The genome has thousands of publicly documented, unpatchable security vulnerabilities, previously called "genetic diseases." Because emerging DNA/RNA technologies, including CRISPR-Cas9 and especially those arising from the Cancer Moonshot program, will create straightforward methods to digitally reprogram the genome in free-living humans, malicious exploitation of genomic vulnerabilities will soon be possible on a wide scale.
This presentation shows the breathtaking potential for such hacks, most notably the exquisite targeting precision that the genome supports — in effect, population, and time — spanning annoyance to organized crime to civilization-ending pandemics far worse than Ebola.
Because humans are poor at responding to less-than-immediate threats, and because there is no marketplace demand for defensive technologies on the DNA/RNA platform, the hacker community has an important role to play in devising thought-experiments to convince policy makers to initiate defensive works, before offensive hacks can be deployed in the wild. Hackers can literally save the world... from ourselves.
