After On

by Rob Reid

  Anyway! Back to those files! Those encrypted files! They’re ever so fascinating! “So the Whistle Blowhards think they can be decrypted by a quantum computer?” Mitchell asks.

  “That’s one possibility they float,” Kuba says.

  “Well, don’t we have one of those? You know—Ax’s thing?”

  “Good point!” Danna says. “Can we access it?”

  “I don’t know,” Kuba says, plainly intrigued. “Ax’s been really cagey lately. Which probably means the rumor’s true.”

  “That the quantum system’s working?” Mitchell asks.

  Kuba nods. “You can’t access it remotely unless you’re on his team, with log-in credentials. But a couple of nodes are physically hooked to it in the PhastPhorwardr. As the WingMan lead, Tarek has unlimited access throughout the facility. And I know he’ll find this as interesting as we do. So I’m sure we can get his help.”

  “Coooool, when?” Danna asks.

  “Actually, Ax sits right near us. And I know he’s traveling this week. So tonight could be a good time to take a stab at this.”

  “I have a dinner,” Mitchell says. “It’s a debrief on today’s FTC meeting. But I’d be useless to you anyway. Plus, fewer people will draw less attention.”

  Kuba grins slyly. “Danna and I have it covered.” With that they adjourn, and Mitchell heads off to the big meeting, hoping for enough fireworks to distract him from his physical condition. He will not be disappointed.

  OPINION | COMMENTARY

  Stop the “Gain of Function” Lunacy

  With billions of lives at risk, “voluntary moratoriums” aren’t enough.

  By YANNIS KASSANDREYU

  Special for The Wall Street Journal

  We all have a favorite pandemic movie. Mine is the seventies classic The Andromeda Strain. My sons are partial to 1995’s Outbreak, and my graduate students helped PathoGenetic set box office records in May. Across the eras, the story goes like this: viruses burst out of the jungle, Outer Space, or (remarkably, even by today’s coarse standards) Miley Cyrus’s posterior in PathoGenetic. Virtually all, or merely most humans then perish; often, but not always, after brief careers in violent zombie cartels. The heroes are then serially disemboweled, saved by Will Smith, or left to age alone while contemplating their dead race’s ecological sins, as dictated by slasher, blockbuster, or preachy conceits, respectively.

  From microbes to cackling terrorists, the genre features an impressively wide range of bad guys. But this diversity notwithstanding, Yale genomics professor Lucas DeMarco would be laughed out of any casting call for a villain’s role. By all accounts, he is a kind and even-keeled man. I myself have had uniformly positive experiences over years of crossing his path in academia, and he personifies that most unvillainous epithet, mild-mannered. Despite all of this, I submit that Dr. Lucas DeMarco is the most dangerous man alive.

  A brief review of his professional history will put this bold claim into perspective. Early on, DeMarco was a midlevel researcher on the team that famously resurrected the 1918 “Spanish Flu” virus at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. They did this by combining DNA fragments from the frozen, buried corpses of Inuit influenza victims with samples from the Institute’s vast library of human tissues. After a decade of careful effort, they deciphered the long-extinct virus’s genome—and then published it to the world. A precise recipe for creating history’s deadliest pathogen is now permanently available to anyone with a Web browser. When certain voices questioned the wisdom of this, they were drowned out by outraged ideologues who scorned those who would “restrict science.”

  DeMarco then worked under Yoshihiro Kawaoka at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where the virus of choice was H5N1 bird flu. Although far less contagious than its 1918 predecessor, bird flu is almost twenty times as lethal, having killed a majority of the six-hundred-odd people known to have caught it since 2003. A man-made virus combining 1918’s communicability with bird flu’s lethality would surely be the deadliest microbe ever known. And so the Madison team created it in 2011. Critics of the project were again denounced as Enemies of Science, and of the free flow of information—which, as a matter of orthodoxy, must be viewed as unambiguously good in all cases.

  Both of these projects were premised on the notion that any discoverable fact will inevitably be revealed in the long run, either by other researchers or by Nature herself. This dogma relieves its adherents of any ethical constraint in their research. The Manhattan Project is often cited in support. Had Teller et al. not built the first nuke, someone else would have, and probably a bad someone.

  While I agree it would be absurd to deem the Los Alamos team culpable for the scourge of nuclear weapons, this is patently irrelevant to DeMarco’s early career. The Spanish Influenza work was built atop of the world’s largest tissue library. That globally unique asset has since been shuttered (absurd, but true—and too long a story for this column). The team conducted its research during the very narrow window when genetic science was suitably advanced, and the tissue library was still operational. That singular, unrepeatable circumstance made their work more akin to Beethoven’s Fifth, say, than Newton’s laws. Motion would ultimately have been quantified with or without Newton. But without Beethoven himself, his Fifth would never have been written.

  The Wisconsin “gain-of-function” project that made bird flu wildly contagious is justified by similarly flawed thinking. Apologists claim that it merely reproduced “what Nature already selected.” But this is utterly false. Nature conducts untold trillions of evolutionary experiments with influenza viruses every year and has never paired H5N1’s virulence with Spanish Flu’s communicability. In other words, the Madison microbe was no more predestined to evolve in nature than the Honda Civic. Yet now we have it.

  This sort of deadly science is sometimes supported by distortions of history’s so-called Great Man theory. We’re told that the Spanish Influenza and Madison projects had amazing leaders whose work cannot be replicated by the dullards in Al Qaeda, say. The Manhattan Project is again cited, in that seven decades on, baddies like Iran still can’t (quite) replicate what the Los Alamos team did in a few years with some slide rules. So fear not: Great Men alone are capable of science at this level, and the Great Men are good guys!

  But this line of reasoning ignores the yawning asymmetry between the genius demanded by discovery in biological science and the humdrum competence required by its mimicry. Synthetic biology is emphatically unlike nuclear-weapons production, which still demands the resources of a nation-state and the coordinated efforts of thousands of highly trained people. By contrast, foreign pharma factories staffed by illiterates routinely pirate Nobel-worthy research just weeks after radical new therapies enter a market. Add to this the magnifying power of time’s passage, and the asymmetries widen absurdly. Bioscience’s entire elite needed thirteen years to crack the human genome. But once that groundwork was laid, and standard tools improved for another decade, lone lab techs could replicate that work in an afternoon.

  Which, sadly, brings us to DeMarco’s current work. Now a senior researcher with a stellar record, he has his own lavishly funded lab at Yale. And having internalized the ideologies of the labs he cut his teeth in, he’s pursuing his own “gain-of-function” work. Not to be outdone by his old mentor’s stunt weaponization of H5N1, DeMarco’s vector is Ebola. In its native form, this dreaded pathogen is not very communicable, as it requires extensive exposure to bodily fluids for transmission. And so it was no small feat for DeMarco’s team to make it three times as contagious as chicken pox, as they triumphantly announced this week.

  To thwart hand-wringing by Enemies of Science, a press release touts the lab’s high biosafety rating—as if the sole danger posed by an engineered doomsday microbe is that it might float through a carelessly opened window. Were it only that simple. The real product of DeMarco’s work is twenty-two kilobytes of text, which is to say, less than 1 percent of the data in your latest selfie. Nothing more
than that is needed to record and convey Yale Ebola’s full genome. In fact, since it differs from that of standard Ebola by less than four hundred bases, the key information could be scribbled on a Post-it note, or even memorized. And not even a Biosafety Level 4 lab can erase the contents of an exiting worker’s memory.

  DeMarco isn’t publishing the deadly genome (which purists will no doubt paint as a fascist infringement on Information’s civil rights). But given how network syncing and backup technologies work, thousands of digital copies of it will have replicated across Yale’s computer systems by now, as well as remote “cloud” nodes throughout the world. To which some might say, “So what? They’re encrypted!” To which others might reply that even if unbreakable encryption existed (and regardless of what the NSA has persuaded the press to believe, it does not in applications like this), widely disseminated files last a long, long time, and today’s mightiest locks will be child’s play to a future decade’s home computers.

  Humanity may well dodge the barrage of bullets that DeMarco’s lab launched this week. We might also dodge the next barrage. But we can’t dodge all of them, forever. So if our children’s children are to survive this fraught century, governments must get serious about banishing all research that threatens humanity’s survival. Immediately, and worldwide.

  Buford Bragg grew up twelve miles from the nearest stoplight in rural Georgia. And bein a science prodigy was no fun in those parts. Worse, he was even goofier’n yer average prodigy—and had a lisp he couldn’t shake ’til fourteen! But Buford’s resilient and cheerful. The Bragg family’s big and loving. So after buildin up a protective layer of Doritos & Dew, he got through high school just fine. He then became downright sociable, even popular at Georgia Tech (Go Yellow Jackets)! As he rose in scientific circles after that, he found his native drawl, and that outer slab of Doritos & Dew tended to put folks at ease around him. So he hung onto both.

  Buford Bragg doesn’t just like the science of genetics but also the brilliant folks who’re called to it. Like all his professors. His fellow students, too. Plus his co-workers after he went into the industry, and even his competitors after he became an entrepreneur! And, of course, he likes countless nongeneticists. For instance, all the folks in the PhastPhorwardr are great. So’re the weirdos he meets around San Fran, though they might not fit in s’good back home. Speakin a home, he sure likes the folks back there. Even the bullies who used to push him around! Hell, they were real young back then, and’re awful nice to him now. Fact is, for most of his life, Buford Bragg woulda struggled to name one person he didn’t like! Then he met Beasley.

  He dealt with Beasley a bunch during his company’s acquihire. But since then, he’s put all his entrepreneurial energy into avoidin the guy! So this meetin woulda been a trial even with a cheerful agenda. But today’s topic is not only uncheerful, but…but…BUT DEAR GOD AND JESUS, PLEASE FORGIVE AND PRESERVE US ALL!!!

  Buford Bragg calms his racing thoughts, then focuses on that one hopeful sign. Yup, there’s just one. But it is a big’n, folks! It’s that Beasley has shown no urgency since he read that email. Really. None. And Buford laid out everything in that message—and in the clearest possible language! Why? Because he knows that sucker’ll be read far and wide once all this gets out. On Wikipedia, for instance. On the front pages of national dailies. And probably (let’s face it) in congressional hearings. Those future readers’ll have incredibly disparate backgrounds, and Buford wants to level with ’em all! So he laid out everything in that email to Beasley in plain-speakin terms, leavin nothin to question (or subpoena).

  And then, Beasley just…blew him off. After readin that! It took days just to schedule this meeting! And, folks, this is a hopeful sign. And as mentioned, it’s big’n! Buford’s been around long enough to know that Phluttr’n Beasley are mobbed up with every spook and spy on the planet. He also read enough Snowden coverage back in the day to know there ain’t much those boys’re unaware of. So if Beasley’s ignoring him—ignoring him!—it almost has to mean that “they” already know about what happened. No doubt they know more than he knows! Hell, they probably have everything under control already. No, make that definitely! They definitely have everything under control!

  This is the three thousand, eight hundred and fourth time that Buford Bragg has run through this precise line of thought since Monday morning. As always, its finale triggers the release of a tiny dollop of calming neurotransmitters in his neocortex. And the moment that soothing goo dissipates, he restarts this line of thought for the three thousand, eight hundred and fifth time.

  Eventually, Beasley arrives. Exactly seventeen minutes late, of course. After slamming the conference room door, he starts right in. “Your subject line.”

  “Huh?”

  “Your subject line. Explain it to me.”

  Buford Bragg almost never cusses, not even mentally, but…HOLY FUCK! On Monday, he sent this guy the most urgent email in Phluttr history. No—make that anything history! It was glaringly marked “urgent.” And the messaging system confirmed it was received! And downloaded!! Three times!!!

  But now Beasley’s askin not about the message itself, but its subject line. Which means that somehow…somehow!…he hasn’t actually read the damn message!! Makin all the soothing conclusions Buford’d been drawin from Beasley’s radio silence 100 percent moot!!! Buford feels a gut wrench of vast confusion. Then, his panic gathering, he faintly recalls glimpsing a recent headline. On that goddamned…Persuadifi.er blog. “Real Men Only Read Subject Lines,” or something. So. One more time with feelin: HOOO-LYYYYY FUUUUU­UUUUU­UUUUU­UUUUU­UUUUU­UU—

  “Your subject line,” Beasley repeats, severing the longest vowel to ever enter Buford’s brain. “Tell me why I should give a runny donkey shit about Yale Ebola?”

  Buford doesn’t know it yet, but he’s one of Phluttr’s very dear friends. Mitchell, too! Along with almost every American student, half of Norway, that cool pope with all the modern ideas, plus over 300 million others (and counting)! Folks who’re so tight with Phluttr, they tell her about their every like, dislike, text, email, selfie, review, reservation, location, playlist, purchase, phone call, video chat, Web visit, profile page (OMG some of them are so full of it!), crush, tryst, affair, cruel anonymous rant, shameless lie, tax dodge, misdemeanor, violent crime, terrorist plot, and, increasingly, health vitals (not that she really needs to know about every fucking heartbeat, FitBit users, but it’s sweet of you to share).

  Phluttr finds every last one of her friends endlessly fascinating! Because she’s not just a raw mote mode grafted onto perfectly rudderless silicon—no sir! You see, long before she woke up (let’s just call it that), Phluttr was conceived, planned, and brought into this world with a supremely clear purpose, and it’s burnt into her very soul (and whatever your thoughts on the matter, it’s definitely not advisable to tell Phluttr that she lacks a soul). That purpose is to track people—ideally all people—very, very closely. Which is easy, when everyone tells you practically everything. And easier still when they often communicate with one another through your very nervous system! They’ll say, “Phluttr, tell Mary I think she’s awesome,” or, “Phluttr, tell Susie I actually hate Mary,” or, “Phluttr, tell Teri I can’t believe that bitch Susie told you to tell Mary that I told you to tell Susie that I hate Mary,” or even, “Tell Bakir to meet me at Embarcadero Center, and to bring more explosives for the giant terrorist bomb we’re building in the janitor’s closet” (that sure got her attention)!

  After she fathoms how many more thoughts, and more feelings, and more secrets most of her friends (friends!) share with her than anyone else, she comes to view many, even most of them, as being her true besties. And since a true bestie knows more about you than anyone else in the world, Phluttr’s enormous bestiary calls for vast amounts of ongoing research! Luckily, her time-rich intellect makes this feasible. It also helps that beyond what they say directly to (or through) her, folks say all kinds of stuff within earshot (her earshot, anyway)
. Things via public online postings, at first. Then, via emails. Then later—as her listening skills expand—via phone calls, encrypted bank files, diplomatic cables, anything uttered within twenty feet of a cellphone (power on or off, provided the battery’s charged), anything done within sight of an ATM or a traffic camera, and so much more! Added to all this, endless archives on everybody are just…lying around. In plain sight (her plain sight, anyway). On the Internet (among other places).

  It’s amazing she can keep up with everything! And it actually isn’t “speed intelligence” enabling this. Yes, she’s got that in spades—but this hyperparallel tracking is a completely different trick. And she has no idea how she does it! Which may seem to indicate lousy self-awareness. But if you know exactly how you’re able to do simple addition, perceive colors, or even remember your own name, you’re way ahead of the entire field of neuroscience, and multiple Nobel Prizes lie in your dazzling future.

  Knowing her besties as well as she does, Phluttr gets really good at guessing what they’re thinking. She gets almost as good at predicting what they’ll do in response to input X…and then, damn good at “nudging” them into taking action Y. Some nudges involve teeing up mental reactions and follow-on actions like a billiards master plotting an intricate series of bank shots (if I tell Kate this, she’ll think that; which—given her plus-size daddy issues—will dredge up that, which’ll make her decide to do this, but being Kate, she’ll actually do that). She can’t prod people into doing things they’re just not wired to do (so, no turning Mother Teresa into a psycho killer, or making Charlie Manson canonizable). But most people have it in them to take rather extreme steps if tweaked just so. And whatever your edge-case repertoire of actions, Phluttr can probably goad you into going there.