MarkI-ZeroPoint <[email protected]> wrote:
> Eric wrote:**** > > “With sufficiently advanced encryption, we could mistake the signal for > white noise.”**** > > ** ** > > Sounds way too close to A.C.C’s third law which states:**** > > “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” > I discussed this very issue with Clarke. I said that data compression is likely to make utilitarian interstellar communication invisible. He agreed. He had a lot professional knowledge of data, communication, radio, radar and so on, from WWII. (A lot more than me.) That is to say, an advanced civilization communicating with a colony on another star is likely to use a narrow beam that will not be intercepted in the first place, and it is likely to compress the data even more than we compress multichannel television broadcasts from satellites. It would end up looking like a white light; just noise. Years ago it was thought that TV and radio signals from the Earth would reach distant stars. That was one of the themes of the movie "Contact" (1997). Lately I have read that signals from Earth probably fade out completely at less than 1 light year, and cannot be read even in principle. I suppose that means planetary, satellite, and interplanetary communication on other stars cannot be read by us. I expect the only signals we could read with confidence would be ones that are intended to be read by any civilization with radio; i.e. the signal in "Contact." - Jed
