At a certain stage of development, civilization comes to the conclusion that it is necessary to encode communications. This, according to former American intelligence agent Edward Snowden, may be one of the reasons that humanity has not yet discovered signs of alien life.
The reason why we cannot detect signals from other civilizations may be the coding used by aliens. This opinion was expressed by a former employee of the American special services, the whistle-blower of mass surveillance Edward Snowden in an interview with astrophysicist Neil Degrass Tyson as part of his podcast.
Snowden, who is in Russia, spoke with a scientist in New York using a communication channel via a mobile robot.
According to Snowden, at a high stage of development, society begins to realize that communication channels need to be encoded.
Photo: russian.rt.com
"If an alien civilization is trying to listen to other civilizations or our civilization is trying to listen to aliens, then in the development of society there is only one short period when all its communications are sent using the most primitive and most unprotected means," Snowden said.
Therefore, in his opinion, if alien civilizations exist, all their communications are encoded by default. But this means that such signals are indistinguishable from the background cosmic microwave radiation.
Promotional video:
“If you look at encrypted communication, it is really impossible to say that it is encrypted,” said a former US intelligence officer. "You can't distinguish well-coded communication from arbitrary manifestations."
Recall that in June 2013, Edward Snowden handed over to the Washington Post and The Guardian a number of classified materials about the surveillance programs of the US and UK special services. He obtained this data personally working in data collection programs.
After transmitting the information, Snowden flew to Hong Kong, and from there to Moscow, where he spent some time in the transit zone of the Moscow airport. Russia then granted him temporary asylum for a year on the condition that he cease his activities against the United States. On August 1, 2014, Snowden received a three-year residency permit.
Meanwhile, journalists continue to process the data received from the ex-agent. They have already caused a number of high-profile scandals. So, it turned out that the United States was following German politicians, including wiretapping Angela Merkel's phone.