
People leave molecular wakes that may give away their secrets - bookofjoe
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2020/02/13/people-leave-molecular-wakes-that-may-give-away-their-secrets
======
walterbell
Gas chromatography is being miniaturized with MEMS sensors,
[https://www.bronkhorst.com/int/blog/mems-technology-to-
suppo...](https://www.bronkhorst.com/int/blog/mems-technology-to-support-
compact-gas-chromatography-equipment/)

$50 spectrometers are already quite small,
[https://hackaday.io/project/143014-compact-25-spectrometer](https://hackaday.io/project/143014-compact-25-spectrometer)
& [https://www.tindie.com/products/onehorse/compact-
as7265x-spe...](https://www.tindie.com/products/onehorse/compact-
as7265x-spectrometer/)

If portable analyzers inspired by Star Trek's tricorder become affordable, the
transparency goes in multiple directions, e.g. analyzing food, liquids and
other substances sold commercially.

~~~
ASalazarMX
There was a time when mobile phones gained many sensors, and it all kind of
stopped 10 years ago. I expected high-end phones by 2020 would measure
distances and temperatures, air quality, UV exposure, radioactivity, infrared
photography, etc. In essence, baby tricorders.

In fact, several of these they can already do with a combination of the
existing hardware, but sadly, the market has laser-focused on visual social
media.

~~~
myself248
CAT was branding a phone some time ago with a low-res thermal camera, but it
was locked to some already-ancient version of Android and otherwise total
lamesauce.

Sad, because I'd buy one if it was just a normal phone plus IR. Presently I
make do with a plug-in accessory module.

I share your frustration. Consider a sled-backpack-case sort of thing with
"all the missing sensors", instead of piecemeal accessories you carry a gaggle
of and have to swap out. If it was like one of those extended-battery sled
cases, you could just leave it on and write apps that expect it to be there...

~~~
nitrogen
You'd probably want the sensor pack to be separable from the phone case, so
you can buy a new phone (whose shape changes every year, forcing new accessory
purchases).

I do think it's simultaneously cool and ridiculous that instead of just adding
a simple distance sensor, companies making measurement software for phones
double down on the software-only approach with computer vision.

~~~
NickNameNick
Friend-of-a-friend was involved in this

[https://ikegps.com/spike/](https://ikegps.com/spike/)

I think they licenced it to Stanley or similar.

------
wtmt
What I find quite disturbing in all these privacy invading technologies is
that they’re often marketed as fantastic problem solvers whereas the reality
is that they have many confounding factors that put the innocent at risk. Even
DNA testing is unreliable unless a lot of care is taken in the entire process.

The problem I see is that lawmakers and law enforcement want these to be taken
as the gospel truth when obtained and provided as evidence in a court of law,
while the judges or juries are usually not competent enough to understand the
nuances and question the “evidence” to the extent necessary to not sentence an
innocent person.

------
GeorgeRichard
"The East German Ministry for State Security (Stasi) ... buil[t] up a massive
archive of people’s smells. Started in 1979, the collection was kept across
East Germany, collected and evaluated by the Main Department XX, responsible
for monitoring the East German cultural and media scene and the repression of
the political opposition."[[https://www.deutsches-
spionagemuseum.de/en/sammlung/odour-ca...](https://www.deutsches-
spionagemuseum.de/en/sammlung/odour-capture)]

~~~
Tomte
Have a look at this scene from the fantastic film "The Lives of Others":
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkRxvEjprBM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkRxvEjprBM)

The odour conserve features at the end.

------
pontifier
I recently had a strange thought about the human body as a bunch of different
pots of soup.

They all sit on a large surface, and represent different types of fluids. One
might represent the insides of your cells, another represents your blood.
Another might represent the stomach, or another part of the digestive system,
etc.

You have an input pot that represents what you eat, and that's the only one
you can actually put ingredients in, and each pot cooks things in a different
way. Your body is like a chef trying to keep the "cell soup" pot tasty, but it
can only swap ladles of stuff between ajacent pots, mostly at random.

On the one hand it seems like a big mess, but on the other it feels like it
has some sort of usefulness.

There really is a huge amount of chaos happening, and molecules are just kind
of bouncing around and migrating randomly between regions. Using this soup-
random model, it's easy to understand the wake we leave behind, as what is
being spilled as things move around.

~~~
ASalazarMX
I.. think I need a little pot of coffee before rereading your comment.

------
bookofjoe
[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:DSI9-D...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:DSI9-DHuBdIJ:https://www.economist.com/science-
and-technology/2020/02/13/people-leave-molecular-wakes-that-may-give-away-
their-secrets+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

~~~
maxdata
Thank you

------
mirimir
> The most common way of analysing metabolite content is gas chromatography-
> mass spectrometry. This technique sorts molecules by their weight, producing
> a pattern of peaks that correspond to different substances. But the same
> weight can be shared by many molecules, so the results may be ambiguous.

There's more to it than that. So basically you get a MS profile for each GC
peak. But there are various ways to do MS. Some mainly give you masses of
intact molecules, after ~gentle ionization. But some also give you masses of
fragments, and that distinguishes among molecules with similar masses.

------
neonate
[https://outline.com/qJvRN6](https://outline.com/qJvRN6)

~~~
RachelF
Thanks for that. Seems like The Economist has strengthened their paywall in
2020!

~~~
bookofjoe
Interesting you noted this.

1) I ALWAYS try to post an unblocked version of stories from the Wall Street
Journal and the Economist that I submit: if I can't do so, I don't post the
article.

2) I used to rely on Outline as my #1 go-to for unblocking, but something
changed there about 6 months to a year ago such that it stopped working
completely so I stopped even considering it along my "trail of unblocked
tears."

3) When I see a comment about blocked New York Times or Washington Post
articles posted by me or others, I immediately post an unblocked version.

4) Having said all that, here are my go-tos for unblocking paywalled articles,
best first:

a: [https://archive.is/](https://archive.is/)

b.
[https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/1687222?hl=en](https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/1687222?hl=en)
(Google cache)

Every time I unblock something a little "good deed of the day" bell rings in
head; paying it forward, as it were.

------
hawaiian
This is no secret to anyone who's owned a dog.

~~~
sliken
Heh, hard to imagine what a dog can smell. My wife started bringing treats
from a particular restaurant. So when she would come home from that particular
restaurant our normally polite dog would run and check her bag.

We thought it was the bag she smelled... until she left the bag outside in the
car. Our dog smelled her, asked to be let out into the garage, asked to be let
out into the driveway, then asked to be let into the car, and then nosed her
bag.

We were amused.

------
BiteCode_dev
I'm pretty sure that if a dog could read this, it would say "well... yeah, you
didn't know that, guys ?".

------
mirimir
VPN services, Tor and I2P do a pretty good job at blocking "molecular wakes".
But even that will fail, as the devices that people use incorporate GC (and
eventually, GC-MS) sensors.

As I am wont to say, privacy in meatspace is dead. Or at least, getting deader
every day.

Edit: And so this is another advantage of working remotely. In particular, as
a consultant.

------
wyxuan
This is just a formalized and scientific equivalent to smelling marijuana

~~~
_jal
As a descriptive matter, yes. But from an interpersonal perspective, it is the
raw material of a large change.

Like a lot of tech, it favors those already in a powerful position. If you
make it cheaper and easier for a nosy boss to be nosy, they will be nosier.
Cops will have a field day figuring out exactly how far courts will let them
push things. And so on.

The potential for surreptitious sampling also opens up new angles for general
snooping and blackmail.

~~~
emmelaich
But if you make it cheaper, then that tilts the balance slightly toward the
less well off!

Not saying it's any thing equal, but imagine being able to 'get dirt' on those
in power easily.

~~~
zwkrt
I disagree. If these devices were free they would still increase the power
divide between those who can wield force and those who can’t. Maybe even more
so.

~~~
_jal
Exactly. These things are more often a force multiplier than an equalizer.

~~~
emmelaich
My argument is that currently the price is effectively infinite for all but
the very rich.

Now, it's a lot less.

That is to say, n/∞ << n/x.

------
drummer
This is nothing compared to what people can learn about your magnetic field
around your body. Aka "oura".

