Slashdot Mirror
Scientists Learn To Fabricate DNA Evidence
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that it is possible to fabricate blood and saliva samples containing DNA from a person other than the donor, and even to construct a sample of DNA to match someone's profile without obtaining any tissue from that person — if you have access to their DNA profile in a database. This undermines the credibility of what has been considered the gold standard of proof in criminal cases. 'You can just engineer a crime scene,' said Dan Frumkin, lead author of the paper. 'Any biology undergraduate could perform this.' The scientists fabricated DNA samples in two ways. One requires a real, if tiny, DNA sample, perhaps from a strand of hair or a drinking cup. They amplified the tiny sample into a large quantity of DNA using a standard technique called whole genome amplification. The other technique relies on DNA profiles, stored in law enforcement databases as a series of numbers and letters corresponding to variations at 13 spots in a person's genome. The scientists cloned tiny DNA snippets representing the common variants at each spot, creating a library of such snippets. To prepare a phony DNA sample matching any profile, they just mixed the proper snippets together. Tania Simoncelli, science adviser to the American Civil Liberties Union, says the findings were worrisome. 'DNA is a lot easier to plant at a crime scene than fingerprints,' says Simoncelli. 'We're creating a criminal justice system that is increasingly relying on this technology.'"
Well, fuck.
they have to rewrite next season of CSI because of this
What sort of budget do they have to have to do this to you? How much will that go down in the next 5, 10 and 20 years? Hmm...
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
Company selling test to detect whether this has happened shows off a tech demonstration of why their product is necessary.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Ok folks, don't get yourselves in a tizzy over this.
If you read the article (yeah, I know, it's against Slashdot rules, but give a try anyway) you'll see that all this hype originates from a company that has a product to detect faked DNA evidence, that they hope to sell to forensics labs.
The simple fact is that if someone wants to plant your DNA at a crime scene, there are many possible ways for them to obtain *real* DNA to use for that purpose. They aren't going to go through the hassle of creating fake DNA...
Don't tell me to get a life. I had one once. It sucked.
Really? It's that easy? God, I'm an idiot. After I cloned the tiny snippets of the common variants, creating my library, I just sat there staring at them and thinking "What the hell do I do now?"
Did you fuck up an investigation? Need to get some niggers or latinos put away for giving you shit? Found your best friend banging your wife and you want to teach him a lession?
Order your DNA CYA kit today!
Your DNA CYA kit will contain all the necessary "stuff" to implicate your mark!
With the DNA CYA kit, you'll be busting everyone that's given you shit. What does that get you? Well dumb ass, with the DNA CYA kit, you'll become the "expert" in gathering DNA evidence in your precinct! Soon you won't be sitting in some skanky smelling patrol car, instead you'll be sitting behind the desk looking to become the next chief!
Order your DNA CYA kit today or your "good buddy" will become the next chief!
i am sure it has already been done. there is nothing revolutionary here, just like human cloning has been done successfully without our knowledge. everything u can imagine has been done.
Wouldn't it be easier to just fabricate a criminal justice system? Or even reality itself? Oops, too late...
Whole genome replication seems to mostly center around Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). PCR is an incredibly versitile technology. PCR machines cycle test tubes through specific temperatures, the thermal cyclers are cheap compared to a lot of lab equipment but still in the thousands of dollars. To do a PCR also requires some type of polymerase, nucleotides, some solutions, and short primer oligonucleotides. These are all items that aren't prohibitively expensive but aren't household items either.
Maybe I'm being too ACLU/tinfoil hat, but I'm getting a sinking feeling that someone eventually is going to try to slap some regulations on PCR, or at some point in the future, having access to a thermal cycler and PCR materials is going to be seen by law enforcement as a reason to be suspicious of you. And I think that would be a real crime. I could see a future where thermal cyclers come down in price even more, maybe high school kids will start tinkering around with PCR as kids from yesteryear played with chemistry sets before we decided they could be used to make bombs and should be banned.
Maybe not. Anyway, I think we should nip it in the bud if there's any hint that law enforcement starts thinking you need to have a good reason to manipulate DNA, just so they can keep their evidence unquestionably true.
That was asked in Australia a lot in the 1970-90's. ... :)
You just need to present the evidence in the right way and tone and its done.
The court system stays pure, the graduates are happy, the judges clean.
The cops just needed to make sure their verballing skills where good:)
Video helped but
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
1) Pass "homeland security" type law requiring people to register and submit DNA for national database.
2) Keep an eye out for political dissidents.
3) When they appear, have covert government agents commit crimes and plant "teh incontrovertible DNS evidence" of the dissident at the scene.
4) Dissident is taken out of the picture in a way that looks completely legitimate.
5) Bonus: Add extra brutality to their crimes to make the dissident (and by extension any of their ideas) less attractive to anyone else.
Maybe this can be interpreted as a sign that DNA technology is getting affordable and widespread the same way photo manipulation is now relatively easy with widespread access to image technologies like Photoshop. In the case of images, we can more easily fake them, but we also benefit from more advanced visual design around us.
The leading scientist in faked DNA evidence was joyful at the conviction of wife's killer. The prosecutor presented a mountain of DNA evidence and jurors only took 60 seconds to deliberate before delivering the guilty verdict. When the scientist was asked what his future plans were, he said that he was going to buy a lot of cool stuff with the payout from his wife's large insurance policy and marry his young and attractive lab assistant.
In order to 'engineer' a crime scene, to incriminate somebody by planting fake DNA, the first thing I need it a real, if tiny, DNA sample, perhaps from a strand of hair or a drinking cup. Then I use that to fake some DNA, which I place at the scene.
So can somebody tell my WTF, if I already have some legitimate DNA from the person I'm attempting to frame, I wouldn't just place that at the crime scene instead?
I you are rich enough and have access to the right things you can frame someone for murder. What will they come up with next.
Random DNA sprayed around a crime scene would just seem weird. Wouldn't they also have to make it seem real? IE fake blood, saliva, whatever, in the same places it would be found in a crime scene?
At the moment most (if not all) DNA profiling is done by examining STRs. STRs are specific spots in your DNA where a certain pattern of DNA is repeated a number of times. And the number of times it's repeated might be different for you from the STR at that spot from someone else.
So if you check many of these spots, you can make it extremely unlikely that someone else has all of these spots with the same number of repeats as you do. In the US they check 13 loci. And this fake DNA (the stuff they advertise as being possible to make just by looking in the database, with no original genetic material) is just a load of these loci, with the correct number of repeats in there.
The reason it isn't much of a problem is that the technological bottlenecks that made the human genome project such a money pit are close to gone now. Taking a genetic sample and fully sequencing it shouldn't be that much of a problem in the next few years (I mean you can already do it for the price of a coat. To proof against fake evidence, many other SNPs or STRs can be checked instead, as a confirmation. Keeping a list of another 13 STRs to be used as confirmation would be a good start, having the loci known but not recording the results in databases to prevent this kind of counterfeiting.
After all you can alter a crime scene taking DNA samples and magnify them from many sources like saliva in stamps or cups o just going through your rubbish, which is considerable easier to obtain and magnify than someone's DNA profile... I do not think in practice this makes big difference with how things were before.
Dear
Collect his cigarette stubs,
I don't smoke!
go through his comb and collect his hair,
I'm a slashdotter, I don't use a comb!
his chewing gums,
I don't use bubble gum!
his used condoms...
HAH! No worries there!
I think I'm safe from getting framed.
As it's illegal in the US to argue over the accuracy of DNA evidence. Despite the flaws in traditional DNA profiling, and stuff like this, you are not actually allowed to point any of this out in court as part of your defence.
There is no music - home taping killed it.
If the artificially created DNA evidence was based on just the contents of a profile database, and the person incriminated is apprehended, wouldn't a DNA comparison of the fabricated and the real sample show major discrepancies? At least at that point a person should be able to prove that the DNA is not from him/her ... (of course, DNA being so highly regarded as infallible, it's a classic "guilty until proven innocent") ...
Of course this would not work for DNA created on the basis of existing DNA ...
Well, fuck.
As a friend of someone who was wrongfully incarcerated based upon DNA evidence, I say:
Well, fuck!!
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
"This undermines the credibility of what has been considered the gold standard of proof in criminal cases. "
It doesn't. The credibility still lies with the lab scientists themselves handling the DNA samples, as the infamous OJ Simpson case showed.
So, let's say that I am planning a big heist. How would I use this to foil investigations?
Gedtting some DNA is the easiest part. Cigarette butts for example
Now I need to somehow get access to Polymerase Chain Reaction chemicals and the primers used for crime investigation. How hard is that?
Then I have to liberally spread the PCR product around at the crime scene.
Or could I also use it afterwards when I am caught, by injecting myself with it, and putting it in my mouth, to taint any blood and saliva samples?
Since the PCR product only has the specific DNA they test for, and in much greater quantity than in my cells, could the PCR product drown out my real DNA fingerprint?
Or is there an easier method? Could I simply spread some polymerase-blocking chemical at the crime scene to foil all PCR attempts?
but we can't make a passable artificial vagina for under $100?
n/t
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
> As it's illegal in the US to argue over the accuracy of DNA evidence.
This is false, as a Google search will quickly show. There are books on how to challenge DNA evidence, and laws firms that specialize in the subject.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
What do so many people have against orange juice? I mean people from florida are a little more tan but citrus hate is just strange. Come on people of course oj is innocent.
Not fabricating DNA, but certainly fabricating DNA evidence .
and a good lab to retest the evidence.
My business, ForensicFooler(TM) , which provides 'pollution' kits for criminals
to pollute crime scenes is in peril!
ForensicsFoolers(TM) collects random hair from barber shops, saliva from trashed
cola cans and blood from donor centers, for criminals to seed the crime scene
with bogus DNA leads.
How will I profit? I used to charge $50.00 per kit, but now I fear I will lose
my user base.
I guess All my bases belong to them now.
See! I told you that kid ain't my son.
News For Paranoids
Stuff That Matters To Schizophrenics
you can fabricate ANYTHING
hardly news or interesting or revelatory
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
If you can get the DNA samples, isn't it easier just to place the samples at the crime scene?
EVIL initials! Whole Genome Amplification!
Damn!
This means that using DNA to convict is harder. Using the lack of DNA, or the presence of someone else's (person unknown) can still work to clear people.
Or how about ex-presidents getting blamed for virtually every crime committed from 2010 on?
"Why did the criminal lick the gun before leaving it at the crime scene?"
"Who cares! He did it, we have the sample, and the computer tells us the armed robber is... George Bush."
"Oh. Well, then we know why he licked the gun."
At a crime scene you don't find dna - you find organic matter - be it hair, skin, blood, etc. Yes, you can create "new" dna in the lab (and you know how dna looks like), but you cannot alter existing dna. If you find hair in the victims' nails... how do you change the existing dna in that strand of hair to a new one ?
So then - how can this alter the existing crime cases ?
PS. Yes, I agree, in the future it might even be possible to change one dna to another. But this is not possible yet, it seems.
For the first century of use as evidence, there were no statistically significant studies whowing finger print evidence was valid. It was just the expert witness of police investigators saying so. I see articles periodically mentioning this. Only a defense lawyer with immense resources can challenge the overall science of fingerprint evidence due to its use for a century.
'DNA is a lot easier to plant at a crime scene than fingerprints,' says Simoncelli'
.. she stated that she had not been in the murder victim's house even although 4 experts from the Scottish Criminal Records Office (SCRO) had identified a 'thumbprint' from the house as hers'
'Shirley McKie was a successful police woman until February 1997 when she was accused of leaving her fingerprint at a crime scene and lying about it
From those who used it to fight crime by raising their skill in DNA forensics and to those trying to defend or exploit it there were many opportunities to approach it from a "hacker" mindset with good or bad intentions.
This is the 1st public release of this information; there likely many more approaches than these "new" ones. When something like this is "discovered", why assume that the 1st discoveries are always reported? I'm not just implying any government conspiracies; organized crime, law enforcement, and even legal firms as well could have funded PRIVATE research into this area decades ago when DNA evidence was young--- and they all did to various degrees.. not all of it being made public.
I can't think of examples just within the realm of scientific research... but we've heard about scientific discoveries where many passed over or dismissed something that eventually somebody looked into and found or proved something "new."
Then we have the US FBI's method for DNA matching being far far less reliable than they thought and the FBI not wanting to formally admit error while other counties raised the bar on their DNA matching. (not sure we have yet...because in doing so it is like an admission of error...)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
... shouldn't we assume the CIA and Mossad already know how to evade this detection?
Folks, the real news here isn't that DNA evidence could be forged. That was sort of a no-brainer to anyone who understands the parallels with digital evidence.
The real news is that the ability to DETECT the forgery is now being sold by a company in a nation with arguably the best intelligence service in the world.
This isn't "space alien with mind control ray" tinfoil hat stuff. It's basic extrapolation and logic.
SERIAL KILLER ON THE LOOSE
DNA Evidence Implicates Rutherford B. Hayes
This sucks!!!!! with this, I guess CSI will no longer exists??? xD!!
BRAIN SWAB!
Well this does not really surprise me. I do beleive in the US at least DNA samples of every child born has been collected for many years. Despite government denials here in the UK that it is not being done with our children, I am obviously dubious. As for fabrication of DNA evidence, that does not surprise me either and certain labs do end up with cross-contamination and has been proven in the past. I suppose the real problem is you just cannot trust DNA. There are unethical medical scientists out there experimenting all the time. MoOoOoOo! I mean Bahh Dolly the sheep returns!
All cows eat grass!
... and a tissue sample from (for an example) Tony Blair, and I can have him commence his career as a axe-murdering homosexual rapist. Woo Hoo!, hold the front page!
(actually, I think I might need to RTFA too. But why violate SlashDot norms.)
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Crap, I've been making that stuff for years. (www.dnaidentiguard.com)
I put up a protocol so that everyone make it at home on the website dnaidentiguard.com.
I made two different solutions, one which complete changes your genetic identity ( I use to joke with my brother that i could make him pass any "genetic" test that would prove with 100% certainy that he, in fact, was father of Anna Nicole's child).
The second totally mask your identity... I first tested using the home DNA paternity tests. When the lab tech called me and said that they couldn't figure out what was wrong with my sample, I bursted out in laughter!
And yes, I have collected DNA from all my enemies... so don't get on my bad side.
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NY times sucks balls.