Scientific paper: Searching the Internet for time travelers

[Permalink]

1 Like

I wonder if there’s some way to remotely detect and aggregate the version numbers of mobile devices when they connected to the cellular network. Maybe the NSA could help us out, I’m sure they have this info if it’s out there. All we need is for one time traveller to slip up and forget to put his/her iPhone 12 or HTC Quasar in airplane mode during the trip back, and boom, there is someone running iOS 11 or Android 6.2 Strawberry Shortcake.

Hm, I probably shouldn’t have used the actual future release names and device names in my example, that’s gonna be a dead giveaway in three or so years. It’s a fair cop, guv.

2 Likes

This is absurd! Clearly time travelers will have sophisticated future-technology which will cover all their internet tracks. They’re not gonna go around like bigfoot, stomping giant footprints in the mud for us to cast into molds and measure with science tools.

6 Likes

Unless… what if bigfoot ARE time travellers? That would explain SO MUCH

8 Likes

Brain. Blown.

I need to lie down for a bit.

3 Likes

They used to need them. Now they just wait for researchers like Nemiroff to publish evidence of them, then go back and erase their tracks.

11 Likes

Maybe neither the internet nor systems such as Facebook or twitter are around in the time these travelers are from? Also they may have other forms to communicate which we do not have the tech to search on.

In all seriousness, this does have some validity. At the very least, it shows there is no mass influx of civilian time tourists - the kind of people who’d fail at proper opsec procedures.

4 Likes

Unless they don’t want to be found… in which case they just went back to cover their tracks once found evidence was published.

1 Like

nah the goggles and goatee were the dead give away.

2 Likes

" tom tomorrow " disguised as a unix aficionado ; and see also " percival dunwoody " disguised as a bumbling island dweller ~

2 Likes

He didn’t have the goatee last time:

4 Likes

Who says they went back themselves? There are rules to this game:

http://www.tor.com/stories/2011/08/wikihistory

6 Likes

Has anyone else read the short story about the time machine that can only go forward in time? Maybe it’s prescient.

LOLcats were started by a time traveler to troll the 21st century. Some think it was this guy.

2 Likes

i’m just thrilled to see an image from one of my favorite time-travel movies used as the header.

Of course, with operating systems like Android which are infinitely tweakable, you can have it report whatever operating system version you want. :slight_smile:

I love “Time After Time” and was happy to have a chance to use the image!

2 Likes

I’ve wasted a lot of time in my life but I’ve never wasted time as pointlessly as searching the Internet for time travelers.

Thanks for the link! Still giggling, actually.