The case of the 18yo teen who was arrested last week for spreading
a variant of that computer worm got me thinking.

He faces 10 years or more in prison and a huge fine. Why is it
that spreading a computer virus is punished so harshly while
spreading the HIV virus goes virtually unpunished? The guy's
computer virus didn't even really cause any damage, only an
inconvenience, but those who spread HIV inflict misery and
an unpleasant death upon their victims.

Poop Dogg wrote:

Spreading is not the same as designing.

It is the victim computers who do the spreading,
and they are also not punished.

Huge difference.


Hayek.

Actually you are both wrong a large majority of the States in the US have
laws on the book that make deliberately (knowingly) spreading HIV a felony.
Most of those laws provide a stiffer penalty then 10 years, they generally
are on a par with the penalty for attempted murder. There have been a
significant number of trials and convictions. Though typically the only way
the laws are enforced is if someone who has become infected lodges a
complaint with a local prosecutor thus instigating an investigation.

Gary Stein

"Hayek" <hayektt@nospam.xs4all.nl> wrote in message
news:3F59F62F.8010801@nospam.xs4all.nl...

"Gary Stein" wrote in message ...
Conceded. I just checked Nevada law and it imposes a 2-10 year sentence
and a $10,000 fine. I tend to go on rants, it pisses me off that a
guy who spread a relatively harmless computer worm (which he didn't even
write, he simply modified it to include his computer handle, something
that led to his capture - what a dumbass) can face such a harsh
punishment while there are so many people out there deliberately spreading
HIV. I say deliberate because new cases of drug resistant infections
are appearing, something that can only be explained by HIV+ individuals
on drug therapy spreading their virus. While illegal, I don't see the
government devoting even the tiniest fraction of the resources it spent
tracking down that computer virus idiot.

I don't know if the technology exists but it would be great if they
could sequence the DNA of every HIV infection and keep it on file to
compare to new cases. DNA analysis could show who the virus
originated from, then that person could be arrested and prosecuted.
It certainly would be a great deterrant. I wonder if it's possible -
the HIV virus mutates so rapidly that tracing its lineage might be
impossible.

The Terrorist Group FC wrote:

Sure sign that it is not a virus replicating, but
human genome that is tested.

One can only conclude that each era must have its
witchhunters, no matter how much money is spent on
"science".

Hayek.

On Thu, 18 Sep 2003, Hayek wrote:

<blinks>

Error rate of human genome replication, approx. 1 in 1 billion.
Error rate of HIV replication, 1 in 10,000.

Virology 101 - viruses mutate faster than their cellular hosts.

But despite that, lineage tracing can and has been done in the past, to
address the more cogent point. There are predominant strains present in
every infected individual, and these seem to persist for a while (implying
there's some kind of selective pressure on them).

Cheers

Bennett

"Hayek" wrote in message <3f69c03a$0$130$e4fe514c@dreader5.news.xs4all.nl>. ..
Hmmm? I'm not sure what you mean.

I don't consider a system to track spreading of the HIV virus by
those who are known to have the virus to be a "witch hunt."
The system I propose won't have any effect on those who
unknowingly carry the virus, simply those who have already tested
HIV+ and are undergoing treatment whose virus has been sequenced
and entered into a database. I'm not sure exactly how big a
problem it currently is, but it IS a problem. The system would
be a big incentive for known HIV+ individuals to either abstain
from sex or at least practice safe sex to avoid transmission.

"Nick Bennett" wrote in message ...
I recall that lineage tracing was done some time back in the case of
the man who claimed to have been infected by that evil dentist who
deliberately injected his patients with the virus (victim Kimberly
Bergalis, the young virgin who died of AIDS as a result). The man
in question had a huge legal battle with the dentist's insurance
company which tried to claim he caught the HIV virus independently,
not as a result of the dentist's actions. The guy had to spend a
bunch of money to conduct lineage testing to prove that the virus
did indeed come from the evil dentist. I'm not sure if the
testing rose to the level of what I am proposing (actual full DNA
sequence) but it was sufficient for him to win his case.

Nick Bennett wrote:

Completely besides the point.

There does not have to be "an error". Just
"different" human genome.

"Virology 101" ?

Human genome also has similarities.

Hayek.

Poop Dogg wrote:

Dna tests can prove that

a- you differ from your neigbour.
b- you are related to chimpansees.

If hiv-dna mutates so fast, but just not fast
enough that you can do lineage testing, that
sounds like perfect voodoo science to me. It does
not have to be equal, but not too different.
Definitely Monkey bussiness.

Hayek.

"Hayek" <hayektt@nospam.xs4all.nl> wrote in message
news:3f6ce354$0$23543$e4fe514c@dreader7.news.xs4al l.nl...
Boy Nick, you sure are trusting and gullible. You're not a child are
you? What makes you so confident of the veracity of the very salient part of
the Bergalis story that she was indeed a virgin? That kind of thing is easy
to misrepresent you know, especially when with your parents and in front of
the news camera. I imagine you're equally convinced that Ms. Bergalis was
free of any other habits or traits which would be harmful to her health.
Come on...you're a scientist, look deeper than just the surface and don't
believe everything you read, you reflexive, superstitious, deluded robot of
AIDS, inc.

The man

"Jeff Hilton" wrote in message <_Ytcb.21102$iO.16282@bignews5.bellsouth.net>...
Whether she was a virgin or not, it doesn't explain how at least 5
others of the dentist's patients all contracted AIDS with no
apparent risk factors. It is highly improbable that the dentist
accidentally transmitted it through his skin, so that only leaves
injection as a possibility. There is no proof, but it is likely
the dentist deliberately mixed his blood with the novocaine and
injected it into his patients. I'll try to find the details, but
I'm pretty sure the CDC looked at everything including the viral
strains of dentist and patients, and concluded that deliberate
exposure was the only reasonable explanation.

On Thu, 25 Sep 2003, Jeff Hilton wrote:

(1) I didn't write that. (follow the attributions - twas Dogg)

(2) I wasn't referring to that story in what I _did_ write.

(3) Demeaning me doesn't get a reaction :-P

That kind of thing is easy
Regardless, if lineage testing showed that the viruses in that case were
the same (within the limitations of the test) then what other explaination
would you give? _Without_ lineage testing all your criticisms are valid.
With it they're, well, so much acidic rant.

Cheers

Bennett

On Sun, 21 Sep 2003, Hayek wrote:

Eh? You say that rapid mutation is "sure sign that it is not a
virus...but human genome" and I then say that the human genome DOESN'T
mutate repidly...and you say that's beside the point?

And that means...? Are you confusing error rate with mutations? They're
talking about the same thing. Differences in the human genome come about
by....errors in replication. Okay, so there's thymidine dimer formation,
strand breaks, triplet repeat slippage, homologous recombination and
deletion events (draws breath) but in the context of sequence changes and
lineage tracing, we're talking about polymerase error rates.

I think elementary English would help as well. But see above - I'm
talking about the same thing.

With what? An aardvark? A traffic warden? The Polish Navy on Maneouvers
in the South Pacific?

There may well be bits of the genome that look a little like bits of HIV,
but they're hardly convincing. Try comparing HIV-1 (accession k03455 in
Genbank) with the standard human sequences deposited there. Not a lot
last time I looked.

Bennett