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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.

12 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. it's all alien spam by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    9 out of 10 alien messages are for tentacle enlargement pills

  2. 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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  3. Maybe they don't even use RF by Spy+Handler · · Score: 4, Interesting

    All we know is radio, and listening with radio telescopes has yielded nothing. What if they use neutrinos or some other weird method that we don't know of?

    1. 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.

    2. Re:Maybe they don't even use RF by BoRegardless · · Score: 4, Informative

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

    3. Re:Maybe they don't even use RF by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

    4. Re:Maybe they don't even use RF by penguinoid · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Thing is, high entropy electromagnetic communications would be indistinguishable from noise -- and even if it weren't, it would be hard to compete with the ridiculously powerful noise of their star. Since entropy is approximately the same thing as information, we should expect to see nothing but noise even if we got a perfect noise-free replica of their communication. It'll only get worse -- higher entropy and higher directionality -- as the technological level improves.

      Only way we're finding aliens is if they're also doing a SETI program and use radio waves to do so.

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    5. Re:Maybe they don't even use RF by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 3, Funny

      we can't differentiate it from random noise

      reminds me of fox news...

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    6. Re:Maybe they don't even use RF by narcc · · Score: 3, Funny

      No, no. There is a clear pattern there.

      I won't go so far as to suggest it's being transmitted by intelligent life, but it's an interesting signal none-the-less.

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      Required reading for internet skeptics
  4. Encrypted is still not natural by mbone · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think he is confusing encryption and steganography. Encrypted signals will still require framing, will still be likely to be bandwidth limited, and so will not appear truly natural, even if we can never break the code. As the Brits found through traffic analysis in World War II, you can learn a lot from observing alien communications, even if you never decode a single word.

  5. Re:There's two options by Deadstick · · Score: 3, Interesting

    another mutual friend where he attempted to play the "i'm superior to you" card by switching into talking Russian.

    I had a college French course circa 1961 with a prof who was convinced his shit smelled rosy, because -- of all the silly-ass reasons -- he could also speak Spanish. One day we were translating text from a French novel into English -- one of the simplest possible exercises in a foreign-language course -- and he turned to a student who was a recent refugee from Cuba. He said "Senor Hernandez, would you please translate the next paragraph into (visibly puffing himself up) "any language you please?"

    The guy came back at him in Japanese.

  6. Re:Whoa by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yes they are. They're hiding from the cavemen with the nuclear weapons.