So, we’re transmitting voice or data by radio to an UAP. They respond. What now?
Before we can have a meaningful communication with ETI (by radio), we need to agree on some form of handshake protocol. This is not just a friendly formality.
Communication, either analogue or digital, is dialogic. Dialogic processes refer to words uttered by a speaker and interpreted by a listener. We must make sure that the speaker is understood by the listener and that the listener can respond. It takes two to tango.
A handshake protocol can agree on the speed and language cypher to be used.
Language is seen as a cypher for thought, different groups of individuals employing unique sounds.
Language sets people apart, it seperates people into nations and regions. This gives them identity.
Computers or civilized states on common ground have developed handshake protocols for meeting strangers.
An example of a digital handshake are the modem sounds from dial up internet of the 1990’s. What we hear is the V90 handshake protocol of TCP-IP, the internet protocol.
In the movie end sequence in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, when the 5 note sequence is played and the mothership responds, we hear a demonstration of a tone-frequency handshake protocol that’s played by a musician.
In the example from the Star Trek movie “First Contact”, a human literally shakes the hand of a Vulcan before communication is initiated. This is a dialogic handshake.
Not every human is comfortable shaking hands because of fear of viruses. Especially alien ones.
What kind of handshake protocol we’ll be using when we make First Contact with ETI we don’t know precisely.
But when it comes to the transmission of data then it will be a digital handshake. Therefore it’s pointless to expect to hear a single word from ET without ACK.
ACK SYN
Known as the “SYN, SYN-ACK, ACK handshake,” computer A transmits a SYNchronize packet to computer B, which sends back a SYNchronize-ACKnowledge packet to A. Computer A then transmits an ACKnowledge packet to B, and the connection is established.