[ExI] Meaningless Symbols.

John Clark jonkc at bellsouth.net
Tue Jan 12 21:21:16 UTC 2010


On Jan 12, 2010,  Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

> worse would have been sending a CD, compressed audio such as an MP3 file, or encrypted
> audio, in that order. That would have completely stumped the aliens, no matter how smart they were.

I wonder if that is true. Perhaps for MP3 files, because at least to some extent it was designed to accommodate the idiosyncrasies and limitations of the human auditory system, but if the music was converted into a Zip file our alien friends might have a chance. If Zip compression were perfect the file would seem completely random and even a Jupiter Brain would be sunk, but Zip is not perfect, redundancy remains, so they might figure out it's a compressed file and guess it represents a vibration. Alien or no I'll bet they're familiar with vibration. 

As for decoding encrypted stuff, that depends on if Quantum Computers can really be made to work.

 John K Clark

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