Men who no longer stare at goats

Now want to put a rootkit/drm on DNA

According to Wired etc –

“Darpa is investing $6 million into a project called BioDesign, with the goal of eliminating “the randomness of natural evolutionary advancement.” The plan would assemble the latest bio-tech knowledge to come up with living, breathing creatures that are genetically engineered to “produce the intended biological effect.” Darpa wants the organisms to be fortified with molecules that bolster cell resistance to death, so that the lab-monsters can “ultimately be programmed to live indefinitely.”

Of course, Darpa’s got to prevent the super-species from being swayed to do enemy work — so they’ll encode loyalty right into DNA, by developing genetically programmed locks to create “tamper proof” cells. Plus, the synthetic organism will be traceable, using some kind of DNA manipulation, “similar to a serial number on a handgun.” And if that doesn’t work, don’t worry. In case Darpa’s plan somehow goes horribly awry, they’re also tossing in a last-resort, genetically-coded kill switch:”

Jesus Jumping H Jehosephat. I mean what could possibly go wrong?

Mind you – $6 million is bugger all. That’s how much Steve Austin cost back in the 70s, and although he could run really fast and do fast things with one arm… well… I doubt that you’d get $6 Million for him today.

No – the worrying thing about this is more to do with the fact that the people that we pay to act in our interests are fucking INSANE enough to think that

a) DRM is a good idea
b) DRM works
c) DRMed biotech weapons might be a good idea
d) DRMed biotech weapons wont lead to some sort of biotech weapons arms race which is even less controllable than the nuke one.
e) So we should make some and find out.
f) because this is somehow “defence”

And a kill switch? Isn’t that what Baron von Harkonnen had in his slaves? Fuck that. At least staring at goats was relatively harmless… I hear some of the goats actually quite enjoyed it.