Encryption might be the reason we’ve never heard from aliens, says Snowden

But before deGrasse Tyson could discuss communicating with aliens, he had to figure out how to communicate with the exiled-in-Russia Edward Snowden, which ultimately he was able to do, reports Business Insider.

In other words, Snowden believes there’s a distinct possibility we might have run into a message or phone call or cry for help and didn’t even know it. Sounds like the only way to make direct contact is for us to go to them, or vice versa. All of their communications are encrypted by default.

The former Central Intelligence Agency agent turned fugitive was an unexpected guest on famous astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson’s StarTalk podcast on September 18.

It’s interesting to hear Snowden talk about this potential downside of encryption, as his 2013 revelations have proven that encryption is actually much more important than ever.

“You’re assuming they have the same security issues we have on Earth”, Tyson said joking of Snowden’s flight from the United States for stealing thousands of classified documents and handing them over to journalists in a Hong Kong hotel room.

To talk to Snowden, DeGrasse Tyson used a communication system which had a robot-controlled video screen in Moscow where the whistleblower is.

So if you have an an alien civilisation trying to listen for other civilizations, or our civilisation trying to listen for aliens, there’s only one small period in the development of their society when all of their communication will be sent via the most primitive and most unprotected means.

So when we think about everything that we’re hearing from our satellites, or everything they’re hearing from our civilization…

Tyson joked that alien civilisations might not need the same security measures as we do.

Continuing on this, Snowden said that as human and alien societies get more complex and shift from “open communications” to encoded communication, the signals being broadcast will rapidly stop looking like identifiable signals.

Basically it boils down that the fact that we are missing alien communications because we are using the wrong technology to look for them.

He explained that the impact of encryption could mean that incoming messages from alien races may be mistaken for being mere cosmic background radiation.