Science Editors Urge Nondisclosure Of Bioterror Info 307
Jeraph Mason writes "According to this story on ABC news, science editors want to censor their publications because terrorists may use them. It's the same argument used to prevent security disclosures from being published." There's also coverage on the BBC and at The Washington Post.
Don't be fooled (Score:2, Informative)
Make sure that the responsible science journals handle the floow of information to the public in an orderly manner you know.
Huh??? (Score:2)
Re:Don't be fooled (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone involved acknowledges the publication restraint is only part of the answer - there is nothing to stop scientists simply posting their research on the internet, for example.
First they didn't count the votes in Florida but I didn't protest because I didn't live in Florida.
Then they established military tribunals to try inconvenient cases without juries or appeal and I didn't protest because I wasn't foreign looking.
Then they declared prisoners of war illegal combatants but I didn't protest because I wasn't a prisoner of war.
Then they suspended habeas corpus, transfered prisoners to military jails without the right to see a lawyer, I didn't protest because they told me the prisoner was obviously guilty.
Then Ari Fleicher announced that 'people should take care of what they say', being a good citizen I decided to take care not to criticize the regime.
Then they told us that we should build shelters against biological attack using duct tape and plastic, yes really they did, I didn't protest because I have plenty of duct tape.
Then they told us that anyone protesting against a war against Iraq was allied with Saddam and Bin Laden, I did not protest.
Then they told us that publishing scientific information that contradicted the administration could not be published and I did not protest.
Then they armed their supporters claiming that the country needed a well regulated militia in case of internal dissent and I did not protest because I was affraid.
Then they cancelled the elections because they could only give comfort to the opponents of the administration and thus the opponents of American greatness and American power, I did not protest because they didn't count my vote last time.
No, we are not quite there yet, but haven't people noticed that we are getting close?
Re:Don't be fooled (Score:2)
Wait a second... what story did you read?
The story here is that a bunch of science journals have decided that they aren't going to publish things that give too much information to somebody who has evil thoughts in mind.
The Bush Administration didn't ask for this, and this has nothing to do with whether or not the administration likes the information... Washington isn't involved in this story at all!
The idea is simple... if the journal publishers don't like what you're writing about, you're not going to get published in their journal. That's not censorship, that's selection. If you wanna talk about what you wanna talk about, publish your own... you do the work to get people to take you seriously.
Re:Don't be fooled (Score:4, Interesting)
What is the basis for that assertion?
CNN has for the past week been full of stories concerning a request by Turkey for munitions etc. to be moved into Turkey in case of attack by Iraq. Only the thing is that if you listen to the BBC you would have heard the Turkish minister responsible stating that Turkey was not behind the request, it was the US that made the request.
Another example of this is the constant claim that the UK supports the position of the Bush Administration on Iraq. According to the BBC a million people marched in the UK to tell the world that they do not support the Bush administration. Getting a million people to mobilize in a country of 55 million is a non trivial event, particularly when the party in power is left wing, the people marching ar Blairs base.
We've got to decide where the line is to be drawn (Score:3, Insightful)
There are extremists on both sides of this topic. Extremists suck though.
The answer lies in the middle, but nobody wants to discuss that. They just want to criticise the other extremists.
Re:Don't be fooled (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Don't be fooled (Score:2)
Great. (Score:5, Funny)
Just tell them to submit it as a story to /. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Just tell them to submit it as a story to /. (Score:5, Funny)
No, then everybody will see it twice.
Not going to work (Score:5, Interesting)
Mod Parent UP (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not going to work (Score:2)
I agree that few knew, but I discovered it's not a new concept.
I recently read a popular Frederick Forsythe novel written in 1972, The Dogs of War I think, that discussed dirty bombs.
Re:Not going to work (Score:2)
Build conventional bomb (not obscure).
Coat or stuff it with anything that contaminates more than the usual, especially adding even mildly radioactive substances to cause undue alarm from those who believe they'll either mutate or be certain to get cancer (not particularly obscure).
Figuring out, say, how to identify cellular characteristics common among a specific ethnic group and use that to build a target-specific biological weapon, on the other hand, might not be common knowledge.
Re:Not going to work (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not going to work (Score:3, Interesting)
same but different (Score:3, Interesting)
It's the same argument used to prevent security disclosures from being published.
It's a little different, though. It's much harder to issue a security patch for the human body.
Re:same but different (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:same but different (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:same but different (Score:3, Insightful)
Indeed this is not the "same" argument used to quash the full-disclosure movement. In fact, this is Timothy utilizing the same sensationalistic tools so commonly employed by the mass media. As I have said many times in the past, time to go, Timothy...I mean, Timmaaay.
Re:same but different (Score:5, Funny)
Given the skyrocketing sales of duct tape this past week, I'm guessing there's a lot of people who are going to try patching anyway.
Censorship (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Censorship (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Censorship (Score:3, Insightful)
Just between you and me, of course; if you don't volunteer to publish your articles in a journal which supports this sort of meausre perhaps you may find your funding... err... dry up? Just a suggestion, we arn't quite sure how the new measure will affect future NIH funding, but you never know how administrations may change their perspective on things, especially retroactively.
Re:Censorship (Score:3, Insightful)
And what if publishing X did cause the development of Y? Then is it better to be saved by Y or killed by the X the terrorists figured out without the benefit of the journals?
Slippery Slope Rant Follows:
Why don't we just cancel all of the journals. After all, who knows what sinister ends even the most innocuous inventions could be put to at the hands of terrorists. But why stop there? There could be a Terrist(tm) in your college classes with you! We better close all CS classes, all Engineering classes, all medical schools, and all Chemistry and Biology classes.
Once we've secured the higher education front against this illicit "learning", we will begin to attack the lower grades. Budding Terrists(tm) might be in your high schools at this very moment. What dangerous things could they be learning there? Clearly we must put a stop to these infiltration classes, thinly disguised as "English" and "American History". Every Real American already speaks perfect English and has memorized the entire history of This Great Country. All "Geography" teachers must be captured dead or alive for teaching these so-called students how to reach their Targets of Terror. No honest citizen needs to know the difference between Washington State and Washington DC, unless they were actually a Terrist(tm) aiming to bomb one or the other.
Re:Censorship (Score:2)
Let'em. As far as they don't censor mine it's all right
Since compilers/assemblers can be used to make computer virusus, we should censor those too. Of course, those who present a legitimate use for such tools can always register themselves. In this way we make sure that compilers and assemblers, tools to break into sensitive computer systems, remain out of the hands of terrorists.
Not quite the "same" (Score:5, Insightful)
OTOH, when scientifc research is published that allows chemical or biological weapons to be produced, there isn't anything joe consumer can do to protect himself because he saw the publication.
Believe me, I am an aspiring Ph.D. student and very anti-science censorship...but comparing it to software security censorship is like apples and oranges.
Re:Not quite the "same" (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless he takes the time to learn all the little ins and outs of their computers and software, there's not much Joe Consumer can do about security flaws, either. It's up to the industry to cooperatively create and release a solution to the problem, which Joe then uses to fix his computer. Likewise, if there's no disclosure of the scientific research, the scientific and medical community is going to have a tough time coming up with a vaccine/policy/whatever to counterract whatever biological weapon the terrorsists come up with.
I don't believe that nondisclosure of the research is going to prevent terrorsists from obtaining the information. After all, look at the anthrax attack that occurred after 9/11. The particular variant that was used reportedely was from a strain that was stored in a highly secure facility, where only a handful of people had access. What's to prevent terrorists from buying information on the black market, kidnapping the researchers (or better yet, their families), or stealing it from the appropriate places where the research is being done? Not much that I can tell.
Re:Not quite the "same" (Score:3, Funny)
sounds like the full-disclosure debate... (Score:2)
and the argument that rages around security vulnerabilities.
From the article:
"Open publication brings benefits not only to public health but also in efforts to combat terrorism," the statement said.
Tweak it a bit and we have
Open publication of vulnerabilities brings benefits not only to the security of public networks but also in efforts to combat malicious intrusions.
Sound familiar?
Re:sounds like the full-disclosure debate... (Score:5, Insightful)
First, often security holes are not immediately disclosed. The discoverer will instead contact the company responsible for fixing the holes and give them a certain amount of time to acknowledge, examine, and then fix the hole. Only if the company involved ignores the problem or doesn't fix it in a timely manner is the hole publicly revealed without a fix in-hand.
Second, there's an obvious difference here. If Apache has a security hole, eventually the Apache folks will release a patch that fixes it. Where's my patch from God that makes me immune to anthrax?
If you insist on looking at human security as similar to computer security, try this. Security by obscurity is only one part of the process, and probably the least important. We also buy off former Soviet scientists to keep them from defecting, keep careful tabs on the equipment needed to build all sorts of nasty stuff, use our intelligence to track groups which might have the capability of making WMDs, and all the rest. Obscurity is one small part of the Onion of Security.
Re:sounds like the full-disclosure debate... (Score:2)
Re:sounds like the full-disclosure debate... (Score:2)
In the security community, there are two general schools of thought:
vulnerability info should be disclosed immediately, even if 'the bad guys' can gain something through the disclosure
vulnerability info should not be disclosed until a patch is released/available
First, often security holes are not immediately disclosed. The discoverer will instead contact the company responsible for fixing the holes and give them a certain amount of time to acknowledge, examine, and then fix the hole. Only if the company involved ignores the problem or doesn't fix it in a timely manner is the hole publicly revealed without a fix in-hand.
*sigh* You should try reading bugtraq some time; it often does not work that way.
Without getting into the relative merits of the two approaches, the debate is similar to that mentioned in the article:
should information be disclosed to 'the bad guys' if they can gain from it? That is the similarity, full stop.
Where's my patch from God that makes me immune to anthrax?
You'll have to take it up with Him. Good luck!
free flow of information, (Score:3, Insightful)
not to mention there are still other sources for weapons information...
Science and Politics (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Science and Politics (Score:2)
That they allowed them at all, having noticed the danger, is testimony to the strangeness of their thought processes.
What does this mean for science? (Score:5, Insightful)
Did the scientists study the effects of this move themselves?
Uhh.. isn't that article a little late? (Score:2)
Funny, I used to hear that about when they invented the atomic bomb. I see part of the problem though. Enriched uranium is rare as hell, and not easily produced. Bio-weapons and chemical weapons are much easier in that sense, because there's lots of potentially dangerous biological and chemical agents around. Don't think it'll stop anyone determined enough though, I know _how_ to make an atomic bomb myself.
That is, if you can provide the U-238, machinery, materials for fuse, high-powered explosives, simulation computer and all the other stuff I need, I can do it. That's why people worry when North Korea break the seals on their nuclear containers. There's no doubt in my mind that they'll succeed, given the right raw materials.
Kjella
Silly.. (Score:3, Insightful)
It occurs to me, considering that the uncensored version of these journals will go through tens of thousands of people in the scientific community, that if there were any information the forces of evil wanted from the journals, there will still be plenty of opourtunity to obtain it. Censoring can't stop a janitor on the inside, a careless scientist, or a motivated hacker. If just one copy escapes, then everyone who's interested can have at it.
Folks, these are your rights. And they're being taken from you one at a time.
Re:Silly.. (Score:2)
If, suddenly, the Journal of Some-Really-Unimportant-Part-of-the-Human-Body jumps in distribution from 500 readers to 50,000... that's gonna trip an alarm bell somewhere I'd hope.
Escape from Alcatraz (Score:3, Insightful)
--sex [slashdot.org]
It's *not* the government, this time (Score:5, Interesting)
According to the article, it's the editors of the science journals that wat to censor their content. Not the government or some other organization wanting to censor it for them.
This isn't as big an issue as it sounds. People censor themselves all the time: it's called being polite ("Don't have anything nice to say? Then don't say anything at all." Yeah, right).
It's not MS saying they want to censor 2600 from ppublishing content that might expose vulnrabilities in their software.
It's not the government saying they want to censor Slashdot because most people here think Bush is a confused muppet.
Let them censor themselves. They might just do it so much that they don't have any readers left.
Re:It's *not* the government, this time (Score:4, Insightful)
Dr. Trmj,
We are pleased to receive your application for your new bio-whatever-mechanism. Furthermore, your astounding background and prior research is something we all look up to. Clearly you are our first choice for funding this year. Unforunately, due to your publication history, in particular your lack of self-censorship on issues deemed critial to national security, we are unable to move your grant proposal beyond technical approval. Sincerely, NIH
Oh no. We don't censor what you write, we just sopport those who censor as we wish.
Re:It's *not* the government, this time (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes! Not only am I a doctor, but I also made something so cool that it doesn't even have a coherent name!
we just sopport those who censor as we wish
Projects that are truly important and helpful get money / promotion from not only the governemnt, but colleges, investors, and other groups that want to reap the rewards (money/promotion) of the finished product. Wouldn't you want your business' / college's name attached to said "bio-whatever-mechanism"?
Plus, if you get your name out there as being on the bleeding edge (no pun intended) of the business, (common sense tells me) it would be much easier to get funding from agencies other than the government.
Note: I'm not a scientist, nor have I had to get funding for anything other than a car, so I may be wrong in that area, but as the old marketing slogan goes, "There's no such thing as bad publicity."
And by the same logic... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is retarded. The real danger, as I see it, is in keeping science secret, and not just due to concerns for public health (a very valid point). Allowing government policy to steer the direction of popular science is one of the greatest threats to our freedom.
Similar "arguments" to this one are made over encryption systems, because they might be used by criminals and terrorists to hide what they're doing. The "logic" bleeds into countless other debates as well, and the end conclusion always involves the government getting more control over what you can say and how you can say it.
Now, they look to seriously hinder all biological research. Who's going to spend years and grant money working on projects when they won't even get published? And for how long will this censorship go on? A couple years? That's probably enough to seriously diminish the number of fresh students entering the field. Let it go on longer, and in another 10 years we might not have any doctors.
Science is interdependent. You can't cut off your star running back's leg and expect him to keep scoring touchdowns for you. It just doesn't work.
Re:And by the same logic... (Score:5, Interesting)
They do.
Try finding army bases on UK ordanance survey maps. Quite often they are missing and in other cases they are shown quite a way from their actual location.
This tactic worked quite well in WWII, less well when satelite reconasaince became possible and not at all well in the days of GPS.
That is why you are likely to find yourself in big trouble if you go near an army base with a GPS receiver in many countries, including many NATO allies.
Now the ordinance survey is a military outfit and always has been so it is self censorship, however that is not the only issue here. The problem is that this administration has repeatedly demonstrated that it will tell any lie to get its policy through, take for example the tax cut which was passed on the promise it would not cause a deficit - even though non-partisan estimates already showed the economy headed for deficit before 9/11.
As Ari Fleicher put it 'people need to be carefull about what they say'. This is an administration that will use any means to stop publication of undesired news.
Re:And by the same logic... (Score:5, Interesting)
Try finding army bases on UK ordanance survey maps. Quite often they are missing and in other cases they are shown quite a way from their actual location.
I have an overhead picture of the town in which I used to work. There were two defence-related sites on it; they had been carefully replaced with playing fields and grasslands. Very carefully... there were even tracks and areas of wear drawn on.
I found quite comical that I used to work in the middle of a field...
Welcome to the Middle Age (Score:5, Interesting)
With this kind of criteria, we would never know about atomic energy, space exploration, worldwide communications, modern medicine and almost everything that makes our current way of life.
Worst than this, if you don't publish, i.e. about a kind of disease, poison, etc, not ensures that "the bad guys" (whatever they are) will not discover it, and will put obstacles to the good guys that want to find a cure/solution/etc.
Christ (Score:5, Insightful)
The terrorists are getting what they were after -- we are living in fear and are turning the USA into a police state, faster than any of us could have imagined.
double-plus-ungood.
RTFA people (Score:2, Insightful)
Editors of top science magazines have voiced concern terrorists could use studies they publish to help make chemical or biological weapons.
Because of this fear a statement has been signed by editors of leading science publications urging cautious self-censorship.
In otherwords they're asking people to carefuly consider what they put up for publication in a public sience journal. There is nothing about stoping flow of information between researchers or auto censor. It's all about SELF censor.
Chemical and Biological Weapons in 21 days (Score:5, Funny)
Note: This post has been deleted to prevent exploitation by terrorists reading Slashdot.
Ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe it's the fact that terrorists don't read scientific journals.
Why not? Because scientific journals present new research, and you don't need
new knowledge to produce biological and chemical weapons.
Sarin gas [wikipedia.org] was first manufactured in 1938. Mustard gas long before that.
Almost anyone who has studied a fair amount of organic chemistry can make this stuff.
It's all common knowledge.
As for bioweapons.. the same thing goes. Making penicillin-resistant E. Coli takes undergraduate biotech skills.
(at least at my uni.)
Want to make botulism toxin, one of the most toxic substances known?
Leave a bottle of garlic in oil [hc-sc.gc.ca] on top of your refrigerator for a few weeks.
Or maybe we should just ban education?
And books and libraries. Knowledge is dangerous, kids.
Re:Ridiculous (Score:2)
Rigth... not slashdot editors will decide to censor posting, not by moderation, but deleting the completely, because could be used by terrorists.
Of course, that link will be used as excuse to close all medical publications that explain things that should not be done because could be dangerous to your health.
Whats next in the agenda? books/sites that talk about poisonous snakes or fungus?
Re:Ridiculous (Score:2)
Apologies, but this is just begging for the obligatory Orwell quote.
Re:Ridiculous (Score:2)
I think you'll find that's 'Ignorance is bliss'.
Re:Ridiculous (Score:2)
More scarey stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
Hiding science does nobody any good, and prevents people from having access to information. Those people who you are preventing from having access might be the people who have the insight to develop a new treatment, cure, or neuralizing agent for these evil compounds.
Last time I checked, all our engineering and universities were still open. Are we now going to ban biochemistry? Or maybe electrical engineering, becuase you might learn how to make a precision timer for a nuclear bomb? Or hell, ban mechanical engineering - you learn how to manufacture equipment to insane tolerances. The only people who might want to do that are TERRORISTS!
Yeah, I'm laying it on pretty thick up there, but this self-censorship crap smacks back to the 50's, and I don't like where it's going. How effective has the DEA been against people learning how to make amphetamines and other drugs in their backyards? Or when compounds are effectively removed from the public, discovering alternative, exotic synthesises? Not very.
Security through obscurity -NEVER- works. The only defense is to be well prepared, and in that case, that means educated.
Nerve agents and terror. (Score:3, Informative)
All the nerve agents in this general class are rather nasty- tabun and soman were used by Iraq in their 1980-88 war against Iran, which the US cast a blind eye to (at the very least), and then they used them to kill Kurd and Shiite dissidents in Iraq itself afterward. Then in the mid-90s, the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo released sarin in several attacks, including in the Tokyo subway system in 1995, killing 12 and injuring 5000. If they had used a more sophisticated delivery system (they used sharpened umbrella tips to puncture bags of liquid sarin), it is likely the death toll would have been far larger.
A nerve agent attack on any populated area could be extraordinarily deadly, and would certainly carry the additional weight of psychological terror- the fear that the air you breathe is contaminated with an invisible killer. And VX in particular is extremely long-lived in most environments (by design) Contact with residue could lead to injuries and deaths long after the initial attack. However, the syntheses involved in making organophosphate nerve agents are nontrivial. They make relatively unlikely terrorist agents simply because there are so many easier ways to kill and terrorize people- mustard, chlorine, phosgene, as well as biological agents like anthrax, botulin toxin, or a hemorrhagic fever virus. The feds seem so concerned about smallpox, for whatever reason, when the nations that have had Ebola outbreaks (Congo, Cote D'Ivoire, and Sudan) are in so much political chaos that setting up a lab and collecting and amplifying virus appears quite possible (whereas the only known smallpox stocks in the world are being kept in cold storage in Russia and the US).
I don't believe that much of this sort of information should be kept secret. I realize I know quite a bit about bioterror for a private citizen- but I'm not planning on becoming a terrorist- quite the opposite. I didn't obtain any knowledge from breaking into a top secret lab or kidnapping a scientist or cracking into a database anyway. As with many things, knowing how to defeat a threat involves understanding the threat (compare to computer security). Terrorists already know how to kill people- the information published in scientific journals is what's going to stop them. Secret government labs are of course going to be a large part of our nation's defense, as they have been for decades. However, the free exchange of information among labs holds the promise that discoveries could be made much more quickly.
Re:Ridiculous (Score:2)
It's not just that they don't "need" it. I'm sure there are advantages to new toxins, viruses and bacteria that they would like to exploit.
But by its very nature, recent research has not been "tried and tested", and is often quite expensive.
As you say, why waste a lab full of expensive equipment for your terrorists, and the required grad-student-level people, to replicate the latest experiments published by scientists in well-equiped universities and institutes all over the world? It's not cost-effective.
It's much more efficient to use methods that have been tried, tested, industrialized and made cost-effective through decades of legal and illegal use in war. You don't need as many, or as well educated, technical people to man that kind of operation. It's not like those methods don't kill people.
But all this is based in the traditional meaning of "terrorist", which I don't think is what they're aiming at here. They're aiming at the new definition of "terrorist", that amalgamation of terrorist organizations and nation-states that support them and/or are hostile to the "western democracies".
Perhaps Al Qaida would see bio-weapons research as too expensive, much like nuclear weapons research. But other nations (hint: Iraq) have the budget and the manpower to pay for mass-production facilities, as well as the movitation (increasing military ergo political power).
I don't think they're afraid of terrorist organizations replicating their research. I think they're afraid of Iraq or someone else doing that, then selling or giving the weapons to terrorist organizations.
Re:Ridiculous (Score:2)
And such already have access to nearly all the knowledge they need, or the research facilities to develop that knowledge on their own.
KFG
Re:Ridiculous (Score:3, Insightful)
But all this is based in the traditional meaning of "terrorist", which I don't think is what they're aiming at here. They're aiming at the new definition of "terrorist", that amalgamation of terrorist organizations and nation-states that support them and/or are hostile to the "western democracies".
I think you mean 'hostile to the current Bush administration'. Or haven't you seen Ari Fleischer telling people to watch what they say and the Senate discussing bans on French wine because they won't support our war effort.
Re:Ridiculous (Score:3, Insightful)
In my not so humble opinion, the proper way to stop Iraq from making biological weapons is not self-censorship of scientific journals. It would be much more effective to just not sell biological weapons to them. Who is to blame for the Iraqi bio-warfare capability? Reagan, Rumsfeld and Bush 1. [osd.mil] Maybe what needs to be censored is the Washington D.C. phone directory? It gives terrorists instant access to morons in high places, willing to approve weapons exports to just about anyone.
Just silly (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Just silly (Score:2)
Except for all of the logs kept by google and friends... not like it's necessary to log everything, because you can report searches for key words like "nuclear arms how-to" and the likes. Just because you can't see them doesn't mean they can't see you...
It's a lot harder to pinpoint the location of someone who bought a magazine from a news stand than it is to have a machine log IPs of people searching for sketchy stuff. Unless there are little radio transmitters in magazines these days, which I wouldn't doubt.
Galileo reaches 20,000 rpm (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem with knowledge, and especially scientific knowledge, is that you never know what could be used for or against you. Take as an example nuclear astrophysics - whilst this pertains to unravel the mysteries of the universe the science is very close to that of isotope production which is important for amongst other things, nuclear weapons. Should we censor research because a paper on the r process in supernovae could lead to more efficient plutonium production?
The simple truth is that there are far better ways of inflicting "terror" on western civilisation than by using modern science. Just look at what a bit of initiative, belief in a deity and some fully fueled aircraft can do.
You cannot control knowledge like some politicians would have you believe and any attempts to do so will create a far more divided world than we have now. The only left hope is that knowledge begets understanding and understanding begets peace.
Sabotage (Score:5, Insightful)
You take your shoe off, throw it into the machine and, Presto! Instant terrorism.
Nothing more than simple, everyday objects are required to be a very effective terrorist.
Remember the first attempt to bring down the World Trade Center? ( If you were shocked and stunned by 9/11 you weren't paying attention. They had already tried it and *told* us they would try again). It took one guy, a van and some high school chemistry. That's all.
The second ( and sucessful) attempt wasn't much more complicated really. It required a few people who could fly the planes rather than one who could drive a car, but other than that the plan was *less* technologically advanced than the first attempt, requiring some Stanley knives and some purely *human* engineering.
The natural reaction was to make it illegal for little old ladies to knit on long flights.
The fact that your own grandmother is now in danger of being arrested as a terrorist because she tried to sneak a plastic crochet hook onto an airplane hidden in her sock is just one of the indications that we may not be reacting to the whole situation in an exactly rational manner.
Ok, so science editors are in favor of restricting information usable to terrorists. I suppose it's a noble motivation, but to what real end? All they need is a shoe, or a wrench.
Shall we also leave out key bits of intro to chemistry or physics texts? Isn't basic knowledge of exothermic chemical reactions and the fact that F=ma of more real use to a terrorist that just about anything else?
Or that if you stab someone with a knife they fall down?
Do we really think that restricting knowledge of how to produce ebola virus is relevant when the e. coli bacterium is cheaper, easier and just as effective to use, and knowledge of it is already common? Or the influenza virus?
Anyone with access to a Walmart can already do just about as much terrorist damage as they could want.
That includes you.
KFG
Why this is stupid (Score:2)
1) Most terrorist organizations share many features with (or are in fact) cults. The sort of individual who joins one of these terrorist organizations does not usually have the 'scientific mindset,' shall we say. Whenever you do wind up with terrorists smart enough to actually read the scientific literature, they are smart enough to hurt you no matter what you censor. The basic knowledge is already out there, and has been out there for years. Our greatest defense at the moment is our enemies' stupidity.
2) When you begin to censor journals, you quickly run into nagging questions like: "What exactly should I censor?" Practically, knowledge can't be pidgeon-holed into category A dangerous, category B harmless so easily. And even if it could, buearecratic organizations designed make that judgement always overstep their design goals through simple inertia. And what happens when you run into knowledge that is both dangerous in the wrong hands and helpful in the right hands?
3) Restricting science is fundamentally impractical. Any knowledge powerful enough to have great beneficial consequences is also powerful enough to present great dangers. Restricting what can be published in certain areas winds up being the same as restricting research. You make yourselves into Luddites, and it won't even work without a one-world dictatorship that can restrict research everywhere rather than in one place. And once you've gone that far, you have bigger things to worry about than terrorism.
Re:Why this is stupid (Score:2)
Anyone who has investigated the 9/11 attacks has to be very impressed in the level of technical sophistication behind what happened. The fact is that the terrorists clearly understood the structural engineering behind the World Trade Center towers and in fact planned their attack precisely to take advantage of the structural weaknesses of those buildings. That, accompanied with the level of planning needed to evade security measures and put trained pilots aboard large commercial airliners has shocked most security analysts.
Many post-9/11 analysts have wondered if the wide availability of the designs of the WTC towers contributed to the success of the attacks. Many people think the answer is clearly yes.
The fact of the matter is that in any conflict the worst mistake you can make is to underestimate the enemy. Clearly this happened on 9/11.
In any conflict intelligence and counterintelligence is important. Yes, it would be nice if everything could be in the open, but the fact is that some security does depend on making some information difficult to obtain.
Re:Why this is stupid - not (Score:3, Interesting)
Every source I have read (CNN, major newspapers) or seen (CNN again, CBC Newsworld, Discovery/TLC and PBS) has stated that the total collapse of the towers was not expected by anyone, not the designers or even Osama Bin Laden - he thought there would be mass casualties but never thought the buildings would fall (remember that little "smoking gun" video of him at the dinner party that was broadcast non-stop about a year ago?).
There is no evidence that any of the 9/11 attackers ever studied the plans of the towers. They followed the logic that if the towers were built to withstand the impact of a 727 (as was "common knowledge" as a strength and not a known weakness), then a 767 loaded with fuel should probably cause lots of damage.
Simple as that.
9/11 actually revealled a previously unknown weakness in the design. Without public access to the plans etc, experts and documentarians may not have found out why the towers fell, and engineers may be planning buildings with the same techniques today.
So much for security through obscurity...
Re:Why this is stupid (Score:3, Interesting)
What actually happened, was 15 men with knives attacked the country. They ridiculously overtrained for the job by attending flight schools (nearly getting themselves caught). The hard part of flying commercial aircraft happens to be take-off and landing. They didn't need that training, and therefore didn't need flight school. When it came time to hit the WTC, they merely pointed the airplanes at the building and did their best to hit dead on. Not a high level of sophistication there. One of the planes even missed its target (the capital building) and hit the pentagon instead. Another plane crashed because they neglected to properly secure the cockpit after capturing it.
Underestimating the terrorists on 9/11? The real problem was overestimating them afterwards. We still have not come to terms with the massive damage a poorly equiped, poorly educated, poorly organized, enemy can do to our country. If we had, reforming the INS would be job number one, not reorganizing CIA and FBI flowcharts for the department of Homeland Security.
The slippery slope, or a level head? (Score:3, Interesting)
The official AAAS release, including a list of signatories, is here [aaas.org].
Re:The slippery slope, or a level head? (Score:2)
Bye-bye Researchers (Score:3, Insightful)
If they think it's so bad... (Score:2)
Or do they think that current governments should be able to increase their global overkill without limit? In a way, this is almost sensible. Once nuclear weapons reached more than twice overkill, I stopped worrying that the amount of overkill was increasing. But adding new varieties of overkill is still a bad idea. Some people who wouldn't blow up the world would be quite willing to kill off all of the people with a plague
On the other hand, it's hard to tell when the really new and creative forms of mega-distruction will arrive, or from what field. The grey goo threat of nanotech may (probably) be a bit distant, but this doesn't mean that some simpler relative isn't a lot closer, but that it just that nobody has thought of it yet.
Besides, on any reasonable scale, the main terrorists in the world today are the official governments. This may not always be true, but it's been true for at least the last couple of centuries.
Related radio show (Score:2, Interesting)
This was the subject of this week's CBC radio program (available in .ogg) Quirks and Quarks [radio.cbc.ca] : Bisecting Bioterrorism (ogg) [radio.cbc.ca].
Is concerning to see the multitude of anti-Freedom directives produced in these last few years ...
NOT the same as computer security disclosures (Score:2, Insightful)
No, it's NOT the same! People can patch their software systems, but they can't patch basic biology and chemistry.
The argument for publishing COMPUTER security holes is that it enourages people to develop and apply patches to eliminate the vulnerabilities and make tme irrelevant. There is no way that publishing say, how to make anthrax, will get people to "patch" their bodies to be immune to it!
Re:NOT the same as computer security disclosures (Score:2, Insightful)
Scientist makes anthrax.
Scientist studies anthrax.
Scientist finds way to make anthrax not kill you.
Cure is distributed.
Replace "scientist" with "programmer," and "kill you" with whatever suits your fancy, and you have a pretty solid comparison.
And it's not like terrorists wouldn't be able to do their job without anthrax, anyway.
It’s already too late (Score:5, Funny)
Patches? (Score:2)
We can't do this people (Score:3, Insightful)
Being seen as anti-terrorist has become trendy and an easy set of brownie points in some circles. We need to end that. We need to point out that there are things worse than terrorism. Things like grabbing meaningless points that in effect do nothing but make life harder and poorer. We can lose both freedom and ability to grow into our dreams by being so given by fear and in reaction. We can increase the terrorism in the world by acting in reaction.
I don't fear terrorism. I fear our own fear and stupidity ripping us and this world apart.
When information is illegal... (Score:3, Insightful)
What a bunch of bullshit. I can't believe that rational people (such as scientists, etc.) would suggest such a thing. Those times when information is kept secret are when a population is most at-risk, because the masses cannot then defend themselves against what any ambitious terrorist is bound to develop independently, should said terrorist be evil enough.
Sheesh. Next they'll be requiring all firearms eliminated from movies and television, because people might get the idea that guns can be harmful, when used properly.
it won't work (Score:3, Insightful)
With nuclear research, the raw materials are exceptionally dangerous and pretty hard to obtain in large quantities. For for biological work, the raw materials are ubiquitous, and it's pretty easy to keep things safe for research purposes. And a lot of really important publications are about making it simpler and cheaper to manipulate DNA sequences.
As an analogy, think of programming. It used to involve toggling switches, now you can write a Perl script that grinds through gigabytes of data without thinking twice about it. Or, you can get little embedded chips for a couple of dollars for computations that used to require computers filling rooms. Well, it's going to be the same for molecular biology, except that you don't even need the investment chip fabs and cleanrooms.
We better figure out how we can deal with the idea that anybody reasonably intelligent and with access to a library will be able to cook up deadly viruses in their spare time--this technology is not controllable or containable.
Duct Tape (Score:3, Funny)
1) How are you supposed to get back inside once you've duct taped the house shut
and
2) Who's the lucky family member who gets to do it?
That's not even taking into consideration things like suffocation and duct taping AFTER a bioterrorist strike...
--=Maj
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
-Benjamin Franklin
Not quite (Score:2, Interesting)
Right to Life: This must be preserved at all costs, your life and the lives of those arround you are of upmost importance. All else pales in comparison, for without Life, all other rights are useless.
Right to Liberty: Your life havign been secured, your next thought should be liberty. All the freedoms greanted by the constitution etc. For it is impossible to persue the last god given right without Liberty.
Right to the Persuit of Happiness: Now you are truely free to try to make yourself happy, but only in so far as you do not infringe on the first 2 rights. In otherwords, if somethign done to ensure life and liberty does not make you happy, that's too bad.
Re:Not quite (Score:5, Insightful)
I can find an analysis written that says aliens populated the earth with clones. I need more to go on than that slender basis.
Re:Not quite (Score:2)
If I recall correctly, these words were actually a modification [geocities.com] to philosopher John Locke's [utm.edu] writings on human rights.
W
"No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session." - Mark Twain [www.sfu.ca]
You do, however. . . (Score:4, Insightful)
If you enslave me and guaruntee my life I will escape or die.
I rather think the Mr. Jefferson fully understood, and supported, this attitude as he penned those famous words.
So, I have life, and am fighting for liberty, even though it may kill me.
Is that so hard to understand?
KFG
Unfortunately. . . (Score:2)
It is relative to how much I can count on the terms of the Bill of Rights to protect me.
Therefore, the *first* thing I do to protect my life is protect the social contract that guaruntees my liberty.
And yes, people have been killed for doing nothing more than this.
KFG
Re:Good (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not liberty (Score:3, Insightful)
"Anyone who trades liberty for physical life deserves neither liberty nor physical life."
Sounds a bit harsh when put like that but given that the probabilities that you'll be directly hurt by terrorist action is about the same as the prob that you'll be hit by a meteorite, I think it's fair enough to throw out that "physical life" term and put back "security", as that's what the argument is really about - not your life at gunpoint right now, but your security in general.
Daniel
Re:Good (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good (Score:2)
During the Second World War journals weren't publishing advances in nuclear physics or chemistry because everything was being classified, yet it was a period of rapid technology advancements.
Re:Good (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Limited Distribution (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Limited Distribution (Score:5, Insightful)
I fail to see how this will help. If I'm a terrorist who wants to unleash an ebola epedemic, and I don't already know how to culture the virus (easiest way that occurs to me would be to kidnap a hundred hookers, infect them, and then turn them loose) I'd just capture a "legitimate researcher" and wire his nads to a field telephone. He'd tell me all about it.
I'm deeply suspicious of censorship, even self-censorship, even when the motivations appear at first glance to be admirable. At second glance, the consequences are often unforeseen. For example, in the example given by the poster above, you have restricted knowledge to those who are approved by the government. As I pointed out, it won't keep a dedicated and clever terrorist from getting the information. However, it will prevent some folks from having the information who might do good things with it-- perhaps the researcher who might have used the knowledge to come up with a new way of interrupting a disease vector, if only she'd had ready access to the data. But maybe she's a Muslim, and she criticized the administration, and so she didn't make the approved list. Laws that restrict information, whether medical data or porn, only keep the law-abiding from getting that information. And you're kidding yourself if you think self-censorship by the journals would not rapidly evolve into iron-clad and draconian censorship laws the first time something goes wrong and people get hurt by misused information.
Open source believers take note: which is the more efficient software development model-- an open-ended framework where anyone can contribute code, or a closed model where only a select few are allowed to contribute code? And how much more inefficient would the latter approach be if such difficult-to-quantify concepts as patriotism, jingoism, and wartime secrecy were mixed in?
Consider, finally, the stupidities that ensued when the government classified PGP as "munitions," and prohibited its distribution to foreigners. Censorship is futile, stupid, and destructive.
Re:I can see it now... (Score:2, Insightful)
The air is already POISONED some how, ever herd of polution. Evry time you drive your car you help to poison the air...
Re:Canned Air (Score:3, Interesting)
If it was simply air, there would not be a probem with this. The issue occurs when they wat the air to some out of the can. They can't just pressurize regular air, as it would depressurize to fast.
So they add isopropyl. It's a form of rubbing alcohol. That's the stuff that'll kill you, if you inhale enough.
Also, if you are stupid enough to spray the stuff into your mouth through the little straw, it might expand your lungs, causing tearing of tissue, internal bleeding in lungs, collapsed lungs, or an adema-like condition where your blood causes you to drown. Remember, people are that stpid.
On a related note, it also shouldn't always be used in closed areas. Some computers have way too much dust inside the towers. That stuff isn't too good for you either.
Re:SELF censorship instead of GOVERMENT censorship (Score:2)
Is it me, or does anyone else also think that self-censorship is only one step away from sycophancy?