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Comment by koeng | Hacker News Reader

> * A possible arms race between obfuscating and detecting unusual retrotranscriptases

Why, exactly?

Using living cells as a read/write storage medium also makes them a target for malware. It's not limited to ransomware and classics, but also fun new possibilities [1]. Figuring out how to implement W^X should be a top research priority.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4270005/

I don’t see how that has to do with obfuscating unusual reverse transcriptases, though. There are plenty of (if not more) DNA based transformation methods, and those enzymes are sufficiently widespread that it’s not unusual to find them nor is it particularly hard because of the structures

I think you're looking at this from a nuts and bolts perspective rather than a broader security mindset.

The incentives and goals for malware are what matter here. The first steps for satisfying those are always achieving undetected write and execution. In this context, RTs and everything else are just means to that end.

The broader security mindset is identifying the technologies that are most probably used in a situation where you need read and write. For example, in computer security, you wouldn't worry about a air-gapped UNIX server being infected by an online windows worm. Undetected write and execution are not enabled by RT, like, at all. Synthesis (write) is pretty much a DNA technology, and the only time that a RT is used is for proper viral packaging (lentiviral transformation, mostly). But there is also not really a need to obstruficate because there are tons of completely valid uses for lentriviral vectors. In fact, there are open source RT plasmids available because they can also be used for things like production of open source COVID tests (for example, during COVID I deposited this expression vector under open terms https://www.addgene.org/165556/ ). If you really want to get into the weeds, there are retrotranscriptases that are naturally expressed in humans: good luck with false positive hits on detection.

More broadly, in biology, there isn't really a thing as undetectable execution, because there are physical molecules floating around, and furthermore there are trillions of natural self-executing blobs in an arms race with the ribosomal world. Detecting execution, as technology gets better, is more of a problem of privacy than technology.

Undetected write is more important, but it is also important to identify the particular technologies that actually matter. It's not RTs, nor is it Cas9, nor is a lot of the things that people typically point out on hackernews, either.

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