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Deadly H5N1 Flu Studies To Stay Secret... For Now
Edsj writes "A spokesman for the World Health Organization announced that an agreement had been reached, after a debate, to keep details secret of the controversial work about the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian flu virus until deeper risk analyses have been carried out. The scientists who made the study, led by Ron Fouchier, still want to release the full paper at some future date for public viewing, but for the time being, the NSABB got what it wanted."
The moratorium will be extended "probably for several months."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_A_virus_subtype_H5N1
On October 10, 2011 the WHO announced a total of 566 human cases which resulted in the deaths of 332 people since 2003
So it kills about 58% of the people it infects
Since it works so well, right?
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Why can't we just get the details and end this(*) right now?
(*) The human race.
Just wait until Anonymous (Achoo!) gets their hands on it (sniffle).
Have gnu, will travel.
Government Organization Declares Self Sole Proprietor of Bio-Terrorism
And as we all know, government officials never use such exclusivity of information for their own personal profit.
Nothing to worry about here, Citizen, now move along...
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Wow! A virus so dangerous we have to protect people from reading about it!
Every dictator left that cannot afford nuclear weapons will have a team looking into reproducing this work, even without the publication. I do have to say that most of the fault is with the scientists that went for an, at best, dubious research subject, doubtlessly because of some over-sized egos.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
As was brought up couple weeks back in SciFri, the study abstract and rough process which has been talked publicly is enough for skilled laboratory to try same. Passing the virus just trough five ferret infections to get it spreading over air is so simple and little that it might happen anyway naturally over time without human intervention.
All we can do and should do is start developing vaccines now and not wait until we would be too late. It takes about 6 months to develop and produce enough vaccine. Thinking that the lethality of H1N5 is about 50% compared to smallpox ~40% it's going to be enormous panic to get it done if any preparations were not done beforehand.
... that it is relatively easy to produce this deadly strain.
If it were hard, say like producing an atomic bomb (rather, producing the fuel for an atomic bomb)... then there would be no reason to keep it secret.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Someone will try to recreate it anyway, now that people know it exists. Even without on how to do it.
I submitted this a few hours before this one. (That makes three for three recent submissions of mine that were in the /recent queue and just vanished!). I guess for this one they didn't like my alarmist tone. Anyway, these guys say the studies will stay secret but the New York Times link I provided says they will be releasing the full details (after a delay).
Here is my submission:
wisebabo writes
"So they're going to release FULL details of how to make this? Time to whip up my bio-reactor!
Ok, so this easily transmissible human to human virus (as predicted by ferret models) *only* has a lethality of 50% but that should be enough to collapse civilization. At least it'll help cut down on global warming.
Still that doesn't compare with that (smallpox?) variant which had an almost 100% fatality rate. I remember the publication for that one was suppressed pretty fast. I guess they think this one isn't nearly as dangerous which i would agree with except for the fact that it is AIRBORNE TRANSMISSIBLE (it's based on the Flu!). Boy is sneezing going to be a real conversation killer!
Seems like we've solved the Fermi Paradox; once a species has figured out to make or modify self-replicating nano bots (like viruses), they'll inevitably make one that will in one way or another wipe them out.
Hey, let's see if we can get them to release this in time for 12/21/12!"
Link to Original Source
Well in the case of biology, pretty much.
You'd have to have some pretty damn good resources in order to be able to build H5N1, not only that, to be able to make the even worse version they supposedly created.
Since these guys likely had top gear to produce these results, it'd likely take a lot of trial and error for those with almost certainly lesser resources. (at least, we should hope they had top hardware for doing this research...)
When (if) we find out ways to protect against those strains in particular, it'd be less of a risk.
While I understand their reasons for doing this, it's not going to matter much. We've reached the point in technology where the answer to the Fermi Paradox will be paying us a visit. Technology has advanced far beyond our social evolution and will lead to a catastrophic event, either intentional or accidental, that will decimate or annihilate us. Looking at the big picture of human's existence on Earth, whatever time this might buy us won't matter much, so why bother.
Hurry up DRACO! Sounds like DRACO could mitigate the problem in countries that can afford it. As usual, the poor (most of the planet) would be left behind. DRACO, if successful, would render any viral weapon worthless.
These aren't the avian pathogens you're looking for.
I obviously don't know what I'm talking about so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong... but I seriously doubt it would take that long.
I'd guess that a lot of that "6 months" involves testing. In other words, if there is a very quickly spreading pandemic that kills over half the people it infects, we could probably say "Let's just pray that there aren't too horrible side effects for most people. Start mass producing the prototype!" Also, in such a case we could probably say "There is a risk of billions of deaths... We want every damn factory to produce the vaccine, ignore all the patents, let's sort the licensing fees when humanity has been saved" which would probably speed up the production a bit.
tl;dr: It'd probably be less than 6 months if we're willing to inject anything and everything that slows down the disease and it's suddenly the #1 priority of mankind.
All security is through obscurity. If somebody knows your key, or your hiding spot, or what time you have to put down your shotgun to take a crap, you're through. All cryptography does is let you protect a large secret with a smaller one.
Reading the DRACO description on Wikipedia, I cannot tell whether the cure is worse than the disease.
The only part in the Wikipedia article I liked was the cleavage.
Hey don't blame me, IANAB
We can't carry out risk analysis everytime research needs to be published, even if it is (wrongly, I believe, in the current context) perceived as dangerous.
Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
(For the pop culture impaired: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Funniest_Joke_in_the_World)
At least first stage atom bomb are easy. The secret is not in those, hirshima-clunky type of bomb (the canon type one, and the sphere type one), but in efficient usage of combustible and neutron reflector, to produce a second and even third stage, getting order of magnitude better nuclear bomb than hiroshima, in a smaller space and weight, making it deliverable in ICBM/missile/"suitcase". That involve a lot more engineering, neutron reflector and a choice of various materials. Now if you want only 10 kt, have a lot of uranium to spend, and a big ass truck to move it, well then anybody and their grandma can do one.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
All security is through obscurity. If somebody knows your key, or your hiding spot, or what time you have to put down your shotgun to take a crap, you're through. All cryptography does is let you protect a large secret with a smaller one.
I see your point, but you're short circuiting a little bit of common sense to make it.
Someone would have to "know" your key pretty damn well -- and some highly specialized skills besides -- to make a copy of it without having access to the original. And they'd need to be downright brilliant to use their copy if the lock is too far away for them to reach. Lack of physical access is not really "obscurity," in the sense that people mean when they quote that phrase.
And when you need to put your shotgun down to take a crap, the best practice is to hand it to someone else. The thing you want to keep secure can be sitting right there, as long as the guy with the shotgun is just as visible. If you manage to shoot the guy with the shotgun first, it says nothing about "security by obscurity."
Breakfast served all day!
For crying out loud...total misunderstanding of the work here batman...they are trying to SAVE lives with this research. The research was in to trying to determine if the H5N1 virus is transmissible in mammals and how that might happen. Presumably in an effort to determine how best to combat this if it ever does happen. A human form of H5N1 is already 'in the wild' and infecting people but it doesn't seem to be transmissible very easily...the question then is 'why?' and if it does start being transmissible how do we stop it....geez, impugning the character of a scientist without understanding their research isn't exactly fair fighting...as opposed to the Hollywood versions scientists aren't in general 'Mad Scientists' out to destroy the world...
Or perhaps they were looking for ways to prevent the global pandemic that has a pretty good potential of wiping out over half of humans on the planet? You know, like those who experimented on dozens of diseases that killed most people before they reached the age where they could procreate, eventually driving infectious disease mortality so far down, that most people don't understand the risks hiding in them?
Just a suggestion.
Well in the case of biology, pretty much.
You'd have to have some pretty damn good resources in order to be able to build H5N1, not only that, to be able to make the even worse version they supposedly created.
Since these guys likely had top gear to produce these results, it'd likely take a lot of trial and error for those with almost certainly lesser resources. (at least, we should hope they had top hardware for doing this research...)
When (if) we find out ways to protect against those strains in particular, it'd be less of a risk.
Not as much as you might think. As I pointed out previously, the Ferret is out of the bag. The big question was whether or not you could take H5N1 and pass it through a mammal and make mammal-mammal transmission reasonably efficient (as far as the virus is concerned). Since we know the answer is 'yes' and the bonus answer is 'ferret' then the techniques needed to reproduce (so to speak) the experiment is 1) a culture of H5N1 and the ability to keep it alive and 2) a cage full of ferrets and the ability to keep them alive. 1) isn't exactly trivial but it's not anything that a PhD level viral researcher couldn't manage on a budget easily obtainable by some random psychopath. 2) is trivial.
We're doomed (again).
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The Doctor will find a cure
Matt Smith that is. I'd guess that being from Galifrey he is probably immune.
"Security by obscurity" has a specific meaning, and it's not the same as "security that depends on a secret key to be secure." It's "security that depends on a secret process AND a secret key to be secure." That's not so good as a sound byte, so we just say "Security by obscurity" and confusion results.
Some people seem to think this is a free speech issue but free speech has always been limited. It's the old you can't yell fire in a crowded theater. Yes terrorists may be able to figure if out for themselves but we don't have to give them an instruction manual. Beside we aren't dealing with rocket scientist and I doubt they can figure it out with help. In the end it's the threat they want they aren't out for mass murder because if they are they are going about it all wrong. All you have to do is find a common but dangerous flu strain then begin feeding it generation after generation small amounts of every antibiotic known. After a couple of years you you have something that will kill most people with compromised immune systems and all it took was a few years and several grand in antibiotics and lab equipment. A high school biology student has the basic knowledge needed. The trickiest part is not infecting yourself along the way. Our poultry and cattle industries are doing something like this and it isn't terrorism it's in the name of saving a buck.
All security is through obscurity. If somebody knows your key, or your hiding spot, or what time you have to put down your shotgun to take a crap, you're through. All cryptography does is let you protect a large secret with a smaller one.
What you say is true, but it doesn't really address security through obscurity. Yes, all information security is carried out through some form of literal obscurity, but the phrase "security through obscurity" is a piece of jargon that involves keeping the security system hidden. In other words, some security engineer has Idea A that can be used to protect Secret B, but only if A remains secret as well. That's bad.
Avoiding security through obscurity means drawing a clear box around the information you intend to obscure—that is, the key—and saying with confidence, "Nothing other than this needs to remain secret."
But then, the flu studies are the informational content, not the key nor a system used to keep that content secret, so security through obscurity really has little to nothing to do with this thread.
"This algorithm runs in constant time. Come on, 2,147,483,648 is a constant..."
The only way this would be "security through obscurity," in the sense that cryptography experts typically use that piece of jargon, is if they trying to be obscure about the means of hiding the flu data, in addition to hiding the flu data itself. Hiding the flu data is just plain old secrecy.
Since we are talking about scientifically reproducible data, I guess you might be hinting at an analogy to the mathematics or source code behind a cryptographic system: it's foolish to assume that bad guys wouldn't be able to learn facts about H5N1 anyway, in the same way that you shouldn't assume that crackers won't know how your security software operates. But, in a pragmatic context, some temporary secrecy might work out to be a good if imperfect idea—I don't really know.
"This algorithm runs in constant time. Come on, 2,147,483,648 is a constant..."
If somebody knows your key, or your hiding spot, or what time you have to put down your shotgun to take a crap, you're through
true, but security through obscurity is about obscurity that isn't secure (such as access to a system from an unknown URL - the URL may be unknown, but it isn't secure).
if somebody knows a cryptography key to the point where they gain useful information with it, there is a good chance that somebody was the guy who was given that key and authorized to use it in the first place.
its easy to say "if someone has the key they can get in", but the whole point of having a key is that it's given only to those authorized to have it and nobody else. how many people do you know that are able to break common cryptography standards (such as SHA-2) to actually use it to get anything useful?
Right. "Security by obscurity" refers to the assumption that something is secure because you haven't told anyone how to defeat the security. The weakness of this method is obvious: You might not be the only one who knows what you know. Someone might have stolen the method from you by looking over your shoulder, or they might have figured out how to do it on their own.
Cryptography can be security by obscurity. Good cryptography is not. Good cryptography is based on a published, public algorithm that anyone can read and know how to do. And once they learn the method, they get sad, because they realize that they can't run the algorithm to unlock your encryption. To do so they'd need to know not just how to do it, but also the to fill in variables X, Y, and Z ... and to do that they'd need some piece of information, or maybe a physical object, or what-have you, which they do not possess.
The information they want to steal is obscured, but that's not the point. The security method is not obscured. It's as plain as day -- plain enough that you have to admit you don't know how to break it.
Cryptography becomes security by obscurity when the creator of the algorithm tries to keep it secret, in the misguided belief that nobody will be able to come up with a method to circumvent it. They might get lucky; it's possible that nobody will ever figure out how to break the encryption. But that's why security by obscurity is frowned upon: You're gambling on the hope that you're smarter than everybody who has an interest in breaking your cryptography, plus everybody who will ever be born who wants to break it. That just doesn't sound like good odds.
So back to this flu virus thing. It's security by obscurity because the scientists haven't invented anything, really. They have developed a method to produce a virus having certain characteristics, which are only slight variations of characteristics that are known to exist in other viruses already. So by censoring this research, they are literally saying that as long as they don't tell anyone how they did it, we will be safe from the possibility that this virus will appear -- which is mind-boggling, when the whole purpose of their experiment was to prove that the novel virus could exist in nature even had they not developed their method. Almost by definition, there must be other ways to produce this virus, or other, similar viruses. Their "secret" is worth nothing.
Breakfast served all day!
I agree, that is the nut of it right there.
I also agree that as properly interpreted it doesn't apply to this story; that is, it only applies if misinterpreted such that it is nonsensical.
Wow! A virus so dangerous we have to protect people from reading about it!
Yes, that is fnord rather unthinkable.
... and, the typical kneejerk reaction will likely be DHS now registering and surveying everyone who buys ferrets.
The 58% figure is not the number of people who were exposed to the virus and died. It is not the number of people who have been exposed and successfully infected and died.
The 58% figure is the number of people who were SO sick that it warranted going to the hospital, and then died.
Serological surveys have shown that in the populations where H5N1 has been historically present there are an extensive number of people who have been infected, successfully mounted an immune response, and survived. And even that says nothing about the people who were exposed and did not get sick.
The 50-60% figure has been getting a ton of coverage in the press, and is total bullshit. As a reason to censor scientific research, it is total bullshit.
So when is someone going to acquire a copy and leak it to Wikileaks or similar? Once it's out it's out, and this now-months-long saga of trying to justify censorship will become moot.
Liberty in your lifetime
Security through obscurity? Again? Since it works so well, right?
Particularly in light of the fact that we already know the most important features of their method...
Step 1) Pick your favorite in-the-wild strain of H5N1.
Step 2) Pick an animal known to occasionally catch H5N1, which for the most part shares viral sensitivity with Humans. Such as a ferret or dog or pig.
Step 3) Force-infect your first specimen with your H5N1 sample. It doesn't need to get really sick, just wait long enough for the directly injected viruses to clear the body and suck out a sampling of those that managed to replicate in the host.
Steps 4-9) Use that new "strain" to infect your second specimen. Rinse wash repeat half a dozen times. By then, you probably have a problem with not killing your specimens.
Step 10) Profit! Congrats, you have a strain that will likely also infect humans. If not (or just for good measure), start from step #2 with a different animal that shares viral sensitivity with humans.
Seriously, not rocket science - Genetics, actually, in the form of plain ol' simple evolution. You artificially select for those mutations best able to infect your target, and you end up with a strain that can do exactly that with great efficiency. Censoring this paper truly means nothing more than sticking our collective fingers in our ears and going "nah-NAH-NAH-I-can't-hear-you!"
Nope, this one's done. There's nothing so permanent as a temporary restriction. The moratorium will be extended indefinitely (or as long as the copyright on Mickey Mouse, whichever is shorter)
So they claim. And it sort-of makes sense. But the controversy they are now having makes me thing this is not really their motivation, but more of a nice justification. It is possible that they are even kidding themselves. My guess would be they could have approached this in a far less dangerous (and far less spectacular) way, but deliberately chose not to. This has all the hallmarks of a scientific stunt, aimed at fame and funding, but of limited scientific value.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
The government just wants to make you scared and give away your liberty so they have more power.
The Official Site of 1337 Pwnage
Rinse wash repeat half a dozen times.
THAT'S what I was doing wrong. I was doing lather-rinse-repeat, and it was supposed to be rinse-wash-repeat.
Headed back downstairs to the lab...
Advice: on VPS providers
Ron Fouchier is an idiot. The scientific community is also at fault. They should have made it abundantly clear that anyone doing this kind of research would not get published, ever (as deterrence). People claim about governments pulling off this sort of weapon research. Well, fair enough... so now that an individual has done it, they should be equally condemned.
I take this very personally. It's all fun and games until you start losing family members to these kinds of diseases. If his strain ends up killing anyone he should be convicted of manslaughter.
Since we know the answer is 'yes' and the bonus answer is 'ferret'
Well, if nothing else, I look forward to the next big pop culture monster to take over from "sparkly vampire" and "zombie".
From the producers of "Snakes On A Tesseract", "Sunday Afternoon Tea-Time of the Dead", and "David Attenborough's Rather Interesting Space Creature With An Unusual Yet Beautiful Life Cycle".
The Next Frontier Of Terror Just Scurried Up Your Trousers.
Fear It.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
Even frigging north korea could do that. Separation and concentration is neither hard nor a secret. Doing it cheaply and secretely IS where it is hard. Doing it inneficientely and unsecretely is not hard at all.
~is a real problem for the scientic method. It does help to know in advance that science will in the end be the end, thanks to all the nerds out there who couldn't get laid in high school, so then decided to become nuclear physicists and biomedical researchers..
The mystery of the human genome was sort of like a protective lock that prevented people from engineering terrible plagues. Now that mystery is going away, with lots of well-meant good intentions to cure genetic diseases and so on. With that protective "code" widely understood, we had better be sure to learn how to be nicer to each other, and use that knowledge to build a better society rather than tear everything down.
Or, in other words:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042546/quotes
"Elwood P. Dowd: Years ago, my mother used to say to me, she'd say "In this world, Elwood, you can be oh so so smart, or oh so pleasant." Well, for years I was smart... I recommend pleasant. You may quote me."
In general, our society needs to move to "A Newer Way Of Thinking" like Albert Einstein (and now Donald Pet) talk about, given we can either use abundance to build a better world for all, or we can use it to destroy that possibility for all:
http://www.anwot.org/
http://anwot.org/blog/2011/07/10/stren-70-why-do-we-have-destructive-aggression-and-war/
And a basic income for all is part of that transition to a newer way of thinking, even though it seems all these social trends are very slow processes. I've heard that is until the trends reach some tipping point like about 10% of the population understands them and values them, and then the trend races forward. It's amazing that it was considered as much as it was in Germany recently:
http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_2_snd-basic-income.html
There really is no alternative to a newer way of thinking and related socioeconomic policy, given the power of WMDs at this point in the hands of disgruntled people at the edges of the society who may think the whole thing is grossly unfair. The miracle is that people are so peaceful anyway, and that things like blowback actually so rarely happen.
Likewise, if LENR (what was formerly called cold fusion) pans out, while it will open up many possibilities for good, it will lead to more destructive possibilities as well, and probably, after a brief spurt of new jobs, we will see massive formal-sector unemployment as energy can often substitute for labor. Related links (even if things are still up in the air, and solar panels are a proven technology also rapidly dropping in cost):
http://www.google.com/search?q=lenr
http://pesn.com/2012/01/12/9602009_NASA_Admits_LENR_Cold_Fusion_Game_Changer/
http://energycatalyzer3.com/news/cold-fusion-being-studied-at-mit
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/12/newenergytimes-gets-three-nasa.html
http://energycatalyzer3.com/news/billionaire-donates-money-for-cold-fusion-research-at-us-university
http://cleantechnica.com/2011/05/29/ge-solar-power-cheaper-than-fossil-fuels-in-5-years/
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
OMG, they're hiding information, I have to listen to all the rumors now to know what's going on.
It must be super dangerous, I want my shot now, take my credit card !