You are right that no biotech is required to find terrible viruses from history. Access to those viruses is pretty well controlled though: you can get a stern letter from the CDC if you try to order DNA that looks like smallpox or RNA that looks like the 1918 Spanish flu. It's happened to my roommate during his virology research--they do monitor these things[1].
BUT, more importantly--you don't even need fancy biotech to engineer a terrible virus. No sequencing, recombinant DNA, fancy BSL-4 labs, well-educated virologists, none of that. All you need is a captive population, something any self-respecting evil warlord should be able to get. (Certainly the North Koreans, the Taliban, etc. have access to plenty of prisoners.)
The same simple mechanism used by Fouchier (the guy who created the controversial bird/ferret superflu) can be applied to humans: serial passage. Put any moderately bad flu virus in a certain number of prisoners, then expose them via air circulation to other prisoners. Take the sickest people from the second group and expose them to another uninfected group via air circulation. After five or six passages the virus in the last group will show extraordinary virulence and transmissive capabilities because you've applied artificial selection.
To seed the virus and start an attack, you take a few of these prisoners, expose them to the worst virus, and put them on planes to your target country while they are still in the incubation/transmissive period.
Obviously, this is a nightmare scenario that I hope never happens, but the idea that terrorists or evil dictators need fancy science to engineer superbugs is false. The same methods farmers have used for centuries to grow taller corn and leafier lettuce can be applied to viruses by anybody with enough prisoners and moral depravity.
[1]: It should be noted that in-house synthesizing costs are coming down, though, and we won't be able to rely on the safeguard of companies automatically BLASTing ordered sequences against a CDC blacklist for much longer.
BUT, more importantly--you don't even need fancy biotech to engineer a terrible virus. No sequencing, recombinant DNA, fancy BSL-4 labs, well-educated virologists, none of that. All you need is a captive population, something any self-respecting evil warlord should be able to get. (Certainly the North Koreans, the Taliban, etc. have access to plenty of prisoners.)
The same simple mechanism used by Fouchier (the guy who created the controversial bird/ferret superflu) can be applied to humans: serial passage. Put any moderately bad flu virus in a certain number of prisoners, then expose them via air circulation to other prisoners. Take the sickest people from the second group and expose them to another uninfected group via air circulation. After five or six passages the virus in the last group will show extraordinary virulence and transmissive capabilities because you've applied artificial selection.
To seed the virus and start an attack, you take a few of these prisoners, expose them to the worst virus, and put them on planes to your target country while they are still in the incubation/transmissive period.
Obviously, this is a nightmare scenario that I hope never happens, but the idea that terrorists or evil dictators need fancy science to engineer superbugs is false. The same methods farmers have used for centuries to grow taller corn and leafier lettuce can be applied to viruses by anybody with enough prisoners and moral depravity.
[1]: It should be noted that in-house synthesizing costs are coming down, though, and we won't be able to rely on the safeguard of companies automatically BLASTing ordered sequences against a CDC blacklist for much longer.