Slashdot Mirror
DNA-Tagging Used To Nab Counterfeit Olympic Goods
Logic Bomb writes: "The San Francisco Chronicle is running a story about the way Olympic officials are fighting counterfeit 'official' Olympic merchandise. Invisible ink containing DNA strands from an unnamed Australian athlete is used to write on almost everything sold -- that's around 50 million items. A team of 'logocops' then travels around Australia, using scanners to check merchandise at random. Over 120,000 items have already been identified as counterfeit and seized. The story has more details." Sounds like SF, but then ... flying cars aside, plenty of humans now have radio phones and organs they weren't born with. There are some other interesting applications named toward the end of the article, too.
sell blue dresses. Don't want to know what kinda DNA is on them!
Sig it.
I came real close to rolling my car the other day, and DNA tagged my underwear....
Have we become such a greedy people that we must make sure that no one else can make money from any idea that someone or some group claims to be theirs. The Olympics have been around for ever, yet we let someone own the name, and make other people pay to say this is official. We are in such a need for money that we must tag our merchandise with DNA to insure that no one else sells it. Oh and by the way, you can duplicate DNA without having to go back and get more samples from the donor, but hey what do I know.
Only the one person who buys a DVD will be able to watch it!
"Please supply a blood sample to start playback"
-- IANAEG - I am not an elder god.
Remember when the olympics was about competing atheletes? Now it seems to be a New World Order Olympics, with gagged atheletes, super-corporate sponsorships, DNA tagging of merchandise, random searches and seizures of Australian citizens, dispatching of the secret police to nearby countries, etc.
Next time he or she commits a crime, there'll be no worries about the DNA evidence! I can just see it now...
"Can you explain how your unique DNA got onto this crowbar?"
"Well, not exactly, sir, but you can see it's the official crowbar of the 2000 Olympics."
- Brian
The athlete's DNA was most likely simply 'copied' using PCR (polymerase chain reaction). This is a
h tml
standard technique that sort of mimicks the DNA
replication process that goes on in real life. It's the cornerstone of the molecular biology revolution.
See http://falcon.cc.ukans.edu/~jbrown/pcr.html
or http://www.accessexcellence.com/AB/GG/polymerase.
"Nothing prevents people from taking a sample of that concoction of DNA off a T-shirt and PCR'ing it..."
No, but making the counterfeit DNA tags may be quite difficult. The DNA tag probably consists of a short sequence that is present at only low concentrations. To be able to make PCR copies, you first have to figure out what primers to use, which may not be too easy since the sequence is kept secret.
If they're smart, it will be mixed in with a lot of trash sequences as well, to serve as decoys. Since we have no way to pick out what's the real key sequence, we would have to copy them all -- and it's very easy to generate astronomical numbers of decoys.
Of course, if someone were to get hold of the test equipment they use, then the problem becomes a lot easier.
Like a lot of you, I wondered how they can non-destructivly authenticate DNA in the field. Take a look at the PSA/DNA web site. This is a sports memorabilia authentication company with a gimmick. They include synthetic DNA in a special ink which is used to tag an item. A special laser can make the tagging visible. Does the laser prove which DNA lot was used to tag the item? NO way! Eventually, someone will figure out how to make an ink that glows under the special laser, and their system will be worthless. Presumably, a sample could be taken to the lab, and analyzed, but this would be expensive, slow and destructive -- the very things they claim not to be.
I have a hard enough time getting DNA to survive a few days in a pH buffered solution, let alone stuck to a friggin' t-shirt. What a bunch of crap. DNA hydrolyzes faster than my kid sister drops a load in her drawers at a cheesy horror film. And as for scanners? Uh-huh. Not even worth a reply... Shamino
Butchers make the bestest meat; sugar sugar sugar beet!