
In an interview for the StarTalk podcast, by scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson, Edward Snowden, a figure who became known as the whistleblower of PRISM, an alleged United States spy program, made interesting statements during the program.
Snowden said that aliens may be trying to make contact with Earth right now, however, because of data encryption, we will probably never hear what they have to say.
According to the former United States Intelligence Agency employee, every advanced civilization tends to encrypt its communications to prevent information theft.
The same should happen with aliens, who protect their information with techniques that make messages “unreadable” to anyone who doesn’t have the “right key”.
“If you have an alien civilization trying to listen to other civilizations, or our civilization trying to listen to extraterrestrials, there is only a small period in the development of your society when all of your communication will be sent unprotected through the most primitive means,” Snowden said about the possibility of contact with extraterrestrials.
“When we think about everything we’re hearing from our satellites or everything they’re hearing from our civilization, if there are indeed ETs out there, all of their communications are encrypted by default. Whether what we are hearing is a television program or actually an alien, everything is indistinguishable to us”, added Snowden.
Edward Snowden is still in exile in Russia due to the US Intelligence Agency data leak.
