patrick.net

"Sure, everyone is concerned about their privacy, but privacy is a cultural need which can change over time. It's just a matter of time before DNA databases become the norm."
And it's way too late to worry about it. Evidence is evidence, and this insane person was caught because of improved evidence-gathering. Kudos to the cop who thought of it.

Feux Follets says

Similar questions have been raised in the past about other serial offenders, killers whose innocuous and even virtuous jobs seemed to belie the horrors they committed while hiding behind a veneer of respectability.

Feux Follets says

— Top 3 Skilled Serial-Killer Occupations: 1. Aircraft machinist/assembler

Randy Kraft, born in 1945 into an upper middle class family, began his life of crime with the kidnapping and molestation of a 13 year old boy in 1973, the youngster escaped but didn't report the incident due to embarrassment--he testified as an adult during Kraft's trial in 1991. Beginning in 1974 and until caught during a routine traffic stop in 1983, Kraft would offer rides to young male hitchhikers on the California and Oregon freeways and in one instance in rural Michigan while at a computer conference, offer them drugs laced with sedatives, then when helpless be taken to remote locations where he would torture them for hours before dispatching them with a knife. Sometimes he would just throw their body out onto one of the California freeways onto which he covered hundreds of miles in always rented cars which made his capture so difficult due to lack of evidence. In Vietnam Kraft was an expert at airplane maintenance, then after the service worked in the then new computer industry with great skill and was always well-liked among his co-workers.

Feux Follets says

many killers use their employment as a pretext to acquire vulnerable victims

In an earlier era, Albert Fish (1870-1936) began his career as a sexual sadist and cannibal after developing a taste for human flesh while serving in the Merchant Marines in China in 1899 during a time of famine when anyone under the age of 12 was in danger of being killed for food. He became a house painter which gave him access to residential interiors where he scoped out potential victims. His last victim was Grace Budd whom he met in 1928 when she was 12--his original target was Grace's older brother, but upon meeting him realized he was too large for him to overpower and he instantly fell in love with Grace when she came into the room. He lured her away to an empty house, tortured her for hours, then dismembered her body which he cooked and ate over several days. In true Uni-Bomber fashion, his ego got the best of him and he wrote a letter to her parents taunting them with descriptions of her agony. The authorities were able to use the stationery he found in a hotel to ultimately trace him down in 1932 and he was electrocuted in 1936.

I always wondered why particularly the 1970's saw the proliferation of these kinds of killings when they had existed to a small degree from back in the late 19th century with H. H. Holmes.

P N Dr Lo R says

Especially gratifying since I expect by this late date he thought he was home free. However, it must have been in the back of his mind after DNA came along that he knew he left samples along the way which would some day be traced to him--he wasn't as smart as he thought he was. Hope he gets death, but in California he'll die of older age before that--I don't think anyone has been executed in California for 30 years.

Not 30 for sure. There was that fuck - Tookie Williams - who practically demanded to be pardoned but was denied by Governator on the basis of his alleged "redemption" looking more like "hollow promise". The shitbird had the gall to demand pardon without even apologizing to the victim's relatives. Of course all the usual Hollywood and Berkeleya types were screaming that a gentle, innocent man has been murdered by eeeevil state once the murderous fuck was finally sent to be Satan's sex toy.

Strategist says

If everyone was required to have their DNA results stored in a database accessible only to the FBI, crime would drop like a rock. It would be easy to catch criminals who leave a trace of their DNA at a crime scene, because we would know right away whodunnit. Those even thinking of committing a crime would think twice as the chances of getting caught will increase sharply. Rapes, murders, child molestations would decrease the most as DNA is almost always left in these crimes.

Yeah, yeah and before that the magic bullet was was fingerprints. And before that it was photography. But somehow the crime is still around.

Now, let's pause and think about it: is it hard to plant your face (on CCTV tape) at the crime scene were you wasn't present? Almost impossible. Is it possible to plant your fingerprints? Doable, by mighty hard and impractical. How about DNA? Easy-peasy: a strand of hair, a used paper cup or napkin gets the job done.

I say, if the government wants my DNA so badly than whoever is the President at that time can suck my dick for it. On live TV. That's the only way I'm giving it to them.

tovarichpeter says

Instead of unsustainable police pensions, we should be funding more DNA testing. DNA does a much better job of catching the guilty and freeing the innocent and identifying the forgotten than cops and lawyers. I certainly have no objection if my DNA catches a rapist or a serial killer.

DNA is not full-proof by any means. And if you're talking about the technology that only recently been replaced, it's worse. I worked on a team that was developing next-gen sequencing SW for forensics, and will always remember two things. First thing is we had a group discussion one day where we identified an allele I believe(this is about 4 years back), that could be either male or female, and our solution wasn't granular enough to distinguish which. Our Next Gen solution. The other was that the SW engineering lead for the project said he never wanted his DNA anywhere near this, or any forensics system.

Satoshi_Nakamoto says

That's the only way I'm giving it to them.

Not if they collect your trash which is perfectly legal, or collect your utensils at a restaurant.

P N Dr Lo R says

Satoshi_Nakamoto says

That's the only way I'm giving it to them.

Not if they collect your trash which is perfectly legal, or collect your utensils at a restaurant.

But it won't be me giving it to them voluntarily - it would be them stealing it. Also the burden of proof that the DNA is really mine will be on the fuckers if it ever comes up in court.

Satoshi_Nakamoto says

it would be them stealing it.

Something that is abandoned in the public domain, such as spittle, can hardly be considered stolen.

Satoshi_Nakamoto says

Also the burden of proof that the DNA is really mine will be on the fuckers if it ever comes up in court.

Well of course it will be--that's what the forensic people do, it's not something the average layman has expertise in.

NuttBoxer says

DNA is not full-proof by any means. And if you're talking about the technology that only recently been replaced, it's worse. I worked on a team that was developing next-gen sequencing SW for forensics, and will always remember two things. First thing is we had a group discussion one day where we identified an allele I believe(this is about 4 years back), that could be either male or female, and our solution wasn't granular enough to distinguish which. Our Next Gen solution. The other was that the SW engineering lead for the project said he never wanted his DNA anywhere near this, or any forensics system.

Cool I did too! You must be talking about ydna SNPs. Yeah, parts of the y-chromosome are hard to distinguish from X. The old (still existing) tech uses STRs (short tandem repeats; repetitive non-coding sequences not within genes) and just identifies people based on the length of the repeats in about a dozen areas of the genome. NGS will allow one to use SNPs which will be way better.

Big problems come from:

1. Mixtures. Marketing really really really wanted us to distinguish say 7 individuals who all contributed to the same semen stain or similar mixtures., and I told them that's science fiction and it still is. Didn't go over well. Gang rapes get thrown out of court because of this.
2. Using the old technology (STRs) to fish people out of CODIS based on family members. Similar to how that serial killer was caught in CA recently. With STRs it's not ethical based on the statistical likelihood of making a false match (innocent) and railroading them in court. It's really only ethically used if they match the suspect AFTER they are a suspect for some other evidence and they don't really need a database for that. Something like 1:few thousand vs. 1: several billion probability difference in chance of making that mistake. Using sets of forensics SNPs (identity, ancestry, phenotypic) you CAN mine a database ethically. There is way more power in SNPs.

Strategist says

leave a trace of their DNA at a crime scene

Every couple of minutes a typical human sheds enough skin cells to cover a football field. Someday the skynet AI robots will have an easy way to find and exterminate us. We cannot hide!

WarrenTheApe says

They don't need to do that. They just need to harass people who are registered under a particular party affiliation.

---

They know who you are based on your online activity already using machine learning. DNA cannot be used to qualify an act of voting.

P N Dr Lo R says

Satoshi_Nakamoto says

it would be them stealing it.

Something that is abandoned in the public domain, such as spittle, can hardly be considered stolen.

Satoshi_Nakamoto says

Also the burden of proof that the DNA is really mine will be on the fuckers if it ever comes up in court.

Well of course it will be--that's what the forensic people do, it's not something the average layman has expertise in.

You completely missed the point: gathering DNA of the whole population via dumpster-diving for used condoms is not practical and very unreliable way to have a decent DNA database. So yeas, while it theoretically possible to get someone's used paper cup and summon the guy who collected it to testify in court that it was indeed the cup discarded by that person - this shit won't scale to make the wet dream "catching random criminals using DNA databases" come true. This is before the scientific challenges described in this very thread.

Satoshi_Nakamoto says

gathering DNA of the whole population

No, I meant just in an individual situation where a suspect already exists. The whole population would be idiotic.

Relax guys. Lets look at this scenario:
1. Every baby born will have it's DNA recorded.
2. Every person that enters the country will have their DNA recorded.
3. Every person in the country will be on camera wherever they go with facial recognition, with their DNA matched.

Crime will be obsolete, because law enforcement will always know whodunnit, and where they are. Potential criminals would not even bother to commit a crime.
Why is the above bad?

Yes, strat #1 is coming. It's getting cheap to sequence a genome and health care orgs are staring to opt in. This news is 5 days old:

https://www.geisinger.org/about-geisinger/news-and-media/news-releases/2018/05/07/12/18/dna-sequencing-to-become-part-of-geisingers-routine-clinical-care

I've read similar stuff about sequencing babies. Basically it's about to become ubiquitous. Lobby congress to strengthen and expand on the GINA legislation passed a decade ago that the Republicans were trying to roll back recently.

just_passing_through says

Yes, strat #1 is coming. It's getting cheap to sequence a genome and health care orgs are staring to opt in. This news is 5 days old:

https://www.geisinger.org/about-geisinger/news-and-media/news-releases/2018/05/07/12/18/dna-sequencing-to-become-part-of-geisingers-routine-clinical-care

I've read similar stuff about sequencing babies. Basically it's about to become ubiquitous. Lobby congress to strengthen and expand on the GINA legislation passed a decade ago that the Republicans were trying to roll back recently.

It's just a matter of time. The issue is privacy vs safety. Our privacy has been compromised since the camera was invented, but it helped catch criminals, and today no one cares about cameras in public areas like 7-11. Facial recognition and DNA, and technology to pinpoint where every person is, is just a matter of time. Eventually no one will care, because your privacy is in a computer that no one cares about unless a crime was committed.

Strategist says

1. Every baby born will have it's DNA recorded.

They already have their foot prints.

Strategist says

1. Every baby born will have it's DNA recorded.

Will also save lots of money for paternity tests. The way some people sleep around today, it would prevent some gal from claiming No. 3 was the father when it was really No. 5.

P N Dr Lo R says

Strategist says

1. Every baby born will have it's DNA recorded.

Will also save lots of money for paternity tests. The way some people sleep around today, it would prevent some gal from claiming No. 3 was the father when it was really No. 5.

Tell this to that guy who was found to be liable for child support for a kid whom a DNA test shown to be not the guy's biological son.

Satoshi_Nakamoto says

P N Dr Lo R says

Strategist says

1. Every baby born will have it's DNA recorded.

Will also save lots of money for paternity tests. The way some people sleep around today, it would prevent some gal from claiming No. 3 was the father when it was really No. 5.

Tell this to that guy who was found to be liable for child support for a kid whom a DNA test shown to be not the guy's biological son.

Poor guy. He was a victim of a very stupid and unjust law.
No one should mind eliminating these laws.

just_passing_through says

2. Using the old technology (STRs) to fish people out of CODIS based on family members. Similar to how that serial killer was caught in CA recently. With STRs it's not ethical based on the statistical likelihood of making a false match (innocent) and railroading them in court. It's really only ethically used if they match the suspect AFTER they are a suspect for some other evidence and they don't really need a database for that. Something like 1:few thousand vs. 1: several billion probability difference in chance of making that mistake. Using sets of forensics SNPs (identity, ancestry, phenotypic) you CAN mine a database ethically. There is way more power in SNPs.

Man, you just brought back a ton of memories with that vocab. Something else I think we learned during the project, which is more common knowledge, but very important to remember with any lab evidence. The labs are paid for convictions, not acquittals. Let me repeat that. The people responsible for handling the DNA evidence have a financial incentive to find you guilty whether you did it or not!

Strategist says

Crime will be obsolete, because law enforcement will always know whodunnit, and where they are. Potential criminals would not even bother to commit a crime.
Why is the above bad?

Because the evidence is not always conclusive, and sometime flat out wrong. When we were developing our product to replace the DNA tech that has been around since the 70's, it was very apparent we still had a LONG way to go before this would be consistently accurate, reliable tech. Not just my company(think big), but any company in the field. The industry expert we had consulting on our team would be asked questions by me during my testing, and her response would often be "I don't know, no one has ever done this before."

NuttBoxer says

The people responsible for handling the DNA evidence have a financial incentive to find you guilty whether you did it or not!

More reasons to guard you DNA and not willingly give it anyone unless absolutely neccessary. Definitely not to some "ancestry" sites for "fun".

Hassan_Rouhani says

Definitely not to some "ancestry" sites for "fun".

Especially when it's recently come out that ancestry sites are sharing DNA with police.