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How Many Bits Does It Take To Kill You?

Posted by timothy on from the two-bits-buys-a-razor-blade dept.

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.)

3 of 300 comments (clear)

  1. Increasing mortality is bad for business by 7-Vodka · · Score: 5, Insightful
    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.

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    Liberty.

    1. Re:Increasing mortality is bad for business by binkzz · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

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      'For we walk by faith, not by sight.' II Corinthians 5:7
  2. Re:Rats Leaving A Sinking Ship by Lord+Ender · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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...

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