Difference between revisions of "Talk:Lecture 8"

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Biological Epidemics

Chris Fleizach - Recently, scientists in the Maryland decoded the 1918 influenza genome that killed millions of Americans and published the results in Nature. In fact, there was a meeting with national security advisors and the editors to determine if the material should be published at all. In the end, they decided the benefits of open publication outweighed the bio-terrorism risk. Then Bill Joy and Ray Kurzweil came out with a blistering editorial about giving away all the necessary information to bioterrorists to unleash their own flu epidemic. So is it really easy to recreate viruses as long as you know the DNA sequence? This also addresses the same topic that many discussions have touched upon: should there be open access to research material? Richard Muller's article speculating Al Quaeda was behind the anthrax attacks seemed to point they had given up bio-terrorism in some sense. With the flu genome decoded, avian flu being hyped up, what does this mean for America in terms of focus?

Altin Dastmalchi, UCB I think that declassifying information and putting it on the internet is risky but on the other hand could also help the world of science. As scientist, or anyone for that matter shares findings, results, etc, others who are just one process short from a new invention can search and find articles of the same topic and possibly enhance their own projects. So in short, sharing information leads to more scientific success. Furthermore, although i do believe that some terrorist could easily read the information, i also beleive that if they really wanted to get more info on a give topic then they can through some means. I.E. steal it from a lab. So in this case the success out ways the threat.

Anyone else agree?

abc This reminds me of the similar (and very heated) debate over publishing security vulnerabilities. While the two are slightly different (vulns are more directly and easily exploitable), still, there are pros and cons on both sides. I would agree that the benefits of publication outweigh the risk - primarily because this information never will really end up being "secret" in the end anyway. As was said in the lectures last evening, the threat of bioterror is probably not as great as we'd like to think - the dead bodies pile up slower and there are so many unknowns involved in the process. For example, unleashing an agent for which there is no known immunization on a population, that is also highly contagious could end up backfiring by wiping out the terrorists themselves. A plane full of jet fuel not only has more energy than TNT, but it also probably can scare a lot more people when flown into a large urban area like on 9/11...

What can the government do to combat CBNR attacks?

I found it interesting that both speakers saw the main role of security policy not in implementing particular defenses or managing terrorism response units with particular capabilites, but in espionage and police work. I guess that this is because there are such a wide range of methods possible to use for CBNR attacks, it might be asking to much to try to educate the public (as in the nuclear fallout shelters and school trainings that happened during the cold war) or to plan responses to every possible crises situation (as Katrina response has proved). Since there are such a wide range of attacks, the most important thing in preventing the attacks, according to the speakers tonight, were that the individuals who are a threat be identified, and we find out from spying on them what methods their groups see as good means to attack. In the biological realm, I can imagine that there are a very wide range of possible pathogens, and the one that becomes an attack will probably not depend on too much more than what substances those groups will have access to, or which ones fit particularly well with an over-looked opportunity in the U.S. food system, etc. So maybe the cheapest and most effective way to defend ourselves against the right pathogen is to be at the terrorists' ear. This view would definitely simplify the role of DHS (maybe making it more able to be successful as a government beaurocracy). Should the DHS leave biological weapons to the CDC and nuclear defense to the DOD? --Jameel 01:37, 20 October 2005 (PDT)

Jeff Davis 19:38, 20 Rocktober 2005 (PDT) It is a slippery slope. I don't want the government spying on me.

Fuel Oil

--Dennis Galvin 11:26, 20 October 2005 (PDT)

Thinking aloud here: If the fuel capacity of a Transcontinental 767 is 90770 liters or 23980 US gallons (767-200ER spec), I'm not getting a warm fuzzy feeling about the amount of fuel rolling around on surface streets of our major cities. The tanks can hold say 60000 liters (tank mfr). Seems a lot of damage could be done with a suicide style crash into a large occupied downtown building. Trucks are notoriously easier to drive than a plane is to fly, so is it not conceivable a full fuel tanker could be taken over at a highway rest stop and we can have another terrorist act with large repercussions?

--Chris DuPuis 14:47, 20 October 2005 (PDT) Yes, I would agree that fuel trucks are a cause for concern. But a ship would be even more dangerous, given the larger carrying capacity. The 1918 explosion of a ship carrying explosives in Halifax, NS leveled 2 square kilometers of the city.

link

That explosion was caused by approx. 200,000 tons of TNT. A ship carrying refined gasoline or natural gas could be equally dangerous.

--Jeff Davis 19:17, 20 Octobor 2005 (PDT) This is another area where early detection and prevention would be the main defense. This document discusses the implications for the trucking industry. It talks about adding background checks, GPS tracking, driver authentication measures, etc.

What if we could solve the airplane threat and the trucking threat with technology? Commercial airplanes and commercial trucks have one thing in common: their intended destination is known in advance. Why not build them so that the route is pre-programmed by a central tracking station or air traffic control and any deviation from that route must be authorized by someone other than the driver/pilot. Trucks could refuse to start if GPS detects they've strayed to far off their course. Airplanes are more difficult since you can't just land them, but they could refuse to change their course until approved by air traffic control.

--Gmusick 17:14, 23 October 2005 (PDT) Just a small point about a ship full of fuel. It wouldn't be nearly as bad as the explosives because fuel cannot release as much energy as quickly as TNT or nitroglycerin or what have you.

As for the trucks, I have occassionally wondered since 9/11 how bad it would be if a tanker truck was hijacked here in Seattle, driven under the convention center on I-5 and detonated with a relatively small amount of explosives. The loss of life would be minimal, but the economic damage would be tremendous especially if it caused serious structural damage. And if an adversary could simultaneously pull that off on the viaduct or the Battery Street tunnel...bad news. Essentially all north-south commerce in the greater Seattle area would be brought to a halt.

Spreading a highly contagious disease

--Parvez Anandam 00:32, 21 October 2005 (PDT): Possibly one of the simplest ways to spread a contagious disease is to infect several people with it and make sure they get into contact with as many others as possible. Now, to die a protracted and painful death is certainly not a glamorous end for a terrorist; few would choose it willingly. However, there is some evidence that certain terrorist organizations will lie to their members about the nature of their mission. It is plausible then that members of such organizations would subject themselves to injections if they believed, for example, that they were receiving a vaccination of some kind and that their mission was some concocted one. I worry about the possibility of a dozen odd terrorists being injected (voluntarily or otherwise) with a highly contagious disease before they board an international flight to a target city. On landing, they would merely have to wander about in crowded places over the next few days to infect people with the disease. I'm not sure how to bound the number of ensuing fatalities but a couple of hundred deaths does not seem unreasonable.

--Pravin Mittal

I agree with you that for terrorists, it would be easier to get volunteers who will be willing to to get self-infect themselves to carry out such dastardly act. But there remain couple of problems which these terroist may have:

1) They need to find viral/bacterial agents which are easily communicable from human to human through air just being at the small distance.

2) Incubation period needs to be at least 2-3 days for it to show symptons so that it can spread to wide area before detection. If not, first few victims will acts as "canaries of coal mine" who will quarantined to control the pandemic.

2) Even they cross the first two hurdles, I think the biggest hurdle may be their ability to contain such epidemic to limited geographical location. Their goal is to make political statement by intimidating public or coercing government of particular government (Maurer). For example, Al-Qaeeda tries to carry out such attack on New York but as there are numerous daily flights connecting New York to Pakistan there is a possibility an infected person (which in turn infect all his/her co-passengers) boards such flight. The scope of the spread within few days will be worldwide irrespective where country/city is launched? Millions of innocent people will die in each and every country actually more so in countries highly populated counteries like Pakistan, Afghanistan where they may not have enough vaccination or advance health care system does not exists. Reason it will backfire and cause more harm where they have popular support deter these kinds of attacks.

--Pravin Mittal

--Naseef 16:08, 22 October 2005 (PDT)

--Imran Ali 10:47, 25 October 2005 (PDT) For point 2, I would agree that a terrorist may potentially cause a global outbreak of a disease rather than infecting a small population of people. However, I found some articles on the Web relating to populations that have genetic predispositions to developing disease. Could a terrorist somehow engineer a disease that would target a small segment of a population? It may be unlikely given that the disease would have to be contagious and be easily transmitted, but the possibility may exist. The following article, [1], states: "Asian Americans are also at increased risk of hepatitis B virus infection due to high HBV infection levels in their communities, but Asian American children 4-14 years old are likely not to be protected against hepatitis B virus infection (MDH survey data, 1999)."

Things we can do to be prepared if there is bomb attack

--Naseef 16:09, 22 October 2005 (PDT) Both the speakers spoke that vigilance, police work, alertness from us is really instumental in combatting terrorism in its own way. Although prevention is always better than cure, there are few things we could do to minimize the aftermath of a bomb attack. It might be very difficult not to panic in such situations, however going though an drill where one mocks a situtation of a bomb attack would really help to handle such situations better and minimize the effect.

My top picks of things we could do to be prepared would be: 1: Know the community disaster plan. Most of the time the city would have had a disaster plan in place. This can be easily found from the fire department or from the city website. 2: Get to know the hospitals around your community. It is also a good idea to look into the hospitals in the neighboring cities. 3: Study the area where we live and look for alternative routes to get out of the disaster area real quick. 4: Read some websites that provide good info on some backup plans. These are the ones that I try to read when i get time. http://www.redcross.org/preparedness/cdc_english/CDC.asp http://www.redcross.org/services/disaster/0,1082,0_589_,00.html http://www.bt.cdc.gov/

Preventing detonation of a stolen nuclear weapon by using Permissive Action Links (PALs)

--Jeff Bilger 14:09, 25 October 2005 (PDT) During the last lecture, it was noted that a terrorist organization could buy or steal a nuclear weapon. If this did indeed occur, would they be able to detonate the device? Some research on the Internet revelated that U.S. developed nuclear bombs have several levels of security built in to the triggering/detonation devices to ensure that a stolen bomb can not be detonated. link.

Although it seems that Russia's nuclear arsenal has less adequate locking mechanisms. link

Lecture 8

Professor Muller, of the states currently possessing nuclear weapons, which have thermo-nuclear capability?

Professor Muller, are there any other seriously considered views (i.e. opposing/differing) regarding cancer and radiation other than the linear hypothesis?

Professor Muller, what are your thoughts on tactical nuclear weapons and depleted uranium weapons -- are they capable of providing effects significantly greater than or different than conventinal weapons?

Mr. Fitch, of known biological weapons, which is the most deadly?

Mr. Fitch, does the United States still maintain the bio-weapons it produced prior to Nixon's 1969 moratorium or have they been destroyed? Was that moratorium put in place by executive order or via another instrument?

Mr. Fitch, Dean Nacht, Professor Maurer, given that the USSR had massive stockpiles of nuclear weapons, do we have any indication of what their motivating factor/drive was to continue on with such a huge biological weapons program (i.e. to develop as an alternative to nukes because cheaper, not as detectable, etc. or we they working on them because they believed that we or one of our allies were and they were studying them for counter-abilities sake)?

Mr. Fitch, were the bio-weapons created by the USSR destroyed or are they still being maintained by Russia? Has Russia continued on where the USSR left off with respect to designing such weapons? Is there a fear, similar to the one surrounding nuclear materials, that former-USSR bio-weapons will be stolen and/or purchased by terrorist organizations? Are there any "rogue states" out there that have been able to approach the USSR program, or that are actively attempting to?

Ecological Attack – Is the US undefended when it comes to an ecological attack?

Avichal 17:12, 25 October 2005 (PDT) In our assigned reading [2] an example is given of how the introduction of rabbits in Australia has spiraled into a looming problem for them. While that example may be a bit extreme, US is already suffering from infestation of foreign plants, animals and disease agents by seemingly natural means. About a fourth of this country's agricultural gross national product is lost each year to foreign plant pests and the costs of controlling them [3]. What if terrorist organizations realize this as an opportunity and specifically target the US ecosystem. Well, I agree it doesn’t have the impact of flying a plane into a building. But how long can we rely on our assumptions about current and future terrorist groups.

It was mentioned in the class that a cryptographic method fails or is broken when an assumption it makes is no longer valid. You can stretch that argument and say that Sep 11 attacks occurred because of many assumptions that US had which were invalid.

Ecological attacks could be a low cost and low risk means of causing significant economic damage to the US and maybe someone might actually consider it someday.