[cap-talk] Extra-terrestrials and timing/direction

[Jed Donnelley]

At 02:44 AM 1/9/2007, John McCabe-Dansted wrote:
>On 1/9/07, Jed Donnelley <capability at webstart.com> wrote:
> > I also think that the case of the extra terrestrial communication
> > that might come with public key identities but where "they" could
> > in fact be collaborating behind the scenes is also relevant to
> > this case.
>
>While this may not be directly relevant, if we have two extra
>terrestrial civilisations A and B we are likely to know not only their
>public keys, but also there position relative to us. From this and the
>law of relativity we may be able to deduce that A is not a proxy for B
>(although it may be an intelligent agent programmed to represent B's
>interest).

Good point.  It seems we can know more about extra terrestrial
communicators than we know about communicators on the Internet ;-)

It's a Gedanken exercise.  The point is just to free the thinking
of any possible physical contact.  In reality most contacts on
the Internet act much this way.

>We could also send a word macro virus to B (hey it works in
>the movies) and warn A not to open any attachments from B. By the time
>A's warning reaches B we could know that it would be too late to save
>whatever is at B.

Chuckle.  I don't recommend that for contacts made on cap-talk.

--Jed  http://www.webstart.com/jed-signature.html