For those wondering, the article makes an analogy between Thompson's 'Trusting Trust' paper and gene editing.
It wouldn't have surprised me to hear that Thompson had moved into gene hacking (at the age of 74) but I think he still works for Google.
It wouldn't have surprised me to hear that Thompson had moved into gene hacking (at the age of 74) but I think he still works for Google.
Well, I had to give advice to my son, and my advice to him—to the next generation—was to get into biology.
Definitely worth a read through the whole interview even if you don't agree.
[0] http://genius.cat-v.org/ken-thompson/interviews/unix-and-bey...
In the Trusting Trust attack, not only you change the compiler to miscompile the "login" program, but you change the compiler to miscompile the compiler itself so the "login" miscompilation persists even if you later revert all changes to the compiler source (as long as you use the new binary once, of course). Does this part of the attack have a gene drive analogy?
Wild type mosquito DNA: =================
Desired change to DNA: =============XX==
DNA encoding Cas9 and XX-Payload: =C9(XX)=
Gene Drivered Mosquito (before activation) (change to compiler): ====C9(XX)=============
Gene Drivered Mosquito (after activation) (change to login code): ====C9(XX)========XX===
------------------------------
A normal mosquito mating with a XX mutant mosquito:
Mother Gamete: -----------------
Father Gamete: -------------XX--
Mendelian fraction of children (and grandchildren) are either --, --/XX,, or XX/XX (if two chromosomal copies)
A normal mosquito mating with a Gene Drivered mosquito:
Mother Gamete: -----------------
Father Gamete: ---C9(XX)----XX--
All children: ====C9(XX)========XX=== (for all 'N' chromosomal copies)