Snowden says encryption may explain Fermi's paradox

Sep 22, 2015 10:27 pm
[caption width="264" align="alignright"] Neil deGrasse-Tyson speaks via radio waves with Edward Snowden. From "Star Talk" website.[/caption]The Fermi paradox, thought up by physicists Enrico Fermi and Michael H. Hart, is the apparent contradiction between the high probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations, and the lack of any evidence for such civilizations. Now Edward Snowden -- the man who leaked evidence that the United States has been trawling the phone records of Americans for years -- may have an answer to the Fermi paradox in computer encryption. On celebrity astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson's "StarTalk" audio show this week, Snowden suggests that a need to keep communications secure could mean that alien signals are simply too well encrypted to be distinguished from background noise.