Hi man on the moon: Rather primitive human technology can make new movies out of old footage. Assuming ET is smarter than humans in some respects, they can receive our TV while orbiting Earth two million kilometers away, and create programs many of us would find intertaining and beam the programs to selected Earth countries. I agree, it would be difficult from several light years away, but perhaps within their technology. Neil

If we received an artificial message, could we ever even decode it - even if it were received over a sufficiently long period of time? If the message was just leaky internal chatter, the message encoding would not be designed for easy decoding by third parties, especially if it was also encrypted.

Could someone in the 1950s decode an MPEG-4 transmission from today? I seriously doubt it without some prior knowledge. Trying to decode an alien transmission would be orders of magnitude harder as we would not only be dealing with an incomprehensible format, but also the meaning of the message itself.

So, I think the best that we could hope for is to determine that the message is artificially generated and that it contains (unknown/unknowable?) information.

How would this change society? Hard to say. I think there will be an initial buzz, interest in science/astronomy would spike, kooks would come out of the woodwork, opportunists would take peoples' money, Hollywood would generate more profits, it would be another nail in organized religions' coffin, etc. But after a while, when nothing much else happens, things will go back to 'normal'. Of course, those with enquiring minds will remain ecstatic about the news!

We make a commission on passing that message on to its intended recipient.

Maybe they would trade a hyperdrive for their lost mail?

Come on us humans are marcantile geniuses after all.

Sounds like a good deal.

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Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song
'Evolution and science are one thing, but you don’t mess with Yoko Ono. Everybody knows that. ' - 386sx

If they are only two million kilometers away they should just come by and say hello!

Yeah, I'm familiar with using old footage, sometimes quite well. I'm a big fan of how it was used in "Bobby" so that the only time we actually saw Bobby, it was truly him. In scenes with an actor we only saw legs, hands, etc. Very well done imho. An exellent point Neil! It would be entertaining to see what the aliens come up with to beam back at us.

This would also assume they've pirated some video capture/edit software from the internet. The internet on their ship is, of course, also pirated and hacked from some pour soul's (probly mine) wireless Comcast.

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None to speak of

That is why you should encrypt your wireless.
I have mine double encrypted to keep those datgummed aliens out. I went a little extra by giving my router a tinfoil hat too.

Yeah, I did that when I first set it up, but one of my roommates has MAC and it wouldn't connect to anything other than the router's default settings. We are far enough from our neighbors that I'm not overly concerned--they have their own anyway (password and encrypted I might add). I did put a password on the router itself so not just anyone can change the settings, but that's all.

The fact it's unsecured hasn't gotten us human problems, but sometimes it's sorta slow and I wonder...

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None to speak of

I have a lynksis router that is Wireless or Cat5... When Robert lived here (MAC user) I ran cat cable to each bedroom in the house. After he moved out- I didn't bother switching back to wireless on the router.

However, with the laptop- I used a simple USB Puck to drop in on unsecured wireless networks. Whoever I was borrowing from would have noticed only intermittent periods of slowness- assuming that they noticed at all or that I slowed their netspeed at all.
Needless to say, I no longer need to borrow a signal with the laptop.
I suffered a moral enlightenment that enabled me to transcend beyond...
Oh heck.
Dr pepper across the keyboard and an excited toddler provided the solution

We use a linksys as well, capable of cat5 and wireless, or both simultaneously. I thought about that but I think we'd have the same issue, the computer doesn't care HOW the signal gets to it as much as the limits ON that signal. At least that's what I found. It is probably a simple fix but not worth the hassle so long as this works without problem.

But I digress. The OP.

Umm...

Hmmm...

*Scratches his head for a while...

Of course! The internet wasn't invented by Al Gore, we are receiving accidental communications from aliens already! He was just the fall guy the evil gubmint chose to "cover up" that we are already communicating with extra-terrestrial life! How else do explain crazy stuff on the 'net like...BAUT for example?

*Runs off to escape further detection

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None to speak of

I say tit for tat.

I demand those aliens pass on the messages ive been sending to Tau Ceti!

I know they are intercepting them.

Uh, no. ;-)

__________________
Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song
'Evolution and science are one thing, but you don’t mess with Yoko Ono. Everybody knows that. ' - 386sx

We already informed you of the conditions you need to meet first. Until our demands are met...

Uhh... wait... hold up here...

This is a secure line right?

oh.

Umm.. Yes, I was saying, We already informed you that the conditions of the evidence demonstrates that there are no aliens...

Absolutely!
Anybody send that Alien signal NOW? PLEASE??!!!


Can't wait to get a better view of all those exoplanets

Just a sidenote: I've looked up the SETI link and, hey, maybe they're looking in the wrong direction:

"Project Phoenix, run by the SETI Institute, is the most ambitious search for extraterrestrial intelligence ever undertaken. Since 1995, it has been scrutinizing the vicinities of nearby, Sun-like stars, hoping to pick up a signal that would tell us that we're not alone."

Only Sun-like stars??

We are a little bit morally concerned about what sort of message we might receive from inhabitants of moon-like stars.


There is nothing worse than trying to explain why you spent years and millions of dollars only to get mooned by E.T.

This reminds me of that old phone prank.

You keep calling the same number and trying to leave a message for "John". Of course there is no John there and they start getting ****ed of after about the third time different people call trying to leave the message.

Finally you call back as John, to pick up your messages.

If we ever get a call from Aliens ascking for the Klingons we know they are having us on.

Us humans are too smart to fall for that one!

This may not be as important to most of the scientests on this site, but I wonder how it would affect the religious community? Would they deny it, embrace it, try and explain it? I soetimes wonder how the pope would react if we found out there were aliens at least as smart as we are.

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Who knows? Who can predict what the irrational will do? I imagine they would do whatever it takes to preserve their power base.

Were at a similar level of development. Were. Even if we could send/hear a signal to/from the Andromeda Galaxy with +-50 years technology (and we can't), it would have originated so long ago that their level of technology then would tell us precisely nothing about them now.

We'd know extra-solar life has existed at some point in the past. We may or may not still be alone in the universe, but it would be a good starting point. It also means we'd start pointing radio-telescopes in that direction pretty much permanently, for starters.

It probably would tip over some of the more extreme apple carts at least somewhat, but all in all, I think it would be a positive experience for us as a species. At least in terms of how we humans deal with each other.

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[Dr. Horrible]___________________________[Penny]
Listen close to everybody's heart________And you believe there's good in everybody's heart
And hear that breaking sound_____________Keep it safe and sound
Hopes and dreams are shattering apart____With hope you can do your part
And crashing to the ground_______________To turn a life around

Sure. You have to start somewhere, and with resources as thoroughly limited as SETI's "enjoyed",