
Fight and Flight on the Corporate Battlefield
Virus Alert
Should recipes for
pathogenic viruses be published on the Internet?
By
Art Jahnke
July 24, 2002 Now theres another kind of source code that many people
would like to see purged from the Web. Its the code for building viruses.
Not computer viruses, but the real things, the living things, benign and
malevolent.
Last month, researchers at the State University of New York at Stony
Brook managed to construct a living polio virus using instructions that are
available online and materials that can be bought through the mail. Its no
coincidence that the project was paid for by the same people who paid for
the prototype of the Internet: the Department of Defense (DOD). The DOD has
a long history of developing technologies with awesome technologies, that,
like viruses, can be put to work for good or for ill.
Dr. Eckard Wimmer, a professor of molecular genetics and the project
leader, told the New York Times that his team created the virus to
send a warning that terrorists might be able to do the same thing. Wimmer
told the Wall Street Journal that, in his opinion, any well-trained
graduate student could do the same. And while it took the Stony Brook team
three years to create the virus, Wimmer said he thought it could be done in
as little as six months.
Whether or not the Pentagon really did fund the research for the purpose
of sending a warning that terrorists could do the same thing, reports of the
projects success did just that, sparking two quite different debates. The
first debate concerned the ethics, and the wisdom, of creating pathogenic
viruses for any purpose. To discuss that, science reporters telephoned
experts in the fields of virology, gene-sequencing and biotechnology.
Some, such as Dr. Steven Block of Stanford, pointed out that it would be
much easier for terrorists to obtain a natural virus than to create one.
Others believed such research projects were required to build the necessary
defenses against bio-warfare. Craig Venter, founder and former head of
Celera Genomics group and unofficial spokesperson for all things related to
genetic code, told the Journal that the building of the virus was
irresponsible, and could create an environment of fear in which legislators
would feel a need to control basic research.
Which brings us to the second debate, the one about the ethics, and the
wisdom, of publishing recipes for pathogenic viruses in a medium that is
available to anyone with an AOL account. What do you think? Should recipes
for dangerous life forms be published on the Internet?
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publishing virus data on the web...
ivo
August 1, 2002
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Virus
Ashok Kumar
August 1, 2002
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Build a Virus
Darrell Hensley
July 31, 2002
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Free speech - polio virus
JPCE
July 31, 2002
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Of Course Not!
Dan Seats
July 31, 2002
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Publishing pathogenic virus infomration
David Reneer
July 31, 2002
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Let's talk......
Brian
July 31, 2002
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Just like "WE" explained what it would take to take the WTC down,
let's give more info for "THEM" to use
Lisa Van Leuvan
July 31, 2002
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virus info.
George
July 31, 2002
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stopping the flow
k kahl
July 30, 2002
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See
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