This seems nonsensical to me. Just like internet protocols, any radio transmission is built on a layer of protocols that envelope the actual data being transmitted.<p>Encryption is applied on the data layers not to hide that something is being transmitted, but what is being transmitted.<p>However scientists aren't even trying to detect signals with any sort of data in it, but merely radio emissions that <i>look</i> like they might come from something with an intellect.<p>If we haven't found anything like that yet, and encryption is supposed to be the reason, then that means that encryption would have to be applied at the most basic protocol layer in such a way that even the physical properties of the emission look like the universe's background radiation. Is there currently human technology that does anything similar to this?
This is a plausible hypothesis. I don't know if somebody else has already proposed this as a solution to the Fermi paradox.<p>But it doesn't even need to be encrypted communication. Highly compressed communication is also indistinguishable from random noise.<p>Of course, only under the assumption, that aliens are using the same technology as we are.
A slightly-off-topic thought related to the Fermi question.<p>What actually is the <i>point</i> of communicating at sub-luminal speed between star systems or galaxies, <i>other</i> than CETI projects? The delay between transmissions would make such communication impractical for day-to-day purposes.<p>Perhaps this is one possible explanation for the apparent lack of such signals. Either the aliens don't bother much with communicating at galactic scales, or they have developed a system of doing so at super-luminal speeds that eludes our current understanding of physics.<p>If this is correct then you would expect most artificial radio signals to be easy to detect and decipher, because the only plausible use for such signals is long-term communication with alien civilisations. And you might also not expect to find many of them.
Don't even have to be encrypted. Just compressing the data makes it hard to separate from noise.<p>Turbo Codes and LDPCs used to transmit data over noisy channels (like NASA uses in deep space satellite communications or UMTS and LTE networks) look just like noise. I don't think Seti or astronomers have ever tried to analyze noise for some alien codec that might be transmitting.
Is there any point of this article? (serious question)<p>Or perhaps this was just some light-hearted conversation which has been reported as "news" because Snowden was involved. I can as well say that we have not yet heard from the aliens because we are yet to discover the Mass Relays and the Citadel (apologies to those who have not played the Mass Effect series of video games and this statement makes no sense).
Just because Snowden says something does not make it newsworthy.<p>It's more likely that we and the aliens wouldn't be using the same technology.
Anyone remotely interested in this idea should check out Stanislaw Lem's His Master's Voice [1], which is an entire (short) novel about how and why an extraterrestrial message would be encrypted. It's worth mentioning how why turns out to be the most compelling question.<p>1. <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Master%27s_Voice_(novel)" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Master%27s_Voice_(novel)</a>
Or it might be that advanced civilisations use more advanced means of communication. In such a vast universe, clearly superluminal communication speeds, should they be attainable, would be used. Maybe we just need to "tune in" properly.
Another reason is that unless they want to communicate with other species, they'd use only the minimal signal strength that is required for the signal to reach its destination, not a signal strength that is several orders of magnitude higher.<p>That and our limited brain capacity, which prevents us from recognizing and/or understanding a message from an advanced alien civilization.
I like the thought, but encryption is not enough to hide it from us, it'd require steganography.<p>If all communication itself on Earth were encrypted, how much of a visible signal would we still emit? You wouldn't be able to decypher the communication, but you'd still see that <i>something</i> is happening that's requires a structuring intelligence behind it. Unless they pay special attention to not only encrypting their communication but masking it as a natural phenomenon, steganographically.<p>If I shout an encoded message to you in a restaurant, the other people won't know that I told you to order the creme brulee, but they will know that I told you <i>something</i>. I'd have to discreetly tap my plate in order to mask it.<p>And even aside from that, you'd need to mask all other emissions, even those not designed to facilitate communication. On earth, you don't have to intercept and decrypt a rocket launch command, you can tell by the infrared (or whatever) emissions on your spy satellite.
Years ago, I attended a talk from a professor about a networking system using the Lego blocks metaphor. In his examples, he had a block labelled "encryption" and another labelled "compression" and talked about how you could arbitrarily compose the blocks in the system.<p>To my eternal regret, I didn't call him on the fact that those two blocks are not arbitrarily composable.<p>Both encryption and compression make the resulting data look random (and you can't compress encrypted data), and compression seems to be a much more likely candidate.<p>P.S. And spread-spectrum transmissions, as someone else mentioned.
This doesn't really make sense to me. Even if it was encrypted, you would still be able to detect a powerful, directed radio signal wouldn't you?
If it doesn't work the first time, try it again?<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10246610" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10246610</a>