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Comment by eternityforest | Hacker News Reader

Could at least some bio computers be hacked to print ebola viruses?

Yes, but that's essentially like hacking a CPM machine to emit a Microsoft Word macro virus. It's not that it wouldn't work, it's that it's a lot of extra effort for no particular reason except maybe bragging rights.

If the goal is to use a bio computer to compromise a biological system, a more likely pathway would be to get the programmable system to construct something more like a prion (an auto-catalyzing protein complex) rather than faffing about with all the extra complexity and layers of indirection of an infectious virus.

If your target bio system is a plant rather than an animal, constructing a viroid might be worth the effort.

From someone who has reconsistuted viruses from synthetic DNA - it’s WAY easier than working with prions, or even viroids for that matter. The fact they package themselves and release themselves, while being formed of genetic sequence, is SUPER nice. Any bio computer doing sequence manipulation will probably find it way easier to use a virus-like replicating “malware”

I guess it depends on whether the replicator is supposed to replicate on the bio computer platform or on a biological platform.

The biocomputing platform needs to not only assemble the sequence but also assemble the (or at least "a") protein encapsulation for initial delivery to an organism.

> for no particular reason except maybe bragging rights.

Hmmmm. If we're talking about actually wanting to infect someone with an engineered virus, then using something with sequences widely attributed to some other group could be used as cover.

Along the lines of "they were infected by a Russian variant of ebola". Or any other group, false flag operation type of thing.

Hopefully this doesn't become an actual thing. :(

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