4 ms·

Special Operators Are Using Rapid DNA Readers

3 points by sageabilly 11y ago

sageabilly 11y ago
Rapid DNA reading is an interesting wrench in the expectation of privacy that we currently have in today's society- assuming that the technology gets better and better, what happens when we get to a point where our identities are almost instantly conformable by anyone with a DNA reader? Personally, I think that this is has the potential to be a good thing for privacy and identity security, because no one can hack your DNA... or at least we don't know how they'd hack your DNA currently. However, I also think that this would bring about some crazy Orwellian government oversight in the name of "preventing terrorism" or perhaps "think of the children" where all citizens are required to register their DNA in a national database. The ultimate issue with that being that DNA changes as people get older[1], so what happens if you forget your yearly registration renewal with the national DNA Database? Suddenly you're Lilu Dallas and you're not officially registered so obviously you're a criminal? [1]http://genetics.thetech.org/original_news/news91 http://genetics.thetech.org/original_news/news91
- dogma1138 11y ago
  People too often confuse privacy with anonymity, anonymity is about not being to relate a certain record or an activity to a person, privacy is the agency which allows a person to decide and enforce with whom they share information. While real time DNA scanners might be an issue for anonymity they are no bigger to privacy than photo-ID's. Now it's true that anonymity and privacy have some overlap since you might consider information that can be extrapolated from your name or location private, but that's a the limitation of any system which grants you privacy, if people can directly see, hear, smell or otherwise sense you, you don't have agency over that information no matter if they use their eyes, noses, or fancy DNA scanners. As for the other parts, it's already possible to hack DNA, and it's been possible to "hack" the methods that forensic DNA analysis uses for over a decade now (POC's were shown in the early 2000's) since technically forensic DNA mapping isn't a map of your entire genome, but as most other DNA profiling methods just a fingerprinting (remember that even actual fingerprint analysis has 0.8-4% false positive rate depending on the type of print and method used) method takes your genes and crates a fingerprint out of them, that fingerprint will not be unique, but will be sufficiently rare to tie a person with that fingerprint to a sample, and outside of immediate familial matches the chances of a true false positive is not an issue beyond theoretical statistics. That said there already ways to generate those forensic samples, the oldest version involved splicing specific DNA markers into viruses or bacteria for reproduction and mixing them with the sample, since most DNA analysis uses a shotgun approach it allows you to splice smaller DNA strands that would be then "glued" together during analysis since that process breaks DNA to short strands for quick identification anyhow. More modern techniques incorporate molecular restructuring which can actually produce completely artificial DNA, think of 3D printing the molecular structure of DNA from scratch. This process is still in it's infancy but most experts agree that within 10-20 years you will have a device the size of a desktop laser printer that will be able to generate DNA and other complex protein molecules. And while this is scary this isn't the 1st time when forensics had an issue when techniques and technologies had an impact on their reliability, but just as how they've learned to detect the difference between latent and transference (when some one actually takes your print from surface a and puts it on surface b) prints, and how lift DNA analysis on fingerprints allowed them to detect even more advanced methods of transference such as molding entire fingers and even palm surfaces to delivery prints they will adapt to "hacked DNA" as well.

3 points by sageabilly 11y ago

Rapid DNA reading is an interesting wrench in the expectation of privacy that we currently have in today's society- assuming that the technology gets better and better, what happens when we get to a point where our identities are almost instantly conformable by anyone with a DNA reader? Personally, I think that this is has the potential to be a good thing for privacy and identity security, because no one can hack your DNA... or at least we don't know how they'd hack your DNA currently. However, I also think that this would bring about some crazy Orwellian government oversight in the name of "preventing terrorism" or perhaps "think of the children" where all citizens are required to register their DNA in a national database. The ultimate issue with that being that DNA changes as people get older[1], so what happens if you forget your yearly registration renewal with the national DNA Database? Suddenly you're Lilu Dallas and you're not officially registered so obviously you're a criminal? [1]http://genetics.thetech.org/original_news/news91 http://genetics.thetech.org/original_news/news91

dogma1138 11y ago
People too often confuse privacy with anonymity, anonymity is about not being to relate a certain record or an activity to a person, privacy is the agency which allows a person to decide and enforce with whom they share information. While real time DNA scanners might be an issue for anonymity they are no bigger to privacy than photo-ID's. Now it's true that anonymity and privacy have some overlap since you might consider information that can be extrapolated from your name or location private, but that's a the limitation of any system which grants you privacy, if people can directly see, hear, smell or otherwise sense you, you don't have agency over that information no matter if they use their eyes, noses, or fancy DNA scanners. As for the other parts, it's already possible to hack DNA, and it's been possible to "hack" the methods that forensic DNA analysis uses for over a decade now (POC's were shown in the early 2000's) since technically forensic DNA mapping isn't a map of your entire genome, but as most other DNA profiling methods just a fingerprinting (remember that even actual fingerprint analysis has 0.8-4% false positive rate depending on the type of print and method used) method takes your genes and crates a fingerprint out of them, that fingerprint will not be unique, but will be sufficiently rare to tie a person with that fingerprint to a sample, and outside of immediate familial matches the chances of a true false positive is not an issue beyond theoretical statistics. That said there already ways to generate those forensic samples, the oldest version involved splicing specific DNA markers into viruses or bacteria for reproduction and mixing them with the sample, since most DNA analysis uses a shotgun approach it allows you to splice smaller DNA strands that would be then "glued" together during analysis since that process breaks DNA to short strands for quick identification anyhow. More modern techniques incorporate molecular restructuring which can actually produce completely artificial DNA, think of 3D printing the molecular structure of DNA from scratch. This process is still in it's infancy but most experts agree that within 10-20 years you will have a device the size of a desktop laser printer that will be able to generate DNA and other complex protein molecules. And while this is scary this isn't the 1st time when forensics had an issue when techniques and technologies had an impact on their reliability, but just as how they've learned to detect the difference between latent and transference (when some one actually takes your print from surface a and puts it on surface b) prints, and how lift DNA analysis on fingerprints allowed them to detect even more advanced methods of transference such as molding entire fingers and even palm surfaces to delivery prints they will adapt to "hacked DNA" as well.