Are we being beamed into space?

Well, time I got people to provide some answers. Here is my question. We are all connected and typing to each other, right? and SL is always on, right? Now, is this whole SL world and all our blogs being beamed into outer space, just like TV shows are? I know this seems a bit like the question, "where does electricity go once it has gone through the lamp bulb?" but seriously (coz I am totally ignorant of science) where DOES sl go once it has gone through my computer? Outer space? Or a pixil junk-yard?
Edit addition: Which means that we may be providing entertainment to little green or purple men when we indulge in cybersex?

SCARY thought.....I can see them giggling at XCite attachments already....

I think the whole of SL might end up as a kind of outer space AI....



And hey! You posted again! *hugs*


btw, are you serious with Gela Alta????

Waitress, I'll have some of whatever Jig is having.

That comment was way out of hand!

Bite me.

I really do have a place in the FAR north. When I am there, I really do look out on an expanse of snow and ice. Thanks for the welcome back Now to business ...
we are being beamed into the ether? Wow!

Do you have a transmission device attached to your computer?

I understand electric currents do always generate radio waves... I dunno how far they go P:

I'm gonna have another one, coz I reckon I am gonna come up with something brilliant in a minute. (As I said to the headmistress of my school when I was caught in my real adolescence)

Okay, so what is the difference between a computer display and a TV show that is transmitted? - seriously, I mean.

A television system may be made up of multiple components, so a screen which lacks an internal tuner to receive the broadcast signals is called a monitor rather than a television.

You need an extraterrestrial firewall!:

I am sure there are some people using Satelite connections, so unless the greenie is a complete noober, then it can easily get into the whole network and mind meld with it.

TV shows are transmitted over the air by high-powered transmitters & in some cases relayed through satellites. In either case you need an appropriate receiver to get the signal. A television with an antenna will get on-air signals if in close enough proximity, or you might need a satellite receiver & a satellite antenna (aka sat dish) to receive the signals. A 3rd way is via cable, in which the signal is passed from the cable company along a wire into your home.

TV programs come from a central location which transmits them (a TV station).

Yes, all electronic devices put out EM radiation. So yes, SL is being broadcast. However, it's being broadcast as a jumble of information, and a different jumble for each client running... along with the EM emissions of every other device - refrigerators, microwaves, hair driers et all...

so it would be lost in the general noise and there's no way to filter out JUST SL in any meaningful way.

There's some alien up there saying "hey lets go to Earth, they just look like us"

Thanks Annabelle! I wish I had sat next to you and Snowflake when I was in Physics class in school. I could lean over and take just a teeny tiny peek ...

generally the electricty that goes through a bulb gets converted to light, heat, and EM.. pretty much the same thing with your computer...

now at some point you're packets may make a sattelite trip, but it's not that likely unless you have satelite internet (ok maybe wireless to)

as for some aliens decoding your single session, from the EM noise coming off your computer, some random router, etc... lesse, reverse enginer the protocol, find the specific packets, assempble them in order, guess the action of the data, figure out the machinery it's running on, reverse engineer the machinery including flaws which affect how and when the em fields are generated, including wiring, power generation, etc... I wouldn't worry to much about some alien peepshow of you skybox =)

It's a series of tubes.

I bet it could be decoded but going through all that work just to find a Resident's info or watch them wouldn't be anywhere near worth it... I don't think we would have to "worry" about anybody trying to get into SL like this when they could just try and hack thier way into the servers if they were some kinda "legendary" hacker.

People can get into University systems all the time... and hackers like that usually want something bigger than just to be a voyuer on one person...they want something out of the system they broke into, and usually they are detected pretty quick too.

I never had the desire OR patience, but I have known a few actual hackers who got into bank, college and university systems...idiots

but I guess everybody needs a hobby just look at the PN *shrugs*

I think the plan is to start by beaming Second Life to Mars.

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/01/nasa_virtual_worlds

----

Aliens upon deciphering Second Life: "My God, it's full of lag!"

The TV signals that have been beamed into space are analog signals (until very recently). If you can capture the signal and build a machine that can play it, you'll see the same thing my father did in 1960. If you capture a digital signal and want to play it, you have to decode it, which is much harder.

I don't know how digital TV signals are sent, but it's probably similar to internet signals, which are sent as packets. These have to be decoded and reassembled in order to make sense (if they ever did make sense, that is!).

So the little green men would find their humano-porn wrapped up in little packets, like veggies at Scout camp or sushi.

Don't forget the wasabi.

I know someone that makes a living breaking into sytems this way... not by stealing, by selling the information on how they went about it. sytem managers can close the holes, they get paid, everyone is happy. I certainly wouldn't call anyone doing that an idiot... more like shrewd use of talent.

and just to have fun and add to the thread, did you know the fbi posesses a fun little toy that they can aim at your monitor and will show them what you see? nifty little gadget works right through the walls... it was made for crt's, not sure if it'd work on plasma or lcd... but it's not new tech so who knows at this point

LOL

It wouldn't just be lost in the noise, it would contain no information about SL at all anyway - the EM radiation you are referring to will only contain minor electrical information about the devices that produce it - your PC, Monitor, etc, but nothing about what was being shown on the monitor, e.g. SL.

Others have mentioned that some net connections are being beamed up to space via satellite communications, and so some SL 'connection information' could be received by little green men. Even that would mean next to nothing - it is just a 'language' for the servers and your PC to use to 'talk' to each other, but the context of the discussion remains on the servers and PCs.