"engineer its DNA (not a trivial task)." It is actually trivial. You can look up the DNA for most viruses. If it is long you could just ligate a few oligios to

"engineer its DNA (not a trivial task)." It is actually trivial. You can look up the DNA for most viruses. If it is long you could just ligate a few oligios together. I wonder if oligo synthesis companies have black lists of specific sequences if a random person orders them. Also, many viruses are RNA based. More tricky than DNA. But in that case I would just order DNA, build a complementary DNA virus and then use RNA polymerase to make the RNA. " for military purposes, you would want something controllable" I am not sure the guys that I am thinking of that would be interested in such a thing would worry too much about that. I guess if you are willing to fly a plane into a tower then you would not be too concerned of dying in the process of developing a virus. Better than a virus may be the Mutagenic Chain Reaction. Maybe my genes are better than yours and I want to spread mine? ;-) http://science.sciencemag.org/content/348/6233/442 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/348/6233/442 "The threshold necessary for small groups to conduct global warfare has finally been breached, and we are only starting to feel its effects. Over time, in as little as perhaps twenty years and as the leverage of technology increases, this threshold will finally reach its culmination -- with the ability of one man to declare war on the world and win." Brave New War back in 2006