FBI looks to pond for anthrax clues (CNN says anthrax detected from "object")

CNN ^ | 5/11/03 | Kevin Bohn and Kelli Arena

[TrebleRebel]

Well - the plot thickens - now we have a source leaking that anthrax has actually been found. But I don't understand the statement below. Surely if it's been ID'd as anthrax it's possible to grow unlimited quantities? You have to culture it to detect it.

"The amount of anthrax found was so small that the source did not know whether it could be compared to the type used in the anthrax mail attacks."

[TrebleRebel]

ping

[Fred Mertz]

Does the discovery of mobile laboratories in Iraq lead us back to a domestic suspect/person of interest in the headlines?

[TrebleRebel]

This could be a desperate attempt to force the "suspect" Hatfill to run. Who knows? But it certainly isn't consistent with trying to make distance between Hatfill and the anthrax attacks. If Hatfill was a willing patsy this is certainly not the way to finish the deception.

[Steely Tom]

The amount of anthrax found was so small that the source did not know whether it could be compared to the type used in the anthrax mail attacks.

Riiight. Whatever you say, officer.

(steely)

[wideminded]

Surely if it's been ID'd as anthrax it's possible to grow unlimited quantities? You have to culture it to detect it

Not necessarily. If you only had part of the DNA of one anthrax bacterium, you could build up a usable quantity of DNA using PCR and test the DNA directly (using various methods) without ever growing the anthrax.

If they have such a small sample, it raises the possibility that they are just seeing cross contamination from some other source. Hopefully they are careful enough to avoid this.

[TrebleRebel]

If you only had part of the DNA of one anthrax bacterium, you could build up a usable quantity of DNA using PCR and test the DNA directly (using various methods) without ever growing the anthrax.

Well OK then, but if you could amplify the DNA like this, wouldn't you be able to identify the strain of anthrax - is it Ames, for example?

[CurlyDave]

If they have such a small sample, it raises the possibility that they are just seeing cross contamination from some other source. Hopefully they are careful enough to avoid this.

Anthrax is naturally found in the soil. The famous Ames strain of anthrax came from a soil sample collected near the town of Ames, Iowa.

Finding a very small sample could mean very little.

[wideminded]

if you could amplify the DNA like this, wouldn't you be able to identify the strain of anthrax - is it Ames, for example?

Only if the part of the DNA you started with contained the sequences that distinguish the Ames strain from other strains. I'm not sure how much of the anthrax DNA varies between strains.

[Allan]

PING

According to "The American Heritage Dictionary"

"A protocol
that sends a message
to another computer
and waits for acknowledgment
often used to check
if another computer
on a network
is reachable."

And comes from the phrase: Packet Information Groper.

However
despite the ignorance
of Computer Scientists
who claim to have invented this word
as well as the Internet,
the first known use of the verb
"to ping"
was in the year 897
in King Aelfred's translation
of Gregory's "Pastoral Care"
and means to poke, to push, to urge.
This verb has survived
through the centuries
still is frequently used
by non-computer people
in some English dialects.
(By the way
the past tense is "pung"
and the past participle is "punged")

[_Jim]

"How bizarre is this?"

[WarSlut]

Ah, another anthrax thread.

John HK will be arriving shortly to set you all straight and make it clear that the filthy American right was behind it all...

[The Great Satan]

Investigators maintained that no arrest was imminent.

Right. The FBI go hunting in a specific pond for a biosafety cabinet, based on a specific scene from "person of interest" Steven Hatfill's unpublished bioterrorism novel, Emergence. Supposedly, they find the cabinet -- just where it ended up in Hatfill's novel -- and some vials "wrapped in plastic" (echoes of Chandra Levy), and traces of anthrax. All of this, by the way, is said to have happened four months ago. But no arrest is imminent. No grand jury has been empanelled. How very curious. And how very curious that this story is being fed to the press now.

So, what does this mean? Does it mean Saddam is about to pop up in Belarus or the like, and we need to give the "domestic" angle a booster shot to ride out the potential for an "Aha!" moment in the press corps? Are we about to enter the period of maximum danger, from the standpoint of avoiding any perception that the US was blackmailed by Hussein? Dunno, but that's what it smells like to me.

[Mitchell]

PING
According to "The American Heritage Dictionary"
...
comes from the phrase: Packet Information Groper.

I'm not sure exactly why I'm posting this, but here goes....

This is an incorrect folk etymology, according to the author of the "ping" program, who should know. See Eric S. Raymond's Jargon File (published as the New Hacker's Dictionary); there it says that the word "ping" is "from the submariners' term for a sonar pulse".

I tend to believe ESR on such things.

Also, the past tense of "ping" is now "pinged." King Aelfred can post about this on FR and defend the continued use of "pung" if he disagrees.

Just thought you would want to know :-).

[DB]

An Internet ping is done by sending out a special TCP/IP packet (port 0) that is suppose to be bounced back from the server who's IP you are pinging to confirm that it is there and to also quantify the quality of the routing to and from.

A submarine sonar ping is similar to this and I believe the root of the Internet usage of it.

[Ordinary_American]

So is Saddam Hussein still blackmailing George W. Bush with "this" anthrax and the President is still covering it up? Wasn't that your theory a year or so ago? The blackmail didn't seem to stop the invasion and so far "this" anthrax hasn't shown up. Or has the story line changed?

[Mitchell]

A submarine sonar ping is similar to this and I believe the root of the Internet usage of it.

Yes, I agree that this makes sense and has the right feel to it.

By the way, I don't think ping is really a TCP thing at all. As I recall, it's at the lower IP level, making use of the ICMP mechanism.

[The Great Satan]

So, what you think, Saddam Hussein is dead?

[Mitchell]

and some vials "wrapped in plastic" (echoes of Chandra Levy)

What is the meaning of the Chandra Levy reference here?

[Mitchell]

Whoops, I forgot to remove the tag line for #19. It was meant for just one use a couple of posts back (where it made a tiny bit of sense!).