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Walk-By DNA Testing
Scott_Marks writes "The New York Times today has an article on a newly-patented device which may make it practical to perform DNA testing (or drug testing, or explosives testing) on anyone walking underneath. This "portal" sucks up some of the millions of skin flakes each of us sheds each day and whips them into your choice of privacy-invading analysis equipment "for detecting the presence of molecules of interest"."
A couple of years ago when I chanced to be in London I went to visit the Houses of Parliament. On my way in I went through a metal detector -- standard stuff -- and then I had to stand for several seconds in an enclosed booth (think phone booth) while some electronics were sniffing at me. The point was to check for molecules of explosives (IRA was more pesky in those days).
Of course, I had to stand still in a small enclosed space... If similar techology is made to work for people just passing through, this is much more scary. I hesitate to call this progress.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
its the same time as a metal detector. its a couple of seconds (read the article). deodrants/perfumes etc wont have an effect on the system..skin flakes are particles which can be easily seperated from odours. it doesnt distinguish smells - it has an ion detector system which bombards the residue with ions and base don that it can distinguish chemicals such as drugs or alcohol or even analyse DNA.
First, of course this the drug war zealot's wet dream. Just install these machines everywhere, catch all who went past a joint-smoking guy, and solve the drug problem by transfering the majority of the population to prison.
Second, the point about fast DNA sequencing is not really relevant. This device could be used to collect DNA cheaply and invisibly (probably cross-indexed with video images of people passing through). Once you've done the collection, you can do the analysis at your leisure later.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
It is not the same thing. Everyone who walked by the device would be sampled, not a random sampling. The article states:
There are already metal detectors that people have to walk through at airports and courthouses. Are those illegal? No. This new device would provide an even better security aid without singling out random people for extended searches. It is a small violation of privacy that is necessary for the safety of everyone.
Hey, this should like a great idea. I have no problems at all with corporations scanning people for drug use, as long as they actualy follow up on the usage and have the police arrest the known users (read: they would have to verify their results first.)
As for the DNA scanner, it couldn't actualy impede free speach, we could still say or do whatever we wanted to (within the bounds of the law of course.) but if somebody decided to rob a bank or such, the police could have the suspects ID, even if it did take a few days for the lab results to get back.
Imagin they get the ID's of all the people in the bank, and then check up on each person individualy. At the end of their search, they find one person who was not on the security video tapes yet who's DNA they collected.
Bingo, theres your prime suspect.
Of course this could be defeated quite easily, just make sure you where in the same bank eariler that day (though in a different disguise) and that you perform some normal transactions, that way your DNA would be OK'd by the computer.
Still though, it could be usefull.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
since when was having our picture taken without our knowing not an invasion of our privacy. last time i checked it is still legal in most countries to remain anonymous.
God is real, unless declared integer.
Even better, grab random samples from public places, and amplify them via kitchen-sink polymerase chain reaction. Randomly vary the proportions and carry a vial of the stuff with you to paint on your shoes, dooknobs, bus seats, etc.
That will slow down the bastards!
I'm still not sure that I believe either of those little factoids though
Folks who want to maintain their genetic privacy could give rise a consumer demand for new products that foil or confuse the sniffers.
For example, you could have a kind of dust that contains a huge collection of random DNA fragments. The machine could sniff that up along with your own contribution and hopefully the artifical noise would swamp out your signal.
Then again, this means folks are going to be adding artifical dandruf and somehow I can't see it catching on. Perhaps we'll solve it in the classic capitalist fashion - you can choose to pay to have the machine switched off as you pass by it.
Seriously, though : What happens when the collected information on, say, 10,000 airline passengers gets sucked off a cracked server and ends up freely avaliable on some website?
[ Blairism is the continuation of Thatcherism by other means. ]
excuse me while I laugh.
(-a cynical American, who realizes that this battle was lost, a long long time ago).
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
duh! What do you think an "interview" is?
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
This brings to mind a quote from that film: "Next time keep your lashes on your lids where they belong!" Great film. Scary that it's truer every day.
I can't wait until this comes out, so I can "accidentally" drop my badly-sealed garbage back full of fertilizer and pulverized poppy seeds underneath it.
Tee hee.
Umm, no they don't.
They start out identical, but as the immune system differentiates, they will have different combinations at those loci.
Never mind the fact that their telomeres will likely be different lengths due to different environmental exposure.
simply BAN the cross referencing of a DNA database with public info ...
This is a good idea theoretically, but difficult to implement. If a DNA scanner were available to the general populace (i.e. for sale to anyone who could afford it), how can you ensure that once Fred or XYZCo starts collecting DNA data that they aren't cross-referenced with existing data? Have Fred or XYZCo sign a letter promising they won't? (Companies and people lie all the time, and do things they shouldn't.)
Have the DNA scanner only available to users registered with the Federal government and have its use monitored? (What government agency would be able to handle the monitoring of a database and its usage which contains as many as 3+ billion fields? How do you monitor everyone's programming process?)
What happens when someone in Izrebekhistan buys or develops a DNA scanner? (How would US laws apply to its use in that country? What could we do about it?)
My fear is that be it on the open market, grey market, or black market, once these data start being collected, they will find their way to those individuals, organizations, or governments that want them.
Yet another example of science and industry doing something that can be done without asking whether it should be done.
>>If you notice, the bit about DNA is just a throw-away at the bottom of the article.
Oh I am pretty sure that is for a purpose. Not that the article wouldn't have liked to mention it earlier, but I guess the good inventor was very much aware of the fact that DNA tracking wouldn't be too popular with the masses.
The technology CAN do it, and that is all that counts. You might not see it (right away) employed in that way in Airports, but I am pretty sure that companies are going to use that. Hey, no more keys anymore, they can identify you by your DNA when you want into the lab (and at the same time test you if you got drunk last night etc.).
I guess we are well past 1984 by now (technologywise) the only thing that still seperats us is that so far people are afraid that they might end up in their own scanner network.
Michael
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
The american people need to vote on what they want more: Freedom or safety.
Well said. Unfortunately, it would appear that most American people are more concerned about safety than freedom, and they are more than willing to throw common sense to the wind when doing this.
A feel-good, spur-of-the-moment resolution is always more palatable for the American people than careful examination and analysis of a complex issue: "Ban guns because guns kill people!" Well, so does red meat and talking on cell phones while driving, just not as dramatically. "Use blocking software in public web facilities. Enact decency laws on web-page content. Internet pr0n will destroy our children!" and the backlash will threaten our freedom of speech. "Hard drives are missing from a national laboratory! Enact new security policies now to punish those unpatriotic scientists!" And highly talented scientists leave the labs in droves as the draconian changes to security policies make their work lives unbearable. And this helps national security how? "Unscrupulous cashiers! Electronics stores now require the customer to show his or her receipt upon leaving the store with the purchased item." A fix to the problem, but the item is legally the property of the customer once the purchase is made, so the practice constitutes unlawful search and siezure.
This new technology is just one in a long string of episodes where Americans will affix a band-aid cure and abridge their civil liberties to prevent something of negligible probability (terrorist bombing that can bypass current safeguards) from occurring.
You can be perfectly safe, more or less, but you'll be living in a police state.
Perhaps we already are.
hell...this is one of the reasons i left the UK. godamn CCTV cameras are EVERYWHERE...and i do mean EVERYWHERE. then they banned the already limited number of guns in the country for no reason at all. of course there is no such thing as a citizen of the UK..you guys are all subjects of the english empire... why fight it ? just leave the country. there are plenty of other countries around the globe. the only thing good about the UK was the data protection act..wish we had something like that in the US.
I was just thinking along similar lines. I know a few people who reload their own shotgun shells and bullets as well as a few muzzle loaders. I'd be surprised if they didn't trigger alarms as a result.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
> You can be perfectly safe, more or less, but you'll be living in a police state. > Perhaps we already are. "Perhaps we already are" - that's really scary, putting it that way. How true! Now I lay me down to sleep, to be programmed like mutant sheep...
1. - well, what if every time you went through this detector, it registered even a trace amount of THC. That result goes into a database, and is part of your permanent record. The inferred result would be; this guy either smokes dope, or hangs around people who do, but he's too smart or lucky to get caught with any significant amount - data mining, profiling, check against the guy's income, known associations, ideologies, what he checks out from the library, video store, what he buys, how much he makes, how much he legitimately spends - risk analysis: is he worth investigating to see whether he might get caught (or entrapped) with a legally significant quantity?
With private corps running prisons, and prison labor becoming more in vogue, it's starting to look like a new slave-trade, and a wonderful instrument for creating slaves.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
But when I'm off company time - what I do is none of the company's business, period.
Even when what you're doing is illegal? That's where your AIDS comparison falls short. There are many reasons a company might not want to hire a drug abuser. Having a person show up stoned for work is only one of them.
What if you're bringing a controlled substance onto company grounds? Oop but hey we can't search you. Or what about other irresponsible actions / landing in jail? Do you think it really helps a company when one of their employees gets in this sort of situation?
Yada yada yada.
For what it's worth, many companies DO have help available for employees with drug problems. This is a step in the right direction anyhow... treat your employees as people.
Most of the time when job hunting, you're asked to report prior felony convictions. I don't see drug testing as any more intrusive.
Best regards,
SEAL
Man, the jokes one could play. "Hey! You splashed my with cyanide! Now I'll never be able to pass my dru -- AAAAGGGGGHHHHH!!" Oops...
I'm not from the UK, but this strikes me as the most absurd argument I've ever seen. Just because a law is on the books doesn't mean that the goverment will enforce it? True, but then why is it on the books? If they DO choose to enforce it, who's to say that they won't make YOU the first test subject?
"The laws only have a harmful effect on those who chose to break the law."
Right.. What defines breaking the law? The law. You seem to put far too much trust in the benevolence of the government.
I wonder what would happen if one were to fart while going through one of those?
Actually, it's 79%:
http://www.jatox.com/abstr acts/1996/jul-aug/213-cone.htm
Here as well:
Urba nLegends
Actually, the article does not say that this detector takes a couple of seconds. It says that the sample can be taken as people walk through and pause for a few seconds. The time to analyze said sample is not given. Furthermore, one imagines that such determination might fluctuate depending on what the flakes are being analyzed for - and how many different substances are being checked for at one time.
Mr. Settles says his invention could also be used to detect smuggled money, narcotics, chemical or biological warfare agents, nuclear substances like uranium, or other hazardous material.
Smuggled money as opposed to non-smuggled money, eh? How does the money know? Does it alter its chemical makeup if it thinks its being smuggled?
For those of you with 'dermatalogical problems'...
If you notice, the bit about DNA is just a throw-away at the bottom of the article. The main purpose of this is to scan for explosives residue, something that we already have a way to do very quickly and cheaply (I should know- happens to me every time I got through the airport). It is certainly extensable to taking DNA samples, but until there are some big breakthroughs in fast, cheap DNA sequencing, and the solve the problem of making sure they get the right DNA, this particular device isn't going to be turning you over to the GATTACA police just yet.
"Sweet creeping zombie Jesus!"
I'll have to ask my lawyer this question.. What happens when some chick decides to collect enough of my skin cells to get a good sample, then smacks them around with PCR, and uses that DNA to get pregnant and has a child without my knowledge? When the law comes to do a DNA test on me, do I have to start paying child support?
Sounds like a cunning idea, but with 100's of people an hour pouring through a portal, wouldn't cross contamination be an issue?? surely there is no real way of telling who really triggered the alarm at a reasonable flow rate of people.. I'd have to see this device in action before I became convinced it'd be practical.
The other problem is prior contaimination, how long do the wrong substances hang sround on clothes/skin. Would you have problems with the fact that someone might have spent the previosu night in a legal amsterdam coffee shop and be covered in THC molecules, or had spent the previous day dynamiting something, somewhere and thus a string of false positives.
As for the privacy/DNA thing, well how long was it going to be before we get a DNA test code thang in our passports anyway. Let's face it if you want to travel then you have to subject yourself to all sorts of official privitations, to satisfy the beuarocratic paranoia, which is the norm in immegration departmetns world-wide. Being DNA tested seems no worse, then having to declare wether you have had an HIV test or not (and failing to get is visa if you have had the test, regardless of outcome).
M
--
Sic Itur Ad Astra
www.gatrell.org
foo
Right. If you showed up stoned, and got fired for it, you'd be right there arguing that you weren't, or that they have to prove it first (can you say 'drug test'?), or that it should be allowed anyway. The problem with people who try to defend their 'rights' in this manner is that they generally don't care so much about their privacy -- they just want convenience.
Reality check. Drugs cause problems. Companies don't want to deal with it. There's no reason they should have to do so. As long as you accept money from them, you'll have to play by their rules.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Blatant karma-whoring aside, here's a link that works, seeing as the partners.nytimes server started requiring registration -
http://www10.nytimes. com/library/financial/071000patents.html
I could see this used in airports to detect smugglers. They would market it as an artificial dog, comparing the machine to a trained drug- or explosives-sniffing dog.
They should redesign the machine to disallow smelly passengers on airplanes.
--
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
Now I have a vacuum cleaner device at home. It occasionally sucks up old pieces of skin (and other creepy stuff). If I started analysig the contents of my vacuum cleaner would that be breaking the patent? What kind of a patent is this?
Just another example of how the man wants to know everything you do. It'd be a crime if you let some pot head on an air plan.
Heh.. cool.. Another Tom Murphy.
We are EVERYWHERE!
Time to get rid of my skin again!
sig:
See the "..for smart people" banners Wired runs here? Look elsewhere guys.
Yes i know this is not possible right now, but it seems to me that the tecnical side of it will be rality within 10 - 20 years, and somehow it sounds scary to me.
Here's the situation I'm afraid of. Say one of these detection systems is set up in an area that is not *too* highly traveled. Such that someone "detectable" walks through, sets off the alarm, and is caught. But lets say that some of the dna they sucked off of him gets stuck in the system, whether it be just hanging in the pipes or whatever. What happens when I walk through 5 minutes later and some of that suspect DNA gets whipped in along with my own?
Suddenly I'm being thrown in jail, practically already convicted because suspect DNA was "detected" on me.
That's a future I'm scared to face.
--------- Beware the dragon, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.
Hmm...
1. Companies, by and large, are run by the clueless.
2. Companies are going to use this ultra-new technology to get me!
Can't have both, bud. Either they're clueless or not. Not both.
Sticking needle in my flesh to get out blood for test is NOT more intrusive than writing in a field in a form????
>Or what about other irresponsible actions / >landing in jail? Do you think it really helps a >company when one of their employees gets in this >sort of situation?
Excuse me??? Who CARES of it helps them or not? Do *THEY* care if you don't get a bonus not because although you did your fair share of work, the company on the whole did not? Or let me put it another way, maybe soon they will be asking if anyone in your *FAMILY* has a history of violence, drug abuse etc. Because, it is really embarrasing if your brother kills someone and gets on the news, oh no, shareholders don't like that.
Oh, but I forgot that there is no such thing as "private life" in US. You belong to your company. You don't have free time. Oh, and please don't even *LOOK* at that girl at the front desk for more than 1.5 seconds (or whatever the law prescribed).
Jeez.
I don't like it, but this is nothing like searching someones house. It is more like taking something from the garbage, which in most (all?) places is okay with the law.
What flakes off is what you are leaving behind anyways.
Maybe this requires new laws to protect privacy?
What if a few hundred or so of somebdy else's skin flakes get mixed in with my millions? And those happen to be the ones they get with this device?
Like say my girl has been running her fingers through my hair, and the thing is overhead so it picks up her cells, and she's been smoking god-knows-what what. But I wouldn't mind taking the rap for her in a case like this because drug laws are insidious and evil. A wierder scenario is they DNA test and figure she's entering the building. What the hell do they think they'll accomplish? They know with the amount of contact between human beings that we all have sizeable traces of each others' cells, not large enough to be visible, but if you're trying to detect the sub-visible you'll get the other ppl.
Ever get the impression that your life would make a good sitcom?
Ever follow this to its logical conclusion: that your life is a sitcom?
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
The problem with this reasoning is that your not thinking on a grand enough scale. I propose a massive DNA indexed database tied into your job informtion, recreational habits, etc. That way, we can tell if your an explosives engineer and legally use dynamite, or whether you compulsively neat and should be expected to smell of ammonia cleansers.
Heck, let's go farther and rig a personal GPS-transponder system with local cell-blocks. Then, if you come in coated in chemicals, we can backtrack and figure out where you've been, and nail the bastard who was endangering my life and liberty by having a casual toke in the "privacy" of his home.
What is your "right" to privacy next to my personal safety? Who cares if the crime rate is at an all time low? Index it all! Index it all! How can I be protected if you wild anarchists are running around loose with your crypto software and pellet guns? You can put an eye out with one of those things!!!
Yup, you're a rebel without a clue! Hey, I live in the UK, and guess what. Not a single CCTV camera within miles of me.
And in case you didn't know, the UK is a democracy, and we are citizens of the UK and also Europe. The Queen has a ceremonial role within UK law, because we have a longer history than the US (I almost wrote because we have a history, but that would be disrespectful).
Guess what else? We DON'T WANT guns in the UK. That's why we have far fewer gun related deaths in the UK.
But most DNA ID tests don't look at the whole thing; they simple test certain areas that we know to have high variability among individuals. Unless the DNA test looked specifically at those areas, than they could appear identical under conventional identification procedures.
"Sweet creeping zombie Jesus!"
Someone will just crack this, it couldn't be to hard.
(1)ever heard of a full body wet suit?
(2)ever heard of skin graphics?
(3)put you dog in a wood chipper, then grin everything up into a fine power in the blender, when you walk though one of these things, let a couple hand fulls of your "powdered dog" upinto the vents. There would be some much dog DNS cloggy the machine that it won't get your own "real" DNA
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Won't work. As someone mentioned before, having smoked pot in the past is not illegal as long as you do not have it on your person at the time you get caught. There have to be measurable quantities of drugs on you (think quarters and eigths of ounces, not quarters and eigths of a half mole) for the cops to arrest you. Those limits keep getting stiffer penalties for lower quantities, but they aren't going to be pushing the molcular level anytime soon. It would be a legal nightmare for the police; they would loose as many rel convictions and suffer so many civil rights suits due to false positives and the like that it would be totally impossible.
Yeah, possibly. But if you do that, you have almost no way of correlating what DNA you got from what body passing through the detector. You also increase the cross-polination problem, as you have lots of samples sitting in a collector together for long periods of time. If the sequence is not done fast, you loose what information you might have pulled. You want to go back and sort 5,000 piles of skin cells against the security camera photos of 5,000 identical midwesterners passing through the security check at an airport? Me neither. Also, for security applications (what this thing is geared for right now- it's a bomb detector), there is no value to letting things sit. "Well, plane exploded. Better go sift through our DNA collection and figure out which terrorist group we let through security last thursday". Nobody likes that.
"Sweet creeping zombie Jesus!"
Not that these are actually in use yet, but I can see it someday if we keep going down this path. It seems like we in the U.S. keep giving up more and more of our personal liberties to have a sense of "safety." Americans are whipped into frenzy by the focus of local TV news on sensationalistic crime reporting. Americans believe they are under seige from gun-toting, crack-smoking gangbangers.
There is a real, everyday, easy to do, practical thing you can do: Remind everyone you know that violent crime is at a twenty-year low in this country. Most of you have probably heard this, but you'd be surprised at how often it shocks people you meet. Here's a CNN.com article to link to. (I'm sure there are better ones, but I can't find 'em right now. Or point 'em to the FBI's Universal Crime Reports. Really. Do it.---
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
How to discriminate between all of the mismatched readings you get. Sure, I vacuum up some of your cells, but I also get: your dog's dander and sheddings from seeing you off in the morning, a crazy mess of sking cells you picked up brushing through the subway crush, fibres from your sweater, tiny crumbs of the beef jerky you had in your pocket.
I conclude you are: a four hundred pound bovine, with a proclivity for chasing cars, decended of asian/native-american/african/european stock with red hair, blue eyes, brown skin and XXXXXYY chromosomes.
Cripies! What are they supposed to do, analyse 1 million sepearate complete DNA chains and determine which is in the highest frequency, and hope that was you, and not the JOHNDOE(tm) bio-engineered sking flakes you applied to your shirt this morning which claims you are the only child of Mary Queen of Scots and Leonardo DaVinci?
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such forms, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and hapiness. Quote taken verbatim from the American Declaration of Independence - Adopted in congress 7/4/1776 When we, as people are forced to submit to such things as active dna or molecular trace inspection, we not only forfeit certain rights but our freedom to exist as individuals altogether. Every person within a clicks distance of this post should write a letter and MAIL it - not email mind you - MAIL a letter to their elected official to stop this insanity. Tyranny advances when the first man says, "Someone else will fight this one."
"Draw them in with the prospect of gain, take them by confusion." Sun Tzu
Take the course of "crowds" (i.e. people moving in crowds are --> impossible to distiguish), and build a simple "duster" unit. Load a large suitcase with very finely ground [pick your offending agent] (say, gunpowder?) and blow it on everyone who walks through the main doors of the airport cassually. The variations here are astronomical. Every body and bag passing within several feet of the "duster" would then be contaminated with a harmless, but 10x dictable level of the agent.
Whalla! The terrorists just succeeded in shutting down an airport for an afternoon while EVERONE has to be screened.
Don't you think it's time to start communicating?
It's one thing for police to stop a car to see if there's a caucasian male age 20-24 with blonde hair and a lakers jersey. It's another to stop people on the street and frisk them for drugs. Or do a cavity search or something.
-Erik
"Mr. Watson, you are under arrest...our detector on the corner of 5th and Main smelled cannabis when you walked by."
"Honest Dad, I wasn't smoking! I just walked near the smoke-pit at lunch hour!"
These technologies are extremely dangerous in the hands of the stupid, greedy, or criminal.
TheGeek
TheGeek
http://www.geekrights.org
Kill the monkey
Apparently British pound notes all have traces of cocaine on them from their use in snorting. Looks like lots of false positives there......
Flunky: Sir, the "portal" drug testing system reports that 60% of our staff show traces of marijuana!
Boss: Get rid of... did you say 60%?
Flunky: Yes, sir. And 5% show traces of LSD.
Boss: Get rid of 'em!
Flunky: Sir, those 5% are estimated to be administering 98% of our network.
Boss: Umm...
Flunky: May I remind you that you are required by federal law to suspend these employees until their test results are clear?
Boss: Give me those. You're fired.
I could see a similar scenario with DNA spying. "Sir, 60% of our employees show an increased risk of Parkinson's disease!"
Seriously, I doubt Gattaca will happen any time soon, because companies that judge their employees on DNA content will be serious losers compared to those that don't really care, as long as their people are competent. 99% of what impacts your appropriateness for almost any job happens after the womb, so this system will simply allow people who don't get that to lose more efficiently. Right now, all they can do is look at skin color, sex, and well-groomed-ness, and they have to fall back on competence once in a while.
I do see potential for abuse, though, in testing employees for HIV without their consent...
(just a lazy man, not a Coward) It's a drip-by-drip process. Americans are, through inattention and carelessness, creating a hellish future, from our current standards. The Drug War is the opening crack for the removal of out civil liberties. And we are doing it to ourselves. Not the Guvmint. Our children submit to testing and searches in schools; and as they become adults they will accept even more restrictions in the name of "safety". The communist menace was the pretext in the last half of the 20th, and drugs and "terrorism" are the excuses of the new century. The interesting thing is, there are no incidents of terrorism in the US to justify the latter. It's all man-on-horseback populism. We are giving up our freedom from search and seizure based on a *perception* of danger, in a time when we are the safest, richest, and best fed people that have ever lived, bar none. It's astounding to me, to realize that the most freakishly fearful people I know are in the safest Burbclaves around Chicago. Oh, and the Drug War... don't seem to recall a country call Drugs. Who is the enemy? Why, it's... US! We've schizophrenically declared war on ourselves, because we ran out of real enemies for all those warriors to fight. South and Central America is turning into a cartelocracy, a war zone, because half of our population likes various narcotics and the other half wants to kill or imprison the other half. Based on non-existent evidence, we have declared the drugs more dangerous than cars, cigarettes, or war. Contrary conclusions are discarded without examination. And because of this insanity, we are going to have cameras everywhere, DNA scanners, uberdatabases, drug testing on demand, and abuse, abuse, abuse. It will happen slowly, too slowly for those not watching to notice. Why am I so negative? Because I've been watching for over 30 years, and it is happening, and I don't see anything stopping it. I can't get a job without chemical testing. You can bet DNA testing will be required someday to weed out insurance risks. Police can stop vehicles at random to find drug offenders. It will only get more intrusive. If you are fighting a war, then you have to fight it all out, no? Why compromise? Especially if you can't possibly win. The Forever War... Even if, optimistically, the cross reffing of DNA db's to other db's is banned, corporate entities will use legal tricks to escape prosecution. They are extranational now, anyway. And the coming admin will be even more disposed to give them what the want, legally (as hard as that may seem) than the current one. Government? Dudes and dudettes, that's not the big problem! Corporations using DNA testing (not to mention morals testing, drug testing, hell, ideology testing) can take away your ability to *work*. Well, not all of them, but enough to make a big problem. That is far away more frightening. Example: a bank could refuse to give you loans based on your projected longevity or susceptiblity to diseases. No house, no car. This ain't a joke. We may not be able to stop it, but we can observe and chronicle it; I'm beginning to think that's all we can do. In the meantime, just live your lives, smile, be happy, and never forget to watch what's happening and comment about it.
In most areas in the US, it is perfectly legal for the police to stop and check every driver on the road, as long as they check EVERY driver who comes to the checkpoint. It sucks, but the courts have upheld it.
They have, because while you might not like passing through a roadblock that stops everyone on New Years Eve, it beats the alternative: Police stopping 1)Only every black person that comes through or 2)Every person that looks suspicious (see above, add "poor people", "people with facial hair", "foreigners", and "people under 30")
Random stops on everyone that comes through are a pain. But it sure beats being targeted by security forces because of the color of your skin or the bad rap your belief system gets. I would much rather see every single person that goes through an airport get a DNA or chemical scan than have them target "profiles". The volume of data and the scrutiny involved in tagging that many people is in itself a gaurantee of some privacy (ways to protect privacy: 1) be alone 2) be in a whacking big crowd), whereas only targeting "profiled" and marginalized groups risks everyone's rights (the hangman's story phenomena: eventually, your group is next.)
"Sweet creeping zombie Jesus!"
"ABMC will demonstrate its wipe-and-spray Drug Detector(TM) that tests for the presence or absence of crack/cocaine or marijuana residue on surfaces, such as desk tops, book bags and steering wheels. The patented Drug Detector kit includes an aerosol spray for either crack/cocaine or marijuana, 10 collection papers and instructions. It's easy to use -- just wipe any surface with a collection paper and spray the paper with the aerosol can. If it detects the drug residue, the paper will turn blue for cocaine and reddish brown for marijuana within seconds. "
;)
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/000621/ny_america.html
The best part? It's going to be on retail shelves of drug stores all over the country in a few weeks. And it's dirt cheap, only about a buck a use. Yes, I own stock, and yes, that stock is cheap as heck right now
------
Let me give you the lowdown
How is it an invasion of your privacy? If you're in a public place, is it any more "invasive" than someone taking your picture (such as a security camera) or smelling your cologne, or getting your fingerprint off a mug? Get real. There's no "invasion of privacy" here, just an oppotunity to get criminals off the streets. I say we seize it.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
How about some powdered Drain-o? 100% pure lye should be great for sensitive instruments.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
And guess where their brightest scientists went after the WWII...
I now these things might be easy to crack, but if they implement it correctly, then it does have benefits.
It might be at least a lot harder to steal important devices like hard drives containing confidential material if the government would use these in the places that need top security. It would also be nice to have some in the private sector. I'd like to have a nice DNA scanner with some Star Trek "whoosh" doors, and I know you would too.
Don't get me wrong, I don't want these in airports anymore than you do, but they DO have benefits.
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis.
...don't skin flakes become part of the public domain and hence are no longer subject to privacy claims?
I would think there would be sufficient differences in raw vs. residue traces left in or on the body to tune the device to recognize those distinctions.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
- In my passport it says 'British Citizen'.
- I am the legal owner of a 12-bore shotgun, a
.22LR rifle and .375 H&H rifle - all kept in the UK - You're full of shit
Nick-- "It's a sad day for American capitalism when a man can't fly a midget on a kite over Central Park" - Jim Moran
It would be a lot harder to get the coveted "Congratulations Mr. Arnold, you're pregnant" result though.
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
I just read through the patent and I have to say that it is nearly impossible to get any DNA extraction from this. The invention traps human skin flakes that are shed. These skin flakes are: 1. Dead. Non living cells don't contain DNA because the DNA is degraded in the environment, unless the DNA has been preserved (e.g. in tree sap). DNA preservation from dead cells doesn't occur physiologically (that is, in the human body), and thus if you trap any skin flakes coming off a person, it won't have any DNA in it. 2. Keratinized. The first 3 layers of skin cells on your body are soaked in a hard protein called keratin. Keratin water proofs your skin so that you don't swell up when you go swimming or taking a bath/shower. Keratinized Skin cells are already DEAD! so #1 is true even in skin flakes still attached to you. Also, Even if some deeper layer of skin were to be trapped by the machine (maybe the person has blisters), the DNA that can be retrieved is vanishingly small. Furthermore, you have to amplify the DNA in order to analyze it. This process takes a whole day to complete, and is prone to errors via contamination (remember OJ Simpson?), and then after this process (called PCR), you need to analyze it. No scientist would ever try to collect DNA from an air sample because it would contain too much garbage. PCR also needs to be done in a lab, there are no 'instant readings' with this. So with transportation and decontamination costs and all, it's very uneconomical. Personally, I'd be a lot more concerned with Echelon eavesdropping on my telephone, fax, and email rather than the unlikelyhood that this invention will be used to scan your DNA. My references include the Skin Physiology book used by the inventor. Evidently, he forgot to read about skin histology. My own credentials include being a cell biologist. Cowbert Out.
In the same tests, police officers do significantly better at finding liars, but only because they do exactly that much worse at finding people telling the truth. In other words, they are also basically picking at random, but they're more suspicious, so they pick more people out as liars, and fewer as telling the truth.
And I'm pretty sure, this being a N American study, that while whether or not you are lying is essentially unrelated to whether a cop thinks you are, the darkness of your skin, the age of your car, the hairiness of your face, etc., are. As you mentioned...
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
If you look at the statistics of DC's murder rate, it started to increase after the introduction of the ban on firearms. The statistics were roughly the same as the rest of the country before they introduced the ban on firearms. In NY, before Gulliani, they had the highest random murder rate in the country (random murder meaning being shot on the street with no connection, not rape or robbery not anything, with the murderer) even with a ban on handguns.
Also, if you look at the states that have conceal and carry laws in place one will find that murder rates, and general crime rates go down. Violent crime rates become disproportately larger but are still lower. Basically, there is less chance for crime but when it occures there is more chance for really bad things to happen. There is an entire book discussing the statistics of what happened in the states that instituted conceal and carry laws. All it does is look at the statistical information and discuss it.
The problem with banning firearms in the US is that there are too many out there already. Anyone who wants one can get one. If you ban firearms then the only people left with them are those that we didn't want to have them in the first place.
Don't believe me, take a look at the statistics for Australia. They also had laws similar to ours regarding guns, when they banned handguns, shotguns, and semi-automatic non-hunting firearms a couple years ago the murder rate, and violent crime rate sky rocketed. Maybe it was just a bad few years, or maybe it was linked to the ban.
The 7 day waiting period had the best effect on crime rates that used firearms, unfortunately it is not required anymore now that there is the FBI instant background check computer. In Colorado, one must wait 48 hours before a gun purchase goes through during which time the persons information is sent to a special branch of the sherif's department. Unfortunately that branch is closed Sat and Sun, so gun shows start after it closes Fri send the information that night, and hand the weapons out Sunday night.
If I had my way I would require a 7 day waiting period, and a permitting process that requires several months of training. The training would include how to handle a firearm, how to store a firearm, understanding of the concequenses for neglagence, and a psycological report. Illegal, no, have the Congress dictate that this is required to be considered part of the Militia.
Before you go and flame me look at the statistics, you might be surprised.
Disclamer - Opinion of Person
good question...hmmmm :)))
Legally, IIRC, DNA evidence in court can only be used to prove that someone is *not* the father or some did *not* commit a crime. It can't be used to prosecute someone, which is why other evidence is needed to convict.
I don't know why this is the case, because mathematically the chances that you and someone else has the same DNA fingerprints is 1 in 6 billion. Maybe the judges all got scared when the movie Judge Dredd came out (starring sylvester stallone).
Actually where I'm at, the Univ of Connecticut, some dude used skin cells to clone a cow. So DNA evidence might someday have to be thrown out of the window when every other person is a clone (slightly Huxley-esque eh?)
Bioethics is getting to be a very interesting field
In all fairness, he was talking about London. And yes, there are hundreds of the damn things all over the place.
Plus, don't forget all the other wonderful legislation we've had recently such as the Criminal Justice Act, which says that a gathering of more than 10 (I think, could be less) people consitutes a potential riot. That affects us all.
What else? How about the proposed Anti-Hooligan act which says that any "citizen" of the UK can be banned from travelling abroad on the say-so of any member of the Police, who suspects (not _proves_ just suspects) that he or she might be a football hooligan.
Need I go on?
Finally, as the guy above said, we have the RIP bill which means that any internet traffic can be intercepted. There was a wonderful news program recently that said that the whole "I've forgot my PGP key" defence would be valid, but only if you weren't suspected of anything. 'Course, if you weren't suspected of anything, your emails shouldn't have been tapped in the first place...
(BTW I'm not gonna touch the gun-control issue itself, that's been done to death many, many times).
Something else you can do is to absolutely, 100%, without exception, refuse any employment drug testing on moral grounds. Did you know that the Canadian counterparts of many US corporations DO NOT require pre-employment drug testing because people are much less likely to accept it here?
No job is worth my liberty. Mind you, I'm skilled enough so that finding employment isn't hard, even if I'm picky, and I've told people no before. You'd be suprised how many people haven't even thought about the implications of such testing. Ask WHY! It's like when a cop asks you if he can look in your trunk. Ask him if you can look in his. This usually gets a most suprised look - although, mind you, cops up here don't draw weapons as part of standard operating procedure, either - there's forms to fill out if the RCMP even unholster their weapon.
The reason to do this is that if you don't refuse HORRIBLY intrusive testing (Would you ask a stranger off the street to piss in a cup for you?) then the wonderful DNA test happens next. The tools to give the state supreme power over a ignorant populace are happening, and when everybody wakes up, you won't have any way to fight back.
An old history professor of mine used to have a quote in BIG letters above the blackboard: "Power: It's ain't for the givin', it's for the takin'" (unknown). Words to live by.
..don't panic
The first 15 humans (the two genome projects) took about ten years to sequence to generate the genome, but with most of it happening the final year. Since sequencing is primarily an information based activity- with sequencer robots and supercomputers, its speed should double every couple years. Near instaneously sequencing is only a matter of time.
Year - Seconds to sequence a human
2000 16,000,000 (six months)
2002 8,000,000
2004 4,000,000
2006 2,000,000 (month)
2008 1,000,000
2010 500,000
2012 250,000
2014 125,000
2016 62,000 (day)
2018 31,000
2020 15,000
2022 8,000
2024 4,000 (hour)
2026 2,000
2028 1,000
2030 500
2032 250
2034 125
2036 62 (minute)
2038 31
2040 16
2042 8
2044 4
2046 2
2048 1 (second)
Your arguments are unfortunately flawed, and we should work together to fix them, because I share your concerns and aims.
This device isn't "taking a part of you", for the simple reason that you're actually handing it your "parts" by shedding them into the environment. This is unlikely to be considered an unconstitutional "search" on privacy grounds, for the reason that it's non-invasive. Look at the case law: it's constitutional for the government to fly a plane over your fences and peer down at your greenhouse, and police are allowed to search cars exhaustively without violating privacy as long as they don't open the door. A fifth-mendment defense won't work, since no one has been charged with any crime to face, and far more invasive extractions have been sustained (blood/urinalysis tests). Sure, this sort of thing shocks the concious but it doesn't shock enough people's conciouses. Unfortunately it looks like the only way to prohibit this sort of thing on a constitutional level is either to overrule a lot of precedent (yay!) or pass a constitutional amendment.
PS, not all abusive governments have been overthrown.
PPS, civilization isn't advancing. It's just getting more tech-happy.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
How did they get there then?
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
"Miss Handel, would you please hold this fellow up a minute or two more? Looks like he might be coming down with something soon, we want to check this out more closely."
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
If we could hook this up on the runway of the Victoria Secret show... use genome mapping to make them live a long time... we could build us some nice supermodels...
Metal detectors slow things up because a large portion of the people passing through them fail to realize that keys, coins, and belt buckles are in fact made of metal.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Honestly, scanning your identity this way is about the last thing you should be worried about. The main goal of testers like these is to be able to scan people rapidly, like the metal detectors at airports. They want to be able to tell if someone is trying to smuggle bombs or drugs onto an airplane. That means that you need to know the answer from your test now, not in an hour or two when the guy's already had a chance to pass his stuff to some third party.
At the present, and for the forseeable future, it's just not possible to make a DNA-based individual ID in anything like real time. Even in the lab with nearly ideal samples doing that kind of thing takes time, and a lot of that is not something that can be easily reduced; certain chemical and physical reactions take time and can't be sped up. That puts a pretty strong damper on using this as a DNA vacum to violate people's rights.
OTOH, you can bet that the war against drugs and the war against terrorism will be used as excuses. Pretty soon you won't be able to get on a plane without being subjected to a battery of tests to make sure that you're not trying to put anything illegal onto the plane. Oops, you're a mining engineer who uses explosives at work? Prepare to be hassled every time you try to fly. Your pot smoking brother came over to visit? Prepare to be stopped and have your luggage examined. In the long term those kinds of minor erosions of personal protection are a much more dangerous threat to privacy than some hypothetical DNA screening.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Smells like...victory.
-B
In the world of paranoid Gattacca ranting, maybe. In the real world, no.
There is no way at this point to take a person's DNA and sequence it for anything but a few major genetic diseases. No relevance outside of insurance. All the talk of knowing if someone is "prone to X" from their DNA is years in the future. Here and now, all the applications lead to less discrimination. Examples -
Sniffing for drugs. Don't pat down the long haired guy, just run everyone through the same doorway.
Guns, explosives, etc. eliminate "intuition" (often really means built up prejudice) as a reason to demand a frisk or strip search.
IDing someone. What we can do with the DNA today is (maybe) search for a specific individual who left tissue at a crime scene. Scan for the actual person, as opposed to police in a new york town who went with a two word description (black male) and stopped and harrassed avery black man (and some black women) they found in public areas. (true story, read about it in the wall street journal.)
Leave the paranoia behind, and try to think about how the technology can improve or damage security work in the real world. I think it sounds great for increased sercurity in some areas with decreased invasion of real privacy.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
This is an "electronic nose". I don't think that it will soon become accutate enough to quickly pick out an individual, but progress happens.
The "nose" was the first sensory organ that monocells developed. And a rudimentary photosensor. And a vibration sensor.
Eyes and ears were much later, because the processing of the information was more difficult.
But we already have cameras (photosensors) and microphones (vibration sensors). And work is being done on processing the data. Computers that can pick a person out of a crowd by photoscan have already be claimed. Ditto for voice recognition.
The problem currently is how to understand the data that is collected. Recognition is a part of the problem, but far from the only part. The electronic nervous system is on its way. The uses? Everything good and bad that you can think of. All possibilities can expected to be explored. This time estimate? My (ignorant) estimate is within the next 10 years.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
It's MY genes, damnit--shouldn't I own the patent!?
Not sure if this would be a problem, but what if you'd taken a drug in a place where it was legal, i.e. smoked a joint in Amsterdam, and then on the way home the scanner thought you were smuggling.
Is it possible for such chemicals to work their way out through your skin, leaving their presence in the skin flakes that float up into this thing?
Could cause a lot of false results. Any ideas?
"If you unscrew Bill Gates' navel will the bottom fall out of the software market?"
...without singling out individuals according to race or other characteristics
Once you're scanning someone's molecules, DNA, or whatever, wouldn't this allow for more types of discrimination not less?
Being with you, it's just one epiphany after another
As with all scientific advances, this throws up a whole load of interesting situations...
Depending on how sensitive and correct this device is, I can see some being installed in London, UK. Mention "terrorist" in England and you get some pretty draconian legal powers (such as extended questioning periods etc) to use and abuse.
So these are set up at airports... "To trap the terrorists"
Then set up at train stations... "To trap the terrorists"
Then set up at tube stations... "To trap the terrorists"
Before you know it, the terrorist threat has disappeared. Do they remove these machines? Hell, no lets have them sniff for drugs/homosexuality/Linux!
Think I'm paranoid? Then on my way to work, how come I drive through 3 manned police CCTV cameras left over from the "anti terrorist" Ring of Steel?
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
And what I REALLY want to know is, how long does it take this machine to test each person? Metal detectors slow things up considerably at airports, and they are nearly instantaneous.
And what about perfumes and deodorants - how do these things change the ability of this sensor to do its job? Interesting possibilities...
Looks like a good time to invest in soap manufacturing companies. J&J, P&G here I come! ... or something.
-Vic If you can't figure out my email, then don't.
Given that if someone were carrying drugs then only a few molecules of the substance in question would actually be detected then surely just sprinkling a bit of coke on someone else's head would be enough to cause a false alarm. Quickly running round the departure lounge with a few grams of the stuff would likely sufficiently contaminate everyone getting on the plane and make the device look faulty to staff.
It would also make it maybe too easy to spoil someones chances at a job interview by a similar technique.
My skin flakes remain my property at all times and may not be dissasembled or reverse engineered without prior written consent.
This is precisely what is described by "Illegal search" (and maybe even seizure, as they are effectively taking pieces of you as you walk by). In a perfect world, I doubt this would stand up in court, as the "due process" required has to be done on an individual basis, not on a broad scope of mostly innocent people.
What kind of people use their engineering talent to make such things? I would refuse. People do not see the long term cyclical nature of government. Everyone should take an Ancient Western Civilization class. Watch how the ancient civilizations grew, became strong, then became oppresive, then were overthrown for the greater good of humanity. This stuff will only prolong the suffering of humanity when the current civilization's time has come, making it difficult for the cycle to advance to the next level. Instead we end up in a totalitarian, invasive sitiuation.
Don't forget the children who have to live in this world we create...
On the other hand, this is a nice approach. No blowing air up your skirt/kilt, no wrecking your hairdo. Just pause for a moment under the box, while natural convection reveals your chemical secrets.
You could do on-the-fly drug screening for anything that gets stuck in scalp flakes, for example. The device can find THC byproducts as readily as THC, so look for this at a high school near you....
tc>
tc>
Most Americans don't understand science, and they wouldn't like it if they did.
Malda: Hey, relax bud! I have nothing illegal upon me.
SO: I'll decide that, Mr Malda. Please step right into my office here.
Malda: I am on urgent business here!
SO: This won't take long, if you are clean.
Malda: It's really urgent okay? Oh alright!!
Steps into office. CO closes the door.
SO: Open your luggage please. And strip down to your underwear.
Malda: Yeah yeah - here y'go. There, I'm nekkid. Satisfied?
SO: What's this? Neoprene bras, underwear and dildo ...
Malda: Yeah. Are they illegal or something?
SO (leery smile): Err ... no. I guess that explains the plastic.
Malda: Can I go now?
SO: Oooh! What is that smell?!
Malda: I just farted, Okay? Is that illegal? I really go to go ...
SO: Hold on! There's still the ... yikes, you just shit in your pants man!
Malda: I did say I have urgent business didn't I?
SO: Ah that explains the nitrogen. God, get out of my office man!
How will they tell if the tiny skin sample is from me or the person in front of me? It would seem a rather easy error to commit.
We've all had a significant other find a hair, not of their color, on our jacket at one point or another. This is the same sort of thing. It doesn't matter what we were doing, we're still in trouble.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
They tried a primitive version of this sort of thing in Vietnam, using chemical and vibration sensors on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The sensors were defeated by hanging buckets of urine next to chemical ones and driving cattle past the vibration ones. Methods of jamming modern versions are left as an excersize for the student.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
I'd be much more impressed if it could suck up my red-headed mistress's hair.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
The technology behind this is certainly interesting, and I agree some of the implications are a little scary, but I can see where this might have its place.
:P), the most important step is to prevent cross-referencing of our Genetic material; a random sampling of a crowd in which they can determine if any members of the crowd are armed, carrying drugs, or are in violation of any other law is a far cry from a random sampling where they can gather that information *AND* the identities of everybody in the crowd, their credit ratings, their age, sex, height, weight, etc.
;). Legislation passed would probably, at best, keep our info out of the hands of business/other citizens. I can already hear the Gov't making a case for keeping our info for their records, only.
:)
As somebody stated above (No, I'm not being redundant, I'm just expounding
Personally, as a law-abiding citizen who spends a lot of time in airports, I'm all for the former; it's the latter that could be a problem, I think.
The problem becomes, how can we prevent the government from crossreferencing the information, even privately? After all, it's not as if they couldn't get a sample if they really wanted to (and assuming they don't already have one
Seems our "right to privacy" only applies to other citizens, not the Gov't, sometimes.
But hey, what do I know; just my opinions.
-- if(game-theory) moderate++;
First we need to consider the nature of the device, it is based on airborne particles. Unless it is operated in a perfect vacuum (making it useless for it's intended purpose), it is not likely to be admissable as evidence in court. On the negative side, it might constitute probable cause for further investigation, search and ceasure. What the device will do, is change the nature of profiling. Currently probable cause is not required for search and ceasure at an international airport or port of entry, and profiling is the primary method used in determining who to search. Profiling is done on the basis of appearance (primarily race and dress). What this device could do is eliminate profiling entirely, a boon for civil rights. As to using the DNA for identification for use in market profiling, it is currently cost prohibitive. When and if it ever becomes cost effective, they'll probably put sensors in the air conditioning ducts, as anonymous sampling is always preferable.
Makes no difference... addiction is something you can't discriminate against someone for. You could test your employee's blood and find that he's wired on smack a lot of the time - but so long as he does his job competently, doesn't possess or take drugs on company property, etc etc YOU CANNOT FIRE HIM.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
simply BAN the cross referencing of a DNA database with public info, like for instance, your social security number.
It's too late. We in the US (and to an even greater extent, Great Britain) are already taking DNA samples from arrestees. If history is any indication, it will soon be required, much as fingerprints are, from police applicants, military, civil service employees, people registering a gun, etc. The attraction of this technology to a government bent on 'helping' us will make its adoption inevitable.
What if I sprinkle you with coke in an elevator?
If this dystopia were to really come about, how are you going to get on that elevator with that coke? Every public building will have a monitor, so you won't be able to enter. Even if you could, how would you avoid getting it on yourself?
Ok, paranoia aside, there was an interesting program some years back in which paper currency was to be tested for cocaine residue. The theory was that if residue was detected, whoever was passing that currency was likely engaged in the drug trade. The trouble was that, when they actually tested the currency, virtally all of it had cocaine residue. I suspect that any monitoring program would have some of the same vulnerabilities; any 'bad stuff' they're looking for already permeates the environment to such an extent that the alarm bells would go off constantly. How do they know that these are your skin flakes? Since they 're everywhere, other people's are presumably also all over you. It may be a while, if ever, before we get to the point where these monitors are practical. At least, let's hope so.
I bet everyone on /. will be going "Yay! New technology!", but we have to worry about one thing: What happens next? An evil corporation buys a 2x2 foot block of ceiling somewhere and gathers DNA. It then correlates the DNA to your e-mail address, home address, and SSN (if it can get it). Corporations now have a perfect way of identifying someone perfectly -- After all, DNA doesn't lie, does it?
It does. Remember, it can't tell what it's gathering or where it came from. It would be trivial to walk underneath one of those things and shake a vial of someone else's dandruff over its sensor. Voila! You have an effect similar to the cypherpunk/cypherpunk registrations on annoying news sites. Suddenly, this Evil Corporation has one John Smith on 31337 Haxor Lane, New York, NY walking into its store several times per second. It's "Hack life" on a whole new level.
Friends don't let friends misuse the subjunctive.
Then, it's a simple matter of making easily identifiable symbols for people to wear so we know who has what. Thank you, science.
I don't beleive that the obvious comparison of this tech to that used in GATTACA is all that appropriate.. The climate of this country is such that that kind of screening would be VERY difficult to pass through any sort of government body.. such concepts as inequal opportunity (prop 11 in calif) based on race have had an extremely hard time gaining acceptance, as they should.. Americans have a very difficult time judging people based on their condition at birth.. it's one of the founding tenets of the country. I am speaking of the legal system here.. and I know all of you US-bashers are going to go off about how americans descriminate all the time, etcetcetc, but that is a personal choice that individuals and groups excercise. The system, as it is WRITTEN, does not, in general, discriminate based on birth condition.. so shut the hell up about GATTACA.. anyways.
The thing that initially worried me about this tech is the ability to scan for drug deposits/residues of things which are not deemed as socially acceptable, which can be easily achieved by the excuse of testing for bomb materials, etc.. this is the kind of abuse that I fear will become prevalent due to this technology and others like it. However, while this may in the short-term, if it is ever implemented in airports/schools/businesses/anywhere, be a terrible injustice and a big pain in my ass, in the long term, it will not be tolerated by the people. When the government takes to harrasing the people about things which are generally none of their business (eg, drugs), the fact will come out that EVERYONE has skeletons in their closet. EVERYONE does things that they don't want people to know about. EVERYONE has something to hide, and when/if the government starts exposing the habits of the populace and persecuting, the people will rise and overthrow or change the government.
I hope.
//Phizzy
"Most European technology just isn't worth our stealing," -- Former CIA chief James Woolsey, referring to Echelon
Good luck to the breakthrough machine! I can immagine it sucking up mosquitoes, flies, mites, my wife's hair, pollen, etc... Would it see a centaur if I rode my horse? Hell, I'd call the police if I saw one of those.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The alternative is a true big-brother police state, wherein you are tracked, measured, and sampled at unknown intervals.
Frankly, I like a Microsoft-like licensing scheme for my own DNA.
Given such an invasion of privacy, I find it sardonically amusing that people would get upset about the idea that various institutions would have access to the logs of their email, ATM/Credit card/bank transactions, millions of security cameras recording their movements in both public and private places and detailed teachers' accounts of their behavior from K-12 in public schools, let alone getting upset about sampling their DNA as they walk by a few scattred detectors.
Seastead this.
Assuming that these mysterious devices don't bring about the American Gestapo, they would be great additions to the entrances and passageways of your home, again assuming that they could perform DNA analysis. I don't want them for security reasons, I just want my home to recognize who is entering and leaving certain rooms and to adjust accordingly. Sure there are easier ways, but ideally this one could be done without any noticable interaction.
Sad but true.
While I feel the threat of terrorism is seriously overblown, it might seem reasonable to use these in airports to search for explosives. However, the potential for this device for searching for drugs underscores the urgent need to completely eliminate the insanity of Prohibition.
Burris
There is a good quote from Ben Franklin on the subject of freedom vs safety.
[warning]I may not have the EXACT wording but it will get the point across.[/warning]
"Those who are willing to give up essential liberty in exchange for safety deserve neither the liberty nor the safety."
I think this hits the nail right on the head. If the population of the US is stupid enough to choose temporary solutions to problems in order for a little safety now by giving up their liberty then they deserve to lose both when the temporary solution fails.
Now before people go and flame me about this, I am a US citizen and I am very unhappy about the idea that the general population is giving up my freedoms for temporary safty. I am unhappy with it, but in this representative democracy the minority in the general populous loses. The minority that is the representation generally wins, see missle shield program.
There was another reply with a small exerpt from the Los Almos disk drive incedent that I would like to comment on. It isn't that hard to keep a log of who checks things in and out, if you work with rms then you would know that it isn't that much of a bother, and quite useful if you are looking for the drives. Also, if the information was as important as they say it was, they should have a survalence camara there. Even 7-11 has camara and I know that those Little Debbie Snacks are no where near as important as nuclear secrets. This isn't about freedom vs safety this is about common curtacy, responsability and national security.
Disclamer - Opinion of Person
The link to the news article about the missle shield program didn't work. Here it is.
missle shield
Disclamer - Opinion of Person
On top of reminding everyone that violent crime as at a 20 year low, remind them that Washington DC has banned the possesion firearms within the city limits and it has the highest murder rate in the country.
Disclamer - Opinion of Person
You americans have an opportunity to make a real stand here, and it will solve the problem of people spying on your DNA - simply BAN the cross referencing of a DNA database with public info, like for instance, your social security number. If your DNA cannot be used to identify you, this won't be a problem from the standpoint of raw information collection for marketting purposes (although might be valid statistically, for instance, all the caffiene molecules being secreted through the pores of coders in the development building.. heh heh)
As for explosives testing.. the american people need to vote on what they want more: Freedom or safety. You can be perfectly safe, more or less, but you'll be living in a police state. But, this is something the country will decide, personally, I'd rather live in a rural setting where the man doesn't have as many rights to get on my land.
The drug issue is worse though, and it's why I'll never move to the US. What if I toss a couple grams of an illicit substance in your car and then call the cops? What if I sprinkle you with coke in an elevator? The shit will hit the fan, and with the way the US drug laws work currently, your life is over and you very well might lose your car, if I phrase my "anonymous tip" correctly.
Something to think about..
..don't panic
Imagine what these things would do at airports. If you have some money in your hand, the trace residues of cocaine that are on just about every bill may be detected, and you will be a drug suspect. Imagine shaking hands with a criminal, and then having his skin flakes come off from you and be detected. The only place this thing belongs is in Los Alamos, to make sure the people stealing harddrives are right people. And another thing, the quote "your choice" of detection devices, well, you won't get to choose. Oh well, the guy that invented this lives about 15 miles from here, maybe I can go talk some sense into him about privacy.
--- At my sig, unleash hell.
your pretence that having an operating system on your computer is some sort of revolutionary act
Actually, I just threw the Linux reference in as a gradual decay of "crimes" in the list for comedy effect/karma whore points/to confuse microcephallic self-abusers like yourself. I was implying that once the kit is in place, you can start all sorts of intrusion into people's lives. And that's not funny/karma whore/difficult to understand.
Nobody cares that you choose to use a difficult, cheap, under-developed OS with few drivers,
I don't. I use Linux when I can...
least of all the Government.
Hmm, have you been _blind_ to the RIP bill in Great Britain recently? Oh, you're probably not from GB, so it can't matter... "They came for the weenies, and I did not speak up, for I was not a weenie..." Who'll be batting for you when they come for the trolls, streetlawyer? Just becase you expect to see Linux fanatics on
Have you not noticed that numerous Linux companies have actually had IPOs?
Yes I have, by which your logic that I think I am the next Che Guevara, is flawed at best. So, it's a guerrlia OS run by corporations then? Hmm, time for your next hit from the crack pipe...
Oooh, rebel rebel, your hair is a mess.
But at least I managed to tie both my own shoelaces this morning, can you say you did any better? Oh, and your mother forgot to tuck your shirt in... Quit the fashion advice, turdboy.
Look around you on Slashdot. Are these the kind of people that The Man fears for their independent thinking and free hearts?
Yes, I do think that, actually. Because we are connected to the Internet; even the most stupid MBA knows that the internet is a seething hotbed of bomb making recipes, nuclear warhead blueprints and goat porn. You fumduck.
Again, go read The Register, search for RIP, and come back to the table with a better argument. Legislation is being passed - is that the work of an unthreatened organisation?
I think you ought to be going back to your original troll nature, streetlawyer; start trying to buy those crack ho's outa jail.
Punk.
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Privacy Schmivacy... reckless advancement for its own sake I say... but what the hell... it's not like the average person has a whole helluva lot of privacy anyway; cookies, cell phones, telecommunication in general for that matter, think of just about anything that makes our lives "easier" and you've probably got something that is perfectly suited for taking away our privacy.
Oh god, that woman is John Romero!