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Science Editors Urge Nondisclosure Of Bioterror Info
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.
"Anyone who trades liberty for security deserves neither liberty nor security."
-Benjamin Franklin
I feel really secure knowing that security by obfuscation and overblown terrorism fears, my two favorite things in all the world, are finally together.
That's what I do with information I don't want anybody else to see.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
How many average Joe's knew what a nuclear dirty bomb was 2 years ago? How many terrorists knew? The terrorists have had access to far more dangerous information (i.e. CIA handbooks from the 1980s), and have decided to get educated enough to be able to come up with their own scientifically-sound methods of mass destruction. There are terrorists out there that I'm sure could *write* for these science journals. All this policy does is create ignorant bliss among the masses as to the possible terrorist risks that exist.
My other Beowulf cluster is... er...
I fail to see how this is the "same" as security disclosures. When a software bug or security hole is released publicly, users and corporations have the option to either update or turn off the compromised products, and increases pressure on the proprietor of the offending product to fix it in due haste. The argument against censoring security disclosures is that you prevent people from doing things to protect themselves they could have done had they known of the problem.
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.
Honestly, what does this mean for the future of scientific research in these areas? The article describes this as the end of an "Age of Innocence" for science. The whole point of scientific research is that it advances upon previous discoveries. If these discoveries are obfuscated, who can say how this will impact research and future scientify study? They acknowledge that this would be a problem, but don't tell us what the actual impact will be.
:P
Did the scientists study the effects of this move themselves?
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?
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
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.
Work sucked, until it became unemployment, when it became slightly more tolerable. -Tet
Rand McNalley should censor their maps of cities, omitting key terrorist targets.
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.
Is hard to tell when something could be used for good or bad. Not publishing something maybe avoid that it could be used for bad, but also that it could be used for good.
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.
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.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
There was an analysis written regarding the phrase "Life, Liberty and Persuit of Happiness" and it essential boiled down to this. Those words were chosen very specificaly and placed in the order that they were specificaly. That the order is indicative to the order which they must be considered:
I can find an analysis written that says aliens populated the earth with clones. I need more to go on than that slender basis.
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.
Note: This post has been deleted to prevent exploitation by terrorists reading Slashdot.
getSexySig();
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.
I don't even know where to start..
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 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 on top of your refrigerator for a few weeks.
Or maybe we should just ban education?
And books and libraries. Knowledge is dangerous, kids.
Do you know where the word comes from? It roughly translates into the English phrase "Throw a monkey wrench into the works," only in this case the "wrench" is a sabot, or wooden shoe.
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
Perhaps most terrifying of all these is Nerve Gas.. the Nazis discovered the base of all nerve toxins (IIRC, I'm an engineer, not a biochemist, Jim) in the 40's - Vx. That was over 60 years ago boys and girls, and science has come a long way since then. The world is a very scarey place now. Playing dumb and sticking our collective heads in the sand isn't the way to go. A dumb populace might be easy to control - but who's going to be in control? I think I read a story about that once. Something about a time machine?
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.
..don't panic
Now that they know the secret of our duct tape and plastic sheeting, it's game over. The American infidels shall fall like dominos.
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.