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What is up with all the encryption and hacking talk in this article?

"mosquitoes can also hack into bacterial communication systems using chemoreceptors on their antennae, rather like World War II code-breakers intercepting an encrypted transmission"

Is it just to mundane to say mosquitos can smell using chemoreceptors on their antennae, rather like you smelling with your nose?

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That bothered me too, and seems like a bad analogy on top of it all. It presented the idea of an arms race between the bacteria and mosquitoes. Is there actually evidence that bacteria have altered their quorum sensing mechanism due to mosquitoes sensing it as well?

I think the author is saying that there is something beyond the message. The quoted scientist use this analogy too.

> The team used a mutant form of S. epidermidis, in which they deleted the genetic mechanism that encodes its quorum sensing system.

This suggests that there is an message chemical and some other obscuring chemical and that the mosquito sensors can be independently tuned to this obscuring chemical.

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