I'm wondering if the behaviour will change if you just go into "services" and disable the DNS client.
I recommend this anyway. In theory it will increase the number of requests your machine does. But in practice it has saved me a lot of "try rebooting" calls.
The bad guys don't need to spend time with compatibility or regression testing for their software.
They can download the patch the day it is released and have an exploit ready that same day. You'll still be meeting to discuss the test plan for your servers.
Attempting to hide information doesn't help anyone except the vendor and the bad guys.
At least if you have the information, you can determine your own level of exposure and decide what mitigating actions you want to take based upon your environment.
Hey, they make it easy for you to submit it to digg and slashdot. And those links seem to be part of their page template. Could be a wave of the future. Provide links from your material so people can easily submit it to other websites as "news".
Now, if there was some way to submit slashdot stories to Novell...
This is what levels of security above C and OSes like Trusted Solaris were all about. Not about being unhackable, but about it being impossible to copy data from a higher security container to a lower.
I consider that a Good Thing (tm).
Granted, someone with high enough security clearance and rights to declare his USB drive "secure" could have gotten past that as well, but the average PHB wannabie corporate ladder climber could not do anything about it.
They wouldn't have to. That's why they have IT departments with people like me in them.
They tell me what they want done, I explain any possible issues to them and they make the decision on what they're willing to accept.
This will stop the non-CxO's from taking work "home" and losing it. But it SHOULD NOT stop me from setting the CEO's machine to copy anything from any device.
The slashdot crowd keeps bitching about Vista DRM being Digital Wrongs Management and being mostly promoted by pigopolists. Once again wrong. Along with AD it will allow any corporation to force a mandatory encryption policy on all the data on all media in the house at the click of a mouse.
While it may be true that it will allow me to more securely lock down the machines at work, that is not why it is being pushed.
It is being pushed because the home users are ripping CD's/DVD's and sharing the content online. If I'm allowed to set the privileges of the devices attached to my home machine, then DRM becomes useless for securing the content of CD's/DVD's.
This also means that if Linux is to compete for the desktop it will have to have the same features regardless of Stallmans desires. This is one thing on which Linus is absolutely right. The usage of DRM by pigopolists is a current fad which is only a minor fraction of its actual use.
Again, if I can set the privileges, then DRM is useful for protecting my corporate secrets... but useless for protecting CD's/DVD's that I buy.
In order for it to be used to protect the CD's/DVD's, it MUST BE A BROKEN IMPLEMENTATION.
These machines will sit in border offices, staffed by government employees.
I wouldn't even trust *nix workstations in that environment.
Not to mention the WHY of this. From TFA:
The system has processed more than 52 million visitors, and allowed border officials to intercept more than 1,000 wanted criminals and immigration violators, according to DHS.
Great. 1,000 people. Didn't I see something on the news recently about 11 million illegal aliens in this country?
The documents raise new questions about the $400 million US-VISIT program, a 2-year-old system aimed at securing the border from terrorists by gathering biometric information from visiting foreign nationals and comparing it against government watch lists.
1,000 people at a cost of $400 million.
$400,000 per person caught?
Someone REALLY needs to pitch the LTSP to the government.
The unsubscribe link did go to chase.com and I confirmed that that site does belong to Chase.
The email is being send from "bigfootinteractive.com".
I use the raw ASCII message to get the link and when I past it in the browser, I get that reject message.
So, we have more examples of the bank making phishing EASIER by going through a 3rd party and linking chase.com to that 3rd parties email.
It's funny that Chase includes this bit on their email.
The Chase OnlineSM services mentioned above can be accessed through our site directly. The links here are included for your convenience. If you are suspicious of an e-mail, please feel free to use the URL that appears on the back of your credit card, or type chase.com directly into your browser.
Again, all the links go to chase.com and I've verified that in the raw ASCII text of the message, but the response emails come from bigfootinteractive.com......
Seriously, how easy does Chase want to make a phisher's life?
Hey, Chase! Use your own fucking email servers you morons!
If you're still wondering, let me know and I can post their response email for you to check yourself. I've replaced my domain with "DomainReplaced.com" and fucked up the id string, but other than that it is pure.
Nothing you do on the receiving end will ever end phishing.
Yet it is very easy to kill 100% for almost every financial organization out there.
Just do not use email to communicate with your customers. That's it. Unless you're PayPal, the problem is solved.
The only reasons that banks continue to use email is because: #1. It provides a cheap way for them to send ads to their customers. #2. They don't bear the financial loss when customers lose money.
The only way to change #1 is to change the law on #2.
Today I received an email from Chase. I checked it. It was from Chase. It was for an employee who isn't here anymore. NOTHING I did seemed to unsubscribe him. I just kept getting messages back saying that that address did not receive email. Even clicking on the "unsubscribe" link resulted in that email. Every link pointed back to Chase.
The phishers are SMARTER than the people the banks hire to send email ads.
Until the law changes, the best you can do is try to individually educate every user out there NOT to click on any links or call any 800 numbers that claim they come from their bank via email. And educating millions of people just isn't cost effective.
Corporate speak is basically the same type of "Rah-Rah" speech you here at Amway/Mary Kay/etc conventions. It's just for pumping up peoples emotions rather than conveying useful information.
Bingo!
When you listen to two people chattering away in corp-speak, all they're doing is trying to convince each other and/or themselves how great they are or this option is or whatever.
Sometimes it is used to pretend that the problems aren't really problems, or that they aren't as bad as they really are.
Finally, it is used to assign blame for failure (althought "blame" and "failure" are not the words used).
A. You can talk about exciting opportunities to align the company with industry leading visionaries...
B. Or you can say "it will cost $5,000 and take 2 people 3 months to implement and increase our sales by $2 million a year".
When you don't have "B", you talk "A".
It's all about selling, inside your company, outside your company, your project, yourself, your soul, your loyalty, you ideas, your lies, your co-workers down the river.
Corp-speak is what they use when they don't have anything else and they need to persuade themselves and others.
Now because Microsoft knows that it sometimes need to get information from their users for upgrades, it has put in a clause to allow software companies to do this. Basically the Vole law demands that a software company licence agreement tells you the sort of data they are taking.
The problem is that if you agree, you give the company you bought upgradable software the freedom to come onto your computer for "detection or prevention of the unauthorized use of or fraudulent or other illegal activities in connection with a network, service, or computer software, including scanning for and removing computer software prescribed under this act."
In other words if you install Vista, Microsoft can come in, snoop around your computer see if you are doing anything illegal and delete it.
That certainly sounds like people should be opposed to this "law".
How about "It doesn't work the way the vendor/consultant/salesguy/magazine said it would."
The information you get out depends upon the data you put in.
The people looking to "find" information in the data are the same people who decided what data to collect in the first place. And from whom to collect it. Etc.
That means that you'll find out that 2004 was a banner year for bubblegum ice cream. But you won't know what will be popular in the summer of 2006.
I realize thinking is not a pre-requisit to posting.
Well, it certainly appears that way, doesn't it?
However, realize that job cuts are a fact of life. Period. Even in the best of markets, some company is cutting jobs.
Yes they are.
But in the best of times, the demand for those workers exceeds the supply so those job cuts translate to changes of employer.
And even in the worst markets, some company somewhere is hiring.
Yes, it might not be for your job. It might not be something you're qualified to do. But somewhere, someone is hiring. Burger flipping and prostitution seem popular.
Basically, this means that the hole in the bottom of the bucket is smaller.
That's what I said.
The hole has gotten smaller, but there is still a hole. That is not "hot demand".
And, if you follow other news, you will realize that hiring has picked up.
That's great. Of course, TFA kind of contradicts that.
If hiring is picking up, why are companies still laying off the employees?
So, yes, a decrease in job cuts is good news.
If by "good news" you mean...
"We have good news! The cancer will only take both your legs right now and kill you in about 20 years."
As opposed to: "I have good news! I won the lottery!"
I guess it all comes down to what you want to define as "good news".
Which is why I chose to illustrate the point with my "executions" example. Everything is positive... if you start from a sufficiently negative point of view.
But that's just a semantic game. What really matters is the human cost. And that shows that, even though things aren't as bad as they were before, they are still bad and people are still losing their jobs.
Tech workers are back in hot demand, according to a report released Monday.
Tech-sector job cuts in the first quarter of 2006 were 40 percent lower than the same quarter last year, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., an employment consulting firm.
Gotta agree with you.
Seeing a reduction in the number of people fired in no way translates to "tech workers" being in "hot demand".
The problem with anti-virus software is that it is 100% reactionary. The anti-virus companies don't release updates for viruses that they haven't seen yet.
That's why I view viruses/worms as a failure of the security model of the system.
Trojans are a different matter. But even with those there are ways to mitigate the effects. If nothing else, requiring a password before installing an app will solve most of the "naked pictures of celebrity" emails. There will always be a few idiots.
Novell can't market anything. They're losing their existing customers faster than they're getting new Linux customers.
They could turn that around if they would support GroupWise 7.0 on Red Hat and Ubuntu. It already runs on SuSE (Novell's own distribution). There is no reason why GroupWise should not be THE email/calendaring server on Linux.
We're running NetWare 6.5 with GroupWise and ZENworks and the only reason we're still with Novell is because of all the documentation that our users have stored in GroupWise's document management system. There is intense pressure from management to dump Novell because it is seen as a dying company.
Meanwhile, I've moved our infrastructure to Ubuntu.
Remember how coding was complicated in the fifties, how programmers were a small group who had training and how designing programs was hard. Now you have ten year olds building viruses that infect half the internet.
Yeah, let's stick with that analogy.
Those 10 year olds aren't doing anything that wasn't done 10 years ago. They aren't doing anything that wasn't done 15 years ago.
By the time the skill requirements drop down that far, all of the viruses you've described would have already been created by people who had the training and expertise.
Computers can be re-booted. The software can be re-installed.
By the time the technology has been simpliefed enough that a 10 year old can genetically engineer a racially specific virus, THAT VIRUS WILL ALREADY HAVE BEEN CREATED.
And humans cannot be re-booted. When they're dead, they are dead.
There's no need to worry about 10 year olds or any other person who will rely upon the technology getting easier. If it is possible to create such a virus, it will be done and released long before that 10 year old gets a chance to play with the technology.
BTW, what's your obsession with guns? They do minimal damage. They may take out ten people, maybe a few more. If you are pissed at the world or maybe a race then guns aren't up to the task.
Here, since you seem to have a problem with certain concepts, let me spell it out for you:
#1. Kill one person or family: Guns work today. Guns are easy to acquire. Chemicals also work. Bio-tech fails today. Bio-tech may never work.
#2. Kill one city: Nukes. But nukes are difficult to acquire. Guns and lots of troops are also an option. Massive chemical attack also works. Bio-tech fails today.
#3. Kill one race: Guns and lots of troops. Bio-tech fails today. Bio-tech may never work.
#4. Kill the world: Lots of nukes. But nukes are difficult to acquire. Bio-tech fails today. Bio-tech may never work.
So, your entire point is based around the following: A. Bio-tech becoming cheap and easy. B. Someone wanting to kill everyone in the world.
Great. Sounds like a really boring novel. I hope those rejection letters don't discourage you.
Meanwhile, there's a greater chance that I'll be killed by a drunk driver so you'll forgive me if I don't continue to point out the logical flaws in your plot.
As someone who is doing research in molecular biology right now in a major US university (at a postdoctoral level), let me assure you a lack of decent edumacation in the field of biology is not the problem.
Yeah, sure. Whatever.
Once this technology becomes available to 14 year olds and doable with classroom equipment, all bets are off.
At that point all the claims you've made have already been researched and, at least in the lab, developed.
Seriously, I'd expect someone with your claimed credentials to understand the basics of this. This isn't cut-and-paste.
You have to identify the exact DNA/RNA sequence that identifies your target.
Then you have to engineer the virus to only kill the hosts with that sequence... while remaining dormant in the hosts without that sequence.
And you can't just cut-and-paste the sequence you want to attack into the virus. The changes to the virus would be a completely different research project.
And let's not forget the people who are depressed and want to see their offender dead and they don't care about the world or themselves.
And why would that person choose bio-tech over the conventional shotgun?
And this is before we even mention terrorists and nation states which TFA was concerned with.
Because chemical agents work so much more effectively, are easier to manufacture, transport and disperse.
And even more effective than chemical agents are conventional weapons. Such as "hand guns" or "shotguns". Not to mention the ever popular "explosives strapped to your body".
Since you are unable to explain the WHY, and instead you keep going off on other tangents (equipment availablity, where you live), I'm not going to waste any more of my time trying to keep you on the original topic.
There is no reason that what you claim would have happened and lots of reasons why it would not.
Say your neighbor gets pissed off enough to want to play god. He get your hair, engineers a weapon and the next thing you know all your family is dead and noone else notices. That's what genetic targeting allows (potentially, but I am sure it'll be practical in not too distant future).
So the pathogen would have to target a very specific... DNA/RNA sequence?
What happens when the pathogen mutates? Lots of little virus babies mean lots of chances for mutation.
Also, think KKK developing a color-of-skin based agent.
Again, this isn't magic. This is science. To kill based on skin colour, the virus would have to target a very specific DNA/RNA sequence. Viruses mutate. The mutations aren't controlled. One mutation and your virus is suddenly attacking the wrong breed.
You could exploit local cuisine so that only people who eat, say sushi die.
Sure. Whatever.
Aha, now you are seeing the problem.
Yes. The problem is lack of decent education in the field of biology.
In order for your tailored viruses to work, they'd have to be able to only infect people with a certain DNA/RNA sequence, and that isn't very easy outside of the cell.
So, your virus has to infect everyone, but only kill those with the sequence you've targetted.
So, everyone is infected, with a deadly virus, and viruses mutate...
It is so much easier and more assured to just buy a shotgun and do it yourself.
I know it doesn't sound reasonable, but she brought home all the spectrographs of the altered RNA. This stuff is fairly trivial these days. I think the bio class was part of a BioTech program they just started.
Yeah. Right.
So class, take test tube #1, put it in this device, press this button and you get this spectrograph.
Take test tube #2, put it in this device, press this button, then put it in the other device, press this button and you'll see the altered spectrograph.
So, what is the purpose of walking a "beginning bio class" through this process? Exactly what do they learn? Does the new virus kill mice quicker? Does it only kill female mice? Does the new virus infect a species that it did not infect before?
Exactly what does the altered virus do that is different from the original virus? If "nothing", then what is the purpose of wasting class time to walk through something that just results in a different magic picture?
Just go grab a used DNA synthersizer, some spectography equipment and you're just about set.
The equipment is inexpensive. I'm not questioning that.
What I am questioning is WHY a "beginning bio class" at a "junior college" would be doing that with a virus.
Go read the article, it explains exactly how easy it is.
Again, I'm not asking how easy it is. I'm asking WHY a "beginning bio class" at a "junior college" would be doing that with a virus.
And I'm stating that the students you get enrolled in a "beginning bio class" at a "junior college" should not be trusted to follow the basic precautions required for "genetically altering" anything.
My roommate genetically altered a virus in her bio class the other day.
Keep in mind that this was a beginning bio class, at a junior college.
It's easy, it doesn't take a whole ton of education.
Okay, I'm interested in exactly HOW she managed that. Particularly in a "beginning bio class" at a "junior college".
"genetically altered" means that the DNA/RNA has been changed. Why would she be doing that with a virus in a "beginning bio class"? What would the purpose be?
Particularly in a "beginning bio class" at a "junior college". The kind of students you see in those classes are NOT the kind that could be trusted with any precautions for handling even non-engineered viruses.
Gina: Absolutely. To say, "20% of IT jobs are being outsourced" is alarming, but there are whole new fields opening up, new disciplines that will be in huge demand. Some of the more traditional IT positions -- application maintenance, transcription services, base application development -- may be outsourced for a number of reasons, principally cost and availability of workers.
I can understand "cost", but "availablity of workers"?
Or is that another way of saying "cost"? If there are more people in India willing to do it, they'll do it for less money.
But if you think of the exciting jobs marrying technology and business and really making an impact -- data mining, business intelligence, network architecture, Internet and Web architecture, Web services -- these will be the hot jobs as technology becomes more pervasive, less costly, and as more uses are found for it. There's even a view that outsourcing actually will help grow jobs.
Yes, and there's a view that space aliens are abducting our citizens and probing them in scientific experiments.
"Web services"? Why wouldn't those also be off-shored?
"Internet and Web architecture"? Why wouldn't those also be off-shored?
"network architecture"? This is one "of the exciting jobs marrying technology and business and really making an impact"? I've been doing this for the past 16 years. The only reason that this won't be off-shored is because I have to physically move the devices.
"business intelligence"? That has NOTHING to do with a CS degree.
"data mining"? Great. the 1990's are back again. That's a buzz-word from the 20th century. We're in the 21st now. And there is no reason that that could not also be off-shored.
That article is nothing more than a bunch of claims without support and meaningless recycled buzz-words thrown together.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm wondering if the behaviour will change if you just go into "services" and disable the DNS client.
I recommend this anyway. In theory it will increase the number of requests your machine does. But in practice it has saved me a lot of "try rebooting" calls.
Anyone out there with XP who can reproduce this?
The bad guys don't need to spend time with compatibility or regression testing for their software.
They can download the patch the day it is released and have an exploit ready that same day. You'll still be meeting to discuss the test plan for your servers.
Attempting to hide information doesn't help anyone except the vendor and the bad guys.
At least if you have the information, you can determine your own level of exposure and decide what mitigating actions you want to take based upon your environment.
And if you don't pay attention to your virtual kid at regular intervals, feed him and clean up after him ...
It's Tamagotchi all over again!
Now, if you could just script the kid's upbringing.
Hey, they make it easy for you to submit it to digg and slashdot. And those links seem to be part of their page template. Could be a wave of the future. Provide links from your material so people can easily submit it to other websites as "news".
Now, if there was some way to submit slashdot stories to Novell
They tell me what they want done, I explain any possible issues to them and they make the decision on what they're willing to accept.
This will stop the non-CxO's from taking work "home" and losing it. But it SHOULD NOT stop me from setting the CEO's machine to copy anything from any device.While it may be true that it will allow me to more securely lock down the machines at work, that is not why it is being pushed.
It is being pushed because the home users are ripping CD's/DVD's and sharing the content online. If I'm allowed to set the privileges of the devices attached to my home machine, then DRM becomes useless for securing the content of CD's/DVD's.Again, if I can set the privileges, then DRM is useful for protecting my corporate secrets
In order for it to be used to protect the CD's/DVD's, it MUST BE A BROKEN IMPLEMENTATION.
I wouldn't even trust *nix workstations in that environment.
Not to mention the WHY of this. From TFA:Great. 1,000 people. Didn't I see something on the news recently about 11 million illegal aliens in this country?1,000 people at a cost of $400 million.
$400,000 per person caught?
Someone REALLY needs to pitch the LTSP to the government.
In the article, the threat is destroyed before it hits the tank.
With reactive armour, the threat is destroyed by the outer layer of reactive armour before it can penetrate the real (non-reactive) armour.
Ballistic - relating to or characteristic of the motion of objects moving under their own momentum and the force of gravity; "ballistic missile"
So....... if I keep my enemies at bay by throwing rocks at them, I am protected by a "force field"?
The email is being send from "bigfootinteractive.com".
I use the raw ASCII message to get the link and when I past it in the browser, I get that reject message.
So, we have more examples of the bank making phishing EASIER by going through a 3rd party and linking chase.com to that 3rd parties email.
It's funny that Chase includes this bit on their email.
Again, all the links go to chase.com and I've verified that in the raw ASCII text of the message, but the response emails come from bigfootinteractive.com......
Seriously, how easy does Chase want to make a phisher's life?
Hey, Chase! Use your own fucking email servers you morons!
If you're still wondering, let me know and I can post their response email for you to check yourself. I've replaced my domain with "DomainReplaced.com" and fucked up the id string, but other than that it is pure.
Nothing you do on the receiving end will ever end phishing.
Yet it is very easy to kill 100% for almost every financial organization out there.
Just do not use email to communicate with your customers. That's it. Unless you're PayPal, the problem is solved.
The only reasons that banks continue to use email is because:
#1. It provides a cheap way for them to send ads to their customers.
#2. They don't bear the financial loss when customers lose money.
The only way to change #1 is to change the law on #2.
Today I received an email from Chase. I checked it. It was from Chase. It was for an employee who isn't here anymore. NOTHING I did seemed to unsubscribe him. I just kept getting messages back saying that that address did not receive email. Even clicking on the "unsubscribe" link resulted in that email. Every link pointed back to Chase.
The phishers are SMARTER than the people the banks hire to send email ads.
Until the law changes, the best you can do is try to individually educate every user out there NOT to click on any links or call any 800 numbers that claim they come from their bank via email. And educating millions of people just isn't cost effective.
When you listen to two people chattering away in corp-speak, all they're doing is trying to convince each other and/or themselves how great they are or this option is or whatever.
Sometimes it is used to pretend that the problems aren't really problems, or that they aren't as bad as they really are.
Finally, it is used to assign blame for failure (althought "blame" and "failure" are not the words used).
A. You can talk about exciting opportunities to align the company with industry leading visionaries
B. Or you can say "it will cost $5,000 and take 2 people 3 months to implement and increase our sales by $2 million a year".
When you don't have "B", you talk "A".
It's all about selling, inside your company, outside your company, your project, yourself, your soul, your loyalty, you ideas, your lies, your co-workers down the river.
Corp-speak is what they use when they don't have anything else and they need to persuade themselves and others.
Why bother with a flying device if you're going into rubble?
Wouldn't a snake be better? At least that way you could also run a pipe with water to whomever is trapped.
That certainly sounds like people should be opposed to this "law".
The information you get out depends upon the data you put in.
The people looking to "find" information in the data are the same people who decided what data to collect in the first place. And from whom to collect it. Etc.
That means that you'll find out that 2004 was a banner year for bubblegum ice cream. But you won't know what will be popular in the summer of 2006.
But in the best of times, the demand for those workers exceeds the supply so those job cuts translate to changes of employer.Yes, it might not be for your job. It might not be something you're qualified to do. But somewhere, someone is hiring. Burger flipping and prostitution seem popular.That's what I said.
The hole has gotten smaller, but there is still a hole. That is not "hot demand".That's great. Of course, TFA kind of contradicts that.
If hiring is picking up, why are companies still laying off the employees?If by "good news" you mean
"We have good news! The cancer will only take both your legs right now and kill you in about 20 years."
As opposed to:
"I have good news! I won the lottery!"
I guess it all comes down to what you want to define as "good news".
Which is why I chose to illustrate the point with my "executions" example. Everything is positive
But that's just a semantic game. What really matters is the human cost. And that shows that, even though things aren't as bad as they were before, they are still bad and people are still losing their jobs.
Seeing a reduction in the number of people fired in no way translates to "tech workers" being in "hot demand".
What did anyone expect?
The problem with anti-virus software is that it is 100% reactionary. The anti-virus companies don't release updates for viruses that they haven't seen yet.
That's why I view viruses/worms as a failure of the security model of the system.
Trojans are a different matter. But even with those there are ways to mitigate the effects. If nothing else, requiring a password before installing an app will solve most of the "naked pictures of celebrity" emails. There will always be a few idiots.
Novell can't market anything. They're losing their existing customers faster than they're getting new Linux customers.
They could turn that around if they would support GroupWise 7.0 on Red Hat and Ubuntu. It already runs on SuSE (Novell's own distribution). There is no reason why GroupWise should not be THE email/calendaring server on Linux.
We're running NetWare 6.5 with GroupWise and ZENworks and the only reason we're still with Novell is because of all the documentation that our users have stored in GroupWise's document management system. There is intense pressure from management to dump Novell because it is seen as a dying company.
Meanwhile, I've moved our infrastructure to Ubuntu.
Those 10 year olds aren't doing anything that wasn't done 10 years ago. They aren't doing anything that wasn't done 15 years ago.
By the time the skill requirements drop down that far, all of the viruses you've described would have already been created by people who had the training and expertise.
Computers can be re-booted. The software can be re-installed.
By the time the technology has been simpliefed enough that a 10 year old can genetically engineer a racially specific virus, THAT VIRUS WILL ALREADY HAVE BEEN CREATED.
And humans cannot be re-booted. When they're dead, they are dead.
There's no need to worry about 10 year olds or any other person who will rely upon the technology getting easier. If it is possible to create such a virus, it will be done and released long before that 10 year old gets a chance to play with the technology.Here, since you seem to have a problem with certain concepts, let me spell it out for you:
#1. Kill one person or family: Guns work today. Guns are easy to acquire. Chemicals also work. Bio-tech fails today. Bio-tech may never work.
#2. Kill one city: Nukes. But nukes are difficult to acquire. Guns and lots of troops are also an option. Massive chemical attack also works. Bio-tech fails today.
#3. Kill one race: Guns and lots of troops. Bio-tech fails today. Bio-tech may never work.
#4. Kill the world: Lots of nukes. But nukes are difficult to acquire. Bio-tech fails today. Bio-tech may never work.
So, your entire point is based around the following:
A. Bio-tech becoming cheap and easy.
B. Someone wanting to kill everyone in the world.
Great. Sounds like a really boring novel. I hope those rejection letters don't discourage you.
Meanwhile, there's a greater chance that I'll be killed by a drunk driver so you'll forgive me if I don't continue to point out the logical flaws in your plot.
Seriously, I'd expect someone with your claimed credentials to understand the basics of this. This isn't cut-and-paste.
You have to identify the exact DNA/RNA sequence that identifies your target.
Then you have to engineer the virus to only kill the hosts with that sequence
while remaining dormant in the hosts without that sequence.
And you can't just cut-and-paste the sequence you want to attack into the virus. The changes to the virus would be a completely different research project.And why would that person choose bio-tech over the conventional shotgun?Because chemical agents work so much more effectively, are easier to manufacture, transport and disperse.
And even more effective than chemical agents are conventional weapons. Such as "hand guns" or "shotguns". Not to mention the ever popular "explosives strapped to your body".
Since you are unable to explain the WHY, and instead you keep going off on other tangents (equipment availablity, where you live), I'm not going to waste any more of my time trying to keep you on the original topic.
There is no reason that what you claim would have happened and lots of reasons why it would not.
What happens when the pathogen mutates? Lots of little virus babies mean lots of chances for mutation.Again, this isn't magic. This is science. To kill based on skin colour, the virus would have to target a very specific DNA/RNA sequence. Viruses mutate. The mutations aren't controlled. One mutation and your virus is suddenly attacking the wrong breed.Sure. Whatever.Yes. The problem is lack of decent education in the field of biology.
In order for your tailored viruses to work, they'd have to be able to only infect people with a certain DNA/RNA sequence, and that isn't very easy outside of the cell.
So, your virus has to infect everyone, but only kill those with the sequence you've targetted.
So, everyone is infected, with a deadly virus, and viruses mutate
It is so much easier and more assured to just buy a shotgun and do it yourself.
So class, take test tube #1, put it in this device, press this button and you get this spectrograph.
Take test tube #2, put it in this device, press this button, then put it in the other device, press this button and you'll see the altered spectrograph.
So, what is the purpose of walking a "beginning bio class" through this process? Exactly what do they learn? Does the new virus kill mice quicker? Does it only kill female mice? Does the new virus infect a species that it did not infect before?
Exactly what does the altered virus do that is different from the original virus? If "nothing", then what is the purpose of wasting class time to walk through something that just results in a different magic picture?The equipment is inexpensive. I'm not questioning that.
What I am questioning is WHY a "beginning bio class" at a "junior college" would be doing that with a virus.Again, I'm not asking how easy it is. I'm asking WHY a "beginning bio class" at a "junior college" would be doing that with a virus.
And I'm stating that the students you get enrolled in a "beginning bio class" at a "junior college" should not be trusted to follow the basic precautions required for "genetically altering" anything.
"genetically altered" means that the DNA/RNA has been changed. Why would she be doing that with a virus in a "beginning bio class"? What would the purpose be?
Particularly in a "beginning bio class" at a "junior college". The kind of students you see in those classes are NOT the kind that could be trusted with any precautions for handling even non-engineered viruses.
None of that sounds reasonable.
Or is that another way of saying "cost"? If there are more people in India willing to do it, they'll do it for less money.Yes, and there's a view that space aliens are abducting our citizens and probing them in scientific experiments.
"Web services"? Why wouldn't those also be off-shored?
"Internet and Web architecture"? Why wouldn't those also be off-shored?
"network architecture"? This is one "of the exciting jobs marrying technology and business and really making an impact"? I've been doing this for the past 16 years. The only reason that this won't be off-shored is because I have to physically move the devices.
"business intelligence"? That has NOTHING to do with a CS degree.
"data mining"? Great. the 1990's are back again. That's a buzz-word from the 20th century. We're in the 21st now. And there is no reason that that could not also be off-shored.
That article is nothing more than a bunch of claims without support and meaningless recycled buzz-words thrown together.