pointed straight at our little blue marble they may as well not exist.