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.
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.
It means that they didn't need to stitch them into one DNA chain, they "just mixed them".
That's quite important.
You're missing the point.
By planting evidence in an actual crime, you don't have to arrest them under a controversial Orwellian law about "having the wrong books" or "looking at the wrong websites" where they become the new Leonard Peltier, Nelson Mandela, -- i.e. a political figure for people to wrap their cause around. They're just another rapist/murderer/bomber at that point. Nobody will want to be seen as a supporter of them because of being associated with a criminal, and the dissident will be written off as crackpot.
The really scary one to me is the possibility of mastermind criminals framing prior criminals whose DNA is on file. Imagine a bio-hacker pedophile who framed people on those handy state lists, leading the authorities directly to the very people they suspect most in the first place.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)