

Special Operators Are Using Rapid DNA Readers - sageabilly
http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2015/05/special-operators-are-using-rapid-dna-readers/113383/

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sageabilly
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)

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dogma1138
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.

