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Science vs. National Security
capt.Hij writes "The NY Times has an article about how scientific journals are struggling with how to avoid publishing information that might help bio-terrorists. Once people start deciding that knowledge should be held by only a few then we are sanctioning ignorance. This is scary when it comes to democracy and decision making."
But this doesn't seem like a big deal. They just have to find a way to keep it 'in the community'.
Now if someone in the community wants to turn around help such enlightened states as, let's see, Iraq, Iran and North Korea for instance, well then, that might be a problem.
Most people, though, don't give a whiff. And if someone creepy starts asking, we always have the TIPS program! Woohoo!
The opposite of progress is congress
Let's give up on this pesky science and technology stuff, and all become Amish...
No research == nothing to publish
My Stuff: pspChess and foobar2000 plugins
Civilisation is a wonderfull thing, but due to the fact that we communially share our resources and intelignece inorder to build it - it's making it aughfully easy for one nutcase to bring it all down.
Cosider, a first year biology student has the capability to make resistant bacteria. Ecoli, anitbiotics bought from a fist store, time and a warm agar from a japanses market - are all thats needed.
There is no easy solution, but unfortunatly the only methods at are disposal are all ugly: survalance, forced ignorance, indoctrination and fear.
Ugh - what a nasty future. We either survive in a harsh new world, or we die.
Sombody - please, come up with a better solution. Soon.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
We have a legal system that can't be understood by the average person, specializing is rampant, and he says that once people start deciding that knowledge should be held by only a few then we are sanctioning ignorance?
IT'S A LITTLE LATE FOR THAT!
as I've said before:
you can't stop information.
Maybe we should try to build a world
where people aren't trying to kill us.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of the principle of academic freedom and the free exchange of information. But.
The fact is that some information, maybe not now but in the forseeable future, will be dangerous enough for one fanatic or lunatic to kill a very large number of people.
We're going to have to have a long, reasoned conversation about how to deal with this fact, and cries of "we're sanctioning ignorance" are just as unhelpful as cries of "think of the children!"
This doesn't mean that I'm happy with the way this administration is likely to approach this issue - I think it would be very good for the academic community to come up with a unified approach on this topic before a purely political solution is imposed.
Bottom line: yes, I'd like people to be ignorant of how to (for instance) engineer aerosol Ebola in their basements.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
I don't want to be rude, but the twin towers went down with very little cience. What do they want to hide?
I'm from Argentina: Tango, Asado, Mate, Gaucho, Maradona, YPF
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
There's no reason to make this into more than it is. So a few patriotic scientists realize they're research could be destructive to mankind...isn't this a good thing? It's basically the kind of rational decision making that never happens at the beginning of science fiction movies.
We've all seen the dire predictions of what happens when technology "goes too far." 2001: A Space Odyssey, Godzilla, Jaws, Minority Report, the list goes on. So the handful of scientists who are researching the potentially dangerous stuff say, oh, okay, maybe we shouldn't be doing this stuff that might fall into the wrong hands, and you're complaining? Please.
The vast majority of scientists are working on good, useful technology and research, like cures for exotic diseases and inventions that will improve life for all. The few who are meddling where God did not intend are right to have second thoughts.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
"I know this guy that has magic powder. He puts it in a stick and kills things from far away!"
Man has been out to dominate man for centuries.
-=sig=-
IMHO,
The nation was secure enough before this crap happened. Terrorism is going to happen one way or another.. What's that quote about tightening your grip on water?
This discussion on "National/Homeland Security" scares the bejeezus out of me normally.. And now we're discussing CENSORING INFORMATION!?
McCarthyism 2.0: Attack of the Republicans.
I'm gonna cancel my subscription. Besides, Mr. Postman from operation TIPS was bound to get suspicious of me anyhow.
This is exactly like the open source software!
If the information is free and available, then anyone can read it and think about it and make a contribution. If it is not, the weekneses are known to a small subset of society who has less motivation to do something to solve the problem (think about treatments and cures), they also become more valueble to those who would do wrong, and could be kidnapped or bribed.
So what is safer, Windows, or *nix?
I think the answer is that we NEED to have this informaition published. Anything else endangers us, and inhibits the progress of knowledge.
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/index.html
Contains all sorts of details & science
Unfortunately, if you show people some of the screens, they think your a terror guy.
Perhaps this page should be censored
Not that I'm complaining... I do read slashdot for free every day.
Check this out:
That's just some creepy deja vu, considering that Michael posted both stories about 20 minutes apart.
Here's a link:
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/07/
...but posted by the same author, 19 minutes apart?
"And like that
Man, if I have to hear about how our illeterate president is saving us from terrorism, how we need to be careful of terrorism, or how it's just not American to call bullshit on all this because of our current 'war' with the 'terrorists', I'm going to puke. Turn in your neighbor dot com? Hello? isn't this a bit Nazi-era Germany for all you? Propaganda and lies abound, and you'd better not say anything or else you're unamerican.
Now, given a determined terrorist, don't you think they will likely get whatever information they need? Or, given the 'idiot' terrorist, don't you think they'll just make a simple bomb?
[yawn]
I urge everyone who is concerned about the free and open exchange of scientific information to e-mail Dr. Atlas. This is a bad trend to start. Once we do start censoring ourselves, it's much easier to continue doing so.
This is the dumbest thing I've heard.
Do you really think that the avg. Palistinian terrorists -- who probably has a below average IQ -- is browing through the latest issue of Virulogoy to find lethal information?
Come on. That's nuts.
We should not allow scientists to with-hold data. The whole point of publishing is that the work be reproducible, verifiable.
I'm sorry, but if you publish something that is missing key details necessary for reproducibility -- due to national security or not -- that is crap. Its worthless. No one knows how you did it or how to get a similar result, so it can't be verified. Might as well not be published at all.
I have another suggestion for these journals. If some prissy scientist wants to "with-hold key information due to national security" then don't put them in your journal. Its a waste of space which could be devoted to reproducible work.
And remember the definition of security. Security means that even if you know exactly how something works, you can't penetrate it. If you know how it works and you can penetrate it, that means there is a weakness. For example, Zimmerman knows exactly how PGP works; but he cannot break it.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
You'd think scientists would be more concerned with preventing their work being used for another Nazi hollocaust, the nuking of civillian populations in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the repression of millions under Stalin.
Or maybe they've already given up hope and figure it would be better their work is used by the next Hitler to kill millions than by the next Bin Laden to kill thousands.
If you withhold knowledge:
If knowledge is in the public domain:
If you keep dangerous information secret, then it can be abused by a group of individuals much more readily. If everyone knows about something dangerous, then they can take precautions to prevent it (and those who are stupid enough not to will get hurt).
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
for detail on the present state of such progress, click here
Apparently so.
There is no such thing as 'secret information', only 'deniable information'. You can hide technical specs from someone, but not concepts. Given this, it is possible for anyone with a strong enough will, and resources, to figure it out.
If you consider the number of physical possibilities of 'things' that could exsist in our four dimensional universe, there is nothing that isn't contained in our Euclidian plane of knowledge. Everything can and probably has been imagined. There is numerous 'conspiracy theories' and alleged government projects, that in reality, aren't all that surprising. Actually, all secrets are probably out there in the public domain someware. However, if you don't know it is a secret, what signifigance does the data possess.
If someone is smart enough, and knows enough about what they're doing to understand the signifigance of so called 'secret information', then it's probably not a secret to them. Unless they are publishing specific recipes and how-tos in these journals, then I doubt it has much strategic usefullness to someone whom is determined.
I think as long as they don't go publishing articles such as "Biological weapons you can make for under $50", or "Chemical warfare with garden chemicals for dummies", then we will probably be okay. You must remember, the information is out there, somewhere. It is only considered secret because it is not readily accessable to the public. I personally think an unknown, unexpected threat is much more dangerous than one that is widely known and prepared for. Look at the smallpox situation, the top officials are afraid, that something even as tightly controlled as smallpox, could leak. So do you really think information wouldn't leak?
What I'm wondering is why our scientists are looking into bio-terrorism methods? Maybe we're trying to do a "Mutual Assured Destruction" plan with the terrorists....
Stanford's TIQIT (Linux/Wintel)
the UK's SOLO (ARM RISC, but comes with solar panels)
Besides, it's lack of knowledge that causes the worst economic damage. Just look at the damage from fire ants, africanized bees, starlings, zebra mussels, elm beetles and so on. Or if you don't like those examples, then look at the TCO at the national and international level for chlorinated hydrocarbons, dioxins, and PCBs or for BSE-friendly agricultural practices. Someone was sloppy, ignorant or decided that rules are for other people and that plus time is all that was needed. Since you cannot remove the technical possibility to cause damage, you can remove the incentive.
Naively, improving living standards would help. If people are literate, capable of analytical thought, educated, employed, kept healthy, and well fed like an average Finn, then they're less likely to cause trouble and more likely to contribute. I think you can probably find an inverse correlation between quality of life and crime.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
On the contrary, the poor are effective at spreading virulent diseases when they become too poor, whether they want to or not. This is why the Republican party is proposing an expanded medicare drug benefit for seniors. Are they supporting socialization of medical care? Of course they are, and if you care about the quality of life measures that most people say they care about, then you can count your lucky library finds and use them to promote sustainable technologies.
I support the use of economic incentives to encourage the development of educational technologies appropriate for the prevailing circumstances.