How Many Bits Does It Take To Kill You?

pegr writes "Andrew 'bunnie' Huang, Reverse Engineer, XBox hacker, and generally smart guy, muses over the H1N1/swine flu virus as only a reverse engineer can: 'I now know how to modify the virus sequence to probably make it more deadly.' Not that he would, of course. bunnie has consistently made the esoteric available to us mere mortals, and his overview of the H1N1 virus is a fascinating read from a unique perspective." (Seen today also at the top of Schneier on Security.)

Comments

Increasing mortality is bad for business

[7-Vodka]

Making a virus more 'deadly' is usually not very good for the virus. If it's host dies, so does it's habitat. Not to mention the host can no longer really spread it.

The Epstein-Barr virus, now there is a successful virus.

Re:Increasing mortality is bad for business

[binkzz]

It can be deadly and still be successful, just so long as it's not very fast (e.g. HIV).

Re:Increasing mortality is bad for business

[PCM2]

Making a virus more 'deadly' is usually not very good for the virus. If it's host dies, so does it's habitat. Not to mention the host can no longer really spread it.

Be careful with that kind of thinking, because it's not strictly true. There's an oft-repeated saying that all diseases will naturally become less deadly over time because it doesn't pay to kill your host -- but in some cases it does pay.

Consider something like cholera. Cholera gives you horrific diarrhea and vomiting, and the resulting dehydration can kill you pretty quickly, especially if you're very young or otherwise infirm. Going by the above-stated theory, that would normally be bad -- except that cholera exists in all your excretions, and other people can catch it from coming into close contact with those excretions. What's more, the normal route of infection is via contaminated water supply -- so if your excretions can make it back to the water supply, more's the better for cholera. Who cares if you drop dead?

Similarly, malaria doesn't need you up and walking around to infect people. You can be lying on your deathbed and a mosquito can still fly in through the window, bite you, and then fly off and bite someone else. That's why, though malaria has been known since the dawn of human history, it never seems to become less of a health threat to humans. There's simply no evolutionary pressure in that direction.

True, neither cholera or malaria is caused by a virus. But I just wanted to point out that the "evolution favors keeping your host alive" theory is rather too simplistic for the bigger picture of human disease.

 

How many bits does it take to kill a human?

[itsybitsy]

How many bits does it take to kill a human? Bits of what is the real question?

Bits of information? Bits of bullets? Bits of concrete? Bits of glass? Bits of a virus?

They can all get the job done given the right, er wrong, context.

3.2KiB of data with the flu eh?

How about three bytes, 24 bits, uttered from the mouth of Bush? "War"! That killed a whole bunch of people with a lot less information. Ok, sure there was lots of supporting info.

Many people have died from a lot fewer bits than the flu needs.

Re:fascinating!

[Trepidity]

Yeah, I probably should've been nicer. =] The Slashdot summary is actually more objectionable than the article is: as you point out, the metaphors in the article are quite well done. If you don't view it as "l33t XBox hacker discovers how to haxx0r viruses", but instead as "engaging tech writer uses computer terminology to explain how viruses work", it's much better.

Re:Rats Leaving A Sinking Ship

[Lord Ender]

That's not how it works. Viruses don't all-of-a-sudden start to mutate when they "need" to. They mutate all the time. If a virus could "jump ship" to another species, it is most likely to do that when its first host species is common, not when that species is going extinct.

Your post is an example of a bad analogy substituting for intelligence. That's a common mistake. It's sort of like when your car won't start...