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Hacking the President’s DNA

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Wed, 2012-10-31 07:53

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Hacking the President’s DNA

Here is a all-too-plausible sketch of what biohacking can do in the future: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/11/hacking-the-presiden... I expect this kind of shenanigans to have become fairly common in the chaotic decades before the Fall. Genetic security was increasingly important, with world leaders worried about all sorts of hack attacks. Interestingly, the risk abated around 20 BF or so, thanks to advances in medichines (hackproofing bodies was likely a big impetus for the research) and the possibility of resleeving made it easier to escape a biohack. So the Wall Street Plague and the MSS MS are well into the past... or so they say. Clever PCs and villains can surely find a way.

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Wed, 2012-10-31 17:21

Gantolandon Gantolandon's picture

For some reason, I have

For some reason, I have problems believing dedicated viral attacks are the future of terrorism. First of all, viruses mutate quite fast. If a mutation impairs its ability to reproduce and spread, this is not a problem, because natural selection will get rid of the malfunctioning genome quite fast. But the payload - the part that is tailored to the victim's genome - isn't even supposed to activate until it reaches the intended target. If this fragment is copied erroneously, natural selection won't ensure that this particular strain is eliminated. After many generations, the code that triggers the lethal symptoms may not even work at all. Moreover, there is no reason to even do that. Remember the comic book villains who would develop antigravity technology and use it to rob banks? It's a similar case. Someone who can tailor a virus to work only on cells with a specific genetic code could, for example, cure cancer with it. Or, if we want to imagine something really villaneous, a new Hitler could use this technology to perform a racial purge. But there is no point to use it to do the same thing a guy with a sniper rifle and a good vantage point could perform. Also: there is really no point in killing the president of the USA (which seems to bother the author of this article most) - he is not that important. Almost all countries are prepared for such an event and they will be able to continue their normal business with hardly any interruption. Two years ago, the president of Poland died - along with several prominent politicians from his party and some high-ranking generals. Still, nothing really happened, except of national mourning and the president's party going even more insane than they were before. The country continued to function. There is only one reason why someone might want to kill a high-ranking politician: it is a strong symbolic gesture and that's what terrorism is about. Attack on the president will be perceived as an attack on his country. Still, in such case it makes even less sense to cause his death in such an indirect way that it looks natural. And you need to infect a significant part of the country to do that: why not give them all ebola instead? (I'm so going on some watchlist for this post) This article is interesting in another way. Its author pretty much imagined a modern version of a hex: obtain a part of the victim, do some magic with it and he will soon drop dead. There is hardly anything logical in his plan, but for our minds it seems plausible - because we all know some fairy tales or legends where a witch performs a dark ritual using her target's hair to curse him. Almost no one believes in magic today, but some memetic remnants are still there: and, from time to time, they resurface.

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Tue, 2012-11-13 15:17

nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture

Gantolandon makes a strong

Gantolandon makes a strong point, but I think the threat still exists. The article poses the President just as an example (even if it's a weak one). But there are plenty of other examples where having this sort of a weapon can be very effective at driving policy, illicitly generating money, or causing systems disruption.

Tue, 2012-11-13 18:47

Extrasolar Angel Extrasolar Angel's picture

A big craze a couple of years

A big craze a couple of years ago was the idea that you can create biological agents targeting specific ethnic groups. After a while this went silent, so it either means that the idea isn't that workable or that research got serious. I believe one the problems was that it wouldn't be as selective as some had theorized and that ethnic groups aren't easily defined. But by the time of EP I think attacks against people having specific genes that are shared by wider group could be possible. PS:On second thought, in today's world probably better not to discuss such things on the net, even as scenario for a Role Playing Game.

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[I]Raise your hands to the sky and break the chains. With transhumanism we can smash the matriarchy together.[/i]

Thu, 2012-11-15 04:51

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Extrasolar Angel wrote:PS:On

Extrasolar Angel wrote:
PS:On second thought, in today's world probably better not to discuss such things on the net, even as scenario for a Role Playing Game.

Because self-censorship is patriotic? (I'm not worried myself, since if the various TLAs are *not* following my online research they are not doing their jobs properly... something that I jokingly point out to them every time I meet a representative.) Ethnic bio-agents are likely impractical because of the genetic variation. We have learned a lot about genetic differences over the past decade, and typically ethnic groups are far less homogeneous than people thought. Good news for bio-safety, bad news for the people claiming to exceptionally 'pure'. So while it would be possible to find a set of markers for a particular group, it is just going to enable a weapon that hits more people in the group than outside. The really scary possibility is wepons that link genetic markers to environmental properties. Suppose the group also has a culture that eats a typical foodstuff: make your weapon trigger on that combination. This will again suffer some fuzziness, but in some cases this might be specific enough to make it semi-feasible. Perhaps the most plausible target would be people with particular genetic or biotech upgrades. You could certainly imagine some bio-terrorists thinking they were doing poetic justice by attacking the enhanced. ObSF reference: Chris Lawson's short story "Written in blood", which deals with a religion-specific genetic modification.

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Mon, 2012-11-19 04:10

Gantolandon Gantolandon's picture

Generally, everything that

Generally, everything that would artificially limit where could the virus spread is not a good idea. If this part of the genome breaks down, it can spread more effectively than unmodified genetic code, as it is not limited to a specific group of people. I'm not saying this is not possible, but this would be incredibly hard to do, as the disease must be specifically tailored to the conditions present only in organisms you would like to infect. This cannot be something like a simple "if", or a killswitch which would disable the genome.

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