Smallpox in the Garage

Stewart Abercrombie Baker
June 3, 2010

I joined the Department of Homeland Security to create its Policy office in 2005, not long after the 9/11 commission ascribed those attacks to a failure of imagination on the part of counterterrorism officials. One of my jobs, as I saw it, was to head off future failures of imagination. We needed to spend some time thinking about how technology might enable other attacks -- as shocking and unexpected at 9/11 had been. We did indeed spend time thinking about other risks. Some of them were so likely and so devastating that they haunt me still.
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If current trends continue, anyone who can get his hands on a computer virus today will soon be able to get his hands on a custom built biological virus.

And who can get his hands on a computer virus today? In an age of drop-down-menu malware attacks, the answer is simple.

Anyone who wants to.