Hacking the President’s DNA -- The Apparent Future Of Bio-Weapons

Now this sounds like something out of a Tom Clancy Novel.

Making specific biological agents to take down certain people. Personal poisons, that sounds about right?

Source

The U.S. government is surreptitiously collecting the DNA of world leaders, and is reportedly protecting that of Barack Obama. Decoded, these genetic blueprints could provide compromising information. In the not-too-distant future, they may provide something more as well—the basis for the creation of personalized bioweapons that could take down a president and leave no trace.

Imagine if the future of warfare is no longer conventional weaponry, but targetted, biological agents designed to kill certain folks. We all know our DNA has genetic markers that only a certain percentage of the population share.

What happens when the "Green Eyed" psycho tries to take out everybody with brown eyes? That example is silly of course, but we've all been around for the Eugenics conversations.

We know that some in Nazi Germany for example, were attempting to find ways to genetically change the landscape.

So the question becomes: Is it more dangerous to play defense and hope for the best, or to go on offense and prepare for the worst? Neither choice is terrific, but even beyond the important issues of cost and talent attraction, open-sourcing—as Claire Fraser, the director of the Institute for Genome Sciences at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, points out—“would level the playing field, removing the need for intelligence agencies to plan for every possible worst-case scenario.”

That's a good question. We tried our hand at being over zealous after 911, and look where that's gotten us. Is it wise to start ramping up these projects and programs when we know how generally inneficient our current government institutions are?

Are there really going to be that many groups making biological weapons moving forward? Is it hard to obtain and produce and then disperse among the populace? What are the odds of a group getting that close to any official here in the west from high points of office?

The President? The VP?

I'm not sure what the answer is, but it's certainly an interesting concept.

~Tenth

Are there really going to be that many groups making biological weapons moving forward?

is this a stock tip? or a dire warning.
kidding! i'll check out the link you've posted now.

It is encoded language pertaining to protecting the President's DNA from being CLONED.


Cloned heads of state are definitely a serious security issue. See the Clone Conspiracy threads in the Skunk Works section of ATS for more details.


There is another potential risk of DNA getting hacked - but we'd have to know what all that "Junk DNA" actually does. Apparently there are those who do know, and realize that a person's DNA can be tweaked to get them to know things they didn't, forget things they did, and maybe be someone they're not?


Getsmart

According to Ronald Kessler, the author of the 2009 book In the President’s Secret Service, Navy stewards gather bedsheets, drinking glasses, and other objects the president has touched—they are later sanitized or destroyed—in an effort to keep would‑be malefactors from obtaining his genetic material.

I would hate to be the one who had to clean up after he used the loo!

In all seriousness, that was an intriguing article. Chock full of information. Great read during a storm, thanks!

I`m not sure how to take this , if its bull # then i dont understand what drives a fully grown man to talk utter cack , but if its true then Obama is Osama the draconian clone of Amun Ra and we`re all gonna get tied up for the alien feast in 2013.

i had previously heard of the secret service collecting everything that would give away the president's DNA, but i thought that was to prevent anyone discovering he was a clone.
this article gives a much more 'pc', but still disturbing, take on that.

also, i read the whole linked article ... i can't believe how long that was!
almost blew my eyeballs out!
too bad i can't 'mail-order' myself some new ones [yet]!

Genetic tampering, even GMO crops, is a crime against humanity. It destroys our global heritage. it victimizes every creature on the planet. And it should be outlawed.

I get this sneaking suspicion that Pandora's Box contains.....a wasteland devoid of life.

A spooky awesome thread Tenth. If someone wanted your DNA they could surely get it. Scary for sure.

Originally posted by howmuch4another
A spooky awesome thread Tenth. If someone wanted your DNA they could surely get it. Scary for sure.

That's the really interesting part isn't it? How much organic DNA material does one person just leave lying around now a days?

I'm worried enough about people getting my credit cards and PC passwords, let alone genetic Material.

~Tenth

many parents are persuaded to give their childs dna [by a cheek swab?] to variuos agencies who claim it can be used to identify/locate missing children. i think it was masons doing a big project like that i recently read of.

reply to post by tothetenthpower


Hi To The 10th Power,


You are quite right to be alarmed by the potential that lies in the pirating of your DNA. If an ill intending party acquires your DNA they can actually make a COPY OF YOU. I imagine that you wouldn't find it very nice if somebody duplicated you without your consent? After all - you are unique! Are you not entitled to remain so?


If your DNA was stolen and used for illegitimate purposes, somebody could maybe make a copy of you and then use it to threaten you: "Do as we say, or we can replace you with this copy if you don't comply!" While unlikely, this is not entirely impossible. They could also go further. If they felt ready to replace you with the copy if you don't "play ball", they could simply just go ahead with it without even trying to enlist your cooperation.


Using doubles, replacements and impostors for Heads of State is a common practice. It has been done for various reasons, for security purposes in high risk situations where there might be a danger of attack, to scramble tracks when hostile forces might be monitoring, enabling secret meetings while a double is used for public display elsewhere, reassuring public opinion with a healthy double when a leader is ill, and in rare cases maintaining a regime in place when a head of state is no longer alive for a variety of possible reasons.


In fact there might be a heightened risk of the last eventuality when the President's DNA might be fully replicated and produce a fully identical duplicate of his body - the mind remaining more challenging at this date to duplicate.


Getsmart

Actually, this could be quite an issue...

With the recent discovery of genes being able to hold vast amounts of data, and possibly even memories, wouldn't a President's DNA be the biggest national security risk in history?

Think about it... send a nanobot or such to collect a DNA sample from a world leader, return it to the laboratory, decode the sequence and see what you can find; IE, nuclear codes, national secrets, locations of military facilities, etc.

It's quite 'out there', but definately plausible in the future I would think.

Gotta love theory crafting!

Or, on the other side, injecting a new genetic sequence into a world leader to attempt to 'reprogram' them. Perhaps implant false memories or character/critical thinking flaws to bring about a possible disaster or at a minimum force an administration change. Or to make a long time enemy into a friend.

reply to post by Dreine


That's actually quite scary.

The whole idea of genetic modifications & such scare the hell out of me.

~Tenth

reply to post by Dreine


I'd say you are ripe for dark ops think tanks...