Blockchain is being used to store simulated alien messages from Mars

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute, or SETI, recently partnered with Filecoin, a decentralized data storage marketplace, to store a simulated alien message from Mars.

The project, A Sign in Space, was a performance designed to simulate the transmission of an extraterrestrial coded message to Earth using the European Space Agency’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter currently orbiting Mars.

This performance was designed with the intention of involving local communities interested in decoding and interpreting the message, bridging different cultures and areas of expertise.

In a live broadcast, Daniela de Paulis, founder and artistic director of A Sign in Space, noted that the coded message was open to interpretation.

“Imagine abstract art, as an artist you create a painting and you give this painting the meaning, often not even a fixed meaning…if other people start interpreting something abstract, it can be even more diverse and we can get different types interpretations”, said de Paulis.

The processed message is securely stored using Filecoin, to ensure that the information in the message is preserved and available for analysis and interpretation.

Interested participants can now access and interpret the message themselves.

The role of Filecoin

Unlike traditional cloud services, Filecoin addresses data through a unique hash, Stefaan Vervaet, head of network growth at Protocol Labs — the team behind Filecoin — said in a live broadcast.

“It’s a global unique key that allows you to get rid of IP addresses, hostnames, its location on the planet, which means as long as you have that hash, you can access that data from anywhere in the world,” said The duty.

Researchers will have the ability to analyze the signal stored on Filecoin from anywhere in the world through its Interplanetary File System (IPFS) gateway – a distributed file storage system that enables servers to store files and data from anywhere and everywhere .

Vervaet also notes that all data stored on the Filecoin network is immutable and verified on a daily basis through ecosystem participants.

“[They] is required to verify through cryptographic hashing on a daily basis that if the data is still the same as it was initially, he said. “You can be sure that the data is not changed … there is no single entity that can just pull the curtain, push you off the platform and remove these data sets.”

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