Pragmatically though, you'll never be able to stop new advancements from seeing the light of day. Blocking MIT from researching this won't stop the NSA or defense contractors, and even with a fair government, it wouldn't stop criminals. So far, the best path for dealing with potentially dangerous tech has been to keep it open and studied.
I'm skeptical. If it were very simple in terms of materials to create, say, biological weapons of mass destruction, I'd be in favor of keeping the knowledge under wraps.
