While genetics is concerned with the observation of specific sections of DNA, genomics is about studying the entire genome of an organism, something that has only become practically possible in recent years. In forensic genetics, which is the technology behind the large national DNA databases being built in several countries including notably UK and USA (Wallace’s outstanding article lucidly exposes many significant issues), investigators compare scene-of-crime samples with database samples by checking if they match, but only on a very small number of specific locations in the genome (e.g. 13 locations according to the CODIS rules). In our paper we explore what might change when forensic analysis moves from genetics to genomics over the next few decades. This is a problem that can only be meaningfully approached from a multi-disciplinary viewpoint and indeed our combined backgrounds cover computer security, bioinformatics and law.

(Image from Wikimedia commons, in turn from NIST.)

Sequencing the first human genome (2003) cost 2.7 billion dollars and took 13 years. The US’s National Human Genome Research Institute has offered over 20 M$ worth of grants towards the goal of driving the cost of whole-genome sequencing down to a thousand dollars. This will enable personalized genomic medicine (e.g. predicting genetic risk of contracting specific diseases) but will also open up a number of ethical and privacy-related problems. Eugenetic abortions, genomic pre-screening as precondition for healthcare (or even just dating…), (mis)use of genomic data for purposes other than that for which it was collected and so forth. In various jurisdictions there exists legislation (such as the recent GINA in the US) that attempts to protect citizens from some of the possible abuses; but how strongly is it enforced? And is it enough? In the forensic context, is the DNA analysis procedure as infallible as we are led to believe? There are many subtleties associated with the interpretation of statistical results; when even professional statisticians disagree, how are the poor jurors expected to reach a fair verdict? Another subtle issue is kin privacy: if the scene-of-crime sample, compared with everyone in the database, partially matches Alice, this may be used as a hint to investigate all her relatives, who aren’t even in the database; indeed, some 1980s murders were recently solved in this way. “This raises compelling policy questions about the balance between collective security and individual privacy” [Bieber, Brenner, Lazer, 2006]. Should a democracy allow such a “driftnet” approach of suspecting and investigating all the innocents in order to catch the guilty?

This is a paper of questions rather than one of solutions. We believe an informed public debate is needed before the expected transition from genetics to genomics takes place. We want to stimulate discussion and therefore we invite you to read the paper, make up your mind and support what you believe are the right answers.

We had an email recently from an observer "curious as to why the webcam that was inside the shop/bar is no longer there, or at least, functional". The email was from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency in the United States.

When we replied that it was simply a short term technical problem, we asked why on earth they could be interested in the comings and goings of a small Distillery off the West Coast of Scotland. Were there secret manoeuvres taking place in Loch Indaal, or even a threat of terrorists infiltrating the mainland via Islay?

The answer we received was even more surreal. Evidently the mission of the DTRA is to safeguard the US and its allies from weapons of mass destruction -chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and high explosives. The department which contacted the Distillery deals with the implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, going to sites to verify treaty compliance. Funnily enough chemical weapon processes look very similar to the distilling process and as part of training there is a visit to a brewery for familiarization with reactors, batch processors and evaporators. As they said, it just goes to show how "tweaks" to the process flow or equipment, can create something very pleasant (whisky) or deadly (chemical weapons).

As they say: "In the post-Cold War environment, a unified, consistent approach to deterring, reducing and countering weapons of mass destruction is essential to maintaining our national security. Under DTRA, Department of Defense resources, expertise and capabilities are combined to ensure the United States remains ready and able to address the present and future WMD threat. We perform four essential functions to accomplish our mission: combat support, technology development, threat control and threat reduction. These functions form the basis for how we are organized and our daily activities. Together, they enable us to reduce the physical and psychological terror of weapons of mass destruction, thereby enhancing the security of the world's citizens. At the dawn of the 21st century, no other task is as challenging or demanding".

For example, the “Average Joe Investor” does not care about “best order execution” or “smart order routing,” this is for “the big boys.”  As we all know, saving a few pennies or dollars per transaction to “Average Joe Investor” does nothing for them when their retirement nest egg is lost due to corporate greed and negligence.     The folks who “really care” about shaving a few milliseconds off market execution are the companies that are trading high volumes of exotic derivatives and baskets who have, for the most part, zero interest in the personal financial portfolio of “Jane in Iowa” or “Joe in Kansas.”

I am really amazed to see the dominance of greed in corporate America and the lack of corporate social responsibility.  Risk taking and “split second trading” does little for any small. individual investor and has proven to destabilize our society.    Who cares about saving a few pennies or dollars in market executive?

The answer: Only the greedy corporations, the same people responsible for the current destabilization, chao and near collaspe of our entire financial system.   Homes lost, unprecedented bankruptcies. and money market funds less than par value!   You no doubt have read that folks in the Reserve Money Market funds cannot even withdraw their “safe money.”  Investors in the Reserve Funds are being told that for every dollar they invested in a money market, they now only have 97 cents and cannot withdraw their capital as the Reserve waits for a government bailout.

What is to blame? Greed and profits over corporate social responsibility are to blame.

I read where some folks think the government needs to regulate market-related news, supposedly to stabilize trading based on news.   Regulating news has another name -  “censorship” - but who cares about the US Constitution when money and split second algo trading is involved?    I am amazed.   Folks in financial services just will say or do anything to make a buck, or keep from losing one, even at the expense of society and our basic constitutional freedoms.  News is not regulated in our democratic society, nor should it be to make algorithmic trading “better”.     What we need is less split second, computerized algo trading and more stablity.   Machine processing should not dicate nor mandate changes to our democratic principles.

Nor should our lives in a free society be censored or regulated because of the trading requirements for split second transactions that benefit large corporations.    The average investor does not need an unstable financial system trading exotic derivatives and baskets at the speed of light.  This requirement is driven by corporate greed that destabilizes the core economy and fabric of our society.

Of couse, many of the same folks would like for us to believe that technology is the answer.  This is a fallacy.

Corporate greed is destabilizing society.   What need to be regulated is not the news, but corporate risk taking and corporate goverance.  Individual investors do not need lightspeed transactions in an unstable world.   Citizens and families need a secure, stable economic infrastructure, something that has been lost in the culture of corporate greed, but hopefully not forever.

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Spam, my friends, is only going to get worse. It was so easy to ban junk faxes in 1991. But even those regulations were weakened in 2005. So do you really think we'll see anything even remotely logical for outlawing spam? I doubt it, unless we the citizens foment a revolt. Let's get cracking!

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Italian free space optics test hits 1.2 terabits per second (in Italian, Google translation): Researchers in Pisa, Italy, along with colleagues from two Japanese institutions, crossed 1.2 Tbps in a test. Free space optics typically uses infrared lasers, and can work over a distance of kilometers.

More Canadian Wi-Fi health fears: This time in an island in Montréal. One of the concerned citizens: "This is something that is really under the radar. People do not know that long-term health hazards are associated with wireless technology." They don't know that because all verifiable, repeatable, well-conducted, academic tests so far indicate that there's no such health hazard associated with EMF. The concerned folks are raising an alarm about Wi-Fi being broadcast island wide, but are not paying attention, obviously, to the AM/FM radio, satellite radio, cellular, cordless, and thousand other wireless uses that are bombarding them right now, often at far higher signal levels.

Wi-Fi in a tub: I'm not going to say anything more.

QuickerTek adds antenna to 300 mW ExpressCard for MacBook Pro: Users of Apple's higher-end laptops can drop $200 to get a 300 mW Draft N (802.11n) ExpressCard and 5 dBi external antenna with a mounting clip. That's a lot of power, and it's important to recall that have a louder signal doesn't mean that distant base stations can necessarily hear you better. Draft N devices typically pair better listening (receive sensitivity) with higher transmission power, however.

Mac product ties location settings to Wi-Fi position: Centrix has updated its $29 Mac OS X location preferences program NetworkLocation to take advantage of Skyhook Wireless's Wi-Fi positioning data. You can now tie the package of settings that control what email account you use, iChat status, programs launched, disks mounted, and other factors, to where you're currently at.

Imagine you're in charge of infiltrating sleeper agents into the United States. The year is 1983, and the proliferation of identity databases is making it increasingly difficult to create fake credentials. Ten years ago, someone could have just shown up in the country and gotten a driver's license, Social Security card and bank account -- possibly using the identity of someone roughly the same age who died as a young child -- but it's getting harder. And you know that trend will only continue. So you decide to grow your own identities.

Call it "identity farming." You invent a handful of infants. You apply for Social Security numbers for them. Eventually, you open bank accounts for them, file tax returns for them, register them to vote, and apply for credit cards in their name. And now, 25 years later, you have a handful of identities ready and waiting for some real people to step into them.

There are some complications, of course. Maybe you need people to sign their name as parents -- or, at least, mothers. Maybe you need to doctors to fill out birth certificates. Maybe you need to fill out paperwork certifying that you're home-schooling these children. You'll certainly want to exercise their financial identity: depositing money into their bank accounts and withdrawing it from ATMs, using their credit cards and paying the bills, and so on. And you'll need to establish some sort of addresses for them, even if it is just a mail drop.

You won't be able to get driver's licenses or photo IDs on their name. That isn't critical, though; in the U.S., more than 20 million adult citizens don't have photo IDs. But other than that, I can't think of any reason why identity farming wouldn't work.

Here's the real question: Do you actually have to show up for any part of your life?

Again, I made this all up. I have no evidence that anyone is actually doing this. It's not something a criminal organization is likely to do; twenty-five years is too distant a payoff horizon. The same logic holds true for terrorist organizations; it's not worth it. It might have been worth it to the KGB -- although perhaps harder to justify after the Soviet Union broke up in 1991 -- and might be an attractive option to existing intelligence adversaries like China.

Immortals could also use this trick to self-perpetuate themselves, inventing their own children and gradually assuming their identity, then killing their parents off. They could even show up for their own driver's license photos, wearing a beard as the father and blue spiked hair as the son. I’m told this is a common idea in Highlander fan fiction.

The point isn't to create another movie plot threat, but to point out the central role that data has taken on in our lives. Previously, I've said that we all have a data shadow that follows us around, and that more and more institutions interact with our data shadows instead of with us. We only intersect with our data shadows once in a while -- when we apply for a driver's license or passport, for example -- and those interactions are authenticated by older, less-secure interactions. The rest of the world assumes that our photo IDs glue us to our data shadows, ignoring the rather flimsy connection between us and our plastic cards. (And, no, REAL-ID won't help.)

It seems to me that our data shadows are becoming increasingly distinct from us, almost with a life of their own. What's important now is our shadows; we're secondary. And as our society relies more and more on these shadows, we might even become unnecessary.

Our data shadows can live a perfectly normal life without us.

This essay previously appeared on Wired.com.

EDITED TO ADD (9/9): Interesting commentary.