Roy Simpson tartly comments:
"So in summary the Aliens will prefer a local internet to all that travelling. Maybe they will have found a way to connect to our internet? That way, with the right IP address, we can log into the Alien cyberworlds. Now that would be a killer App for the Internet!"
Greg Egan got there way ahead of the rest of us with his "polises" in Diaspora. The problem with virtuality, as Mr Banks observed in Excession, is that the universe is basically not the ideal data centre - too much random stuff going on.
There has been a suggestion that the Internet should be searched for signs of alien presence - maybe the aliens think that the Internet (or the www) is actually the form of intelligent life on earth, God help us! ...
