Scientists Learn To Fabricate DNA Evidence 256
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.'"
And I'll be the first to say: (Score:5, Insightful)
Or to phrase it properly... (Score:5, Insightful)
Company selling test to detect whether this has happened shows off a tech demonstration of why their product is necessary.
Take this with a grain of salt... (Score:5, Insightful)
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...
Re:If you have enemies... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm surprised it's taken this long for someone to do this stunt when you consider it's been some time since they've created a synthetic duplicate of the genomes in a microbe. (In theory, they could have recreated any microbe they had the complete genome stored for, more or less.) It's only a small conceptual step from doing that stuff to faking DNA evidence.
Oh well, guess we know what surprise twist CSI will have next season.
Re:Much easier than I thought. (Score:5, Insightful)
It means that they didn't need to stitch them into one DNA chain, they "just mixed them".
That's quite important.
Re:If you have enemies... (Score:3, Insightful)
Couldn't the defense though just demand that they test something else? Like mitochondrial DNA? It might be slower but if your conviction hangs in the balance then they could splurge on proving it wasn't your DNA. You might come up as a false positive as a suspect but then actually be cleared anyway.
That being said, just because your DNA was present doesn't mean you commited the crime. Especially in a murder trial. After all they could also obain your blood through other means and just directly plant real hair and blood probably easier than manufacturing blood. A little social engineering is probably easier than genetic engineering.
Re:It all becomes clear... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:So let me get this straight. (Score:3, Insightful)
You can also do it based on in the DNA information for the standard 13-site tests typically kept in databases. That effectively allows you to frame somebody without ever coming close to them. Which could be important if your target is a 250lb outlaw biker or a paranoid schizo with a criminal record. But as someone else pointed out, this isn't a surprise to anybody that has an understanding of how these tests work, as well as understanding the potential usefulness of DNA manipulation for motivation in advancement of the state of the art.
Did you give the police a sample of your kids' DNA in case they ever got lost or kidnapped? If you really are concerned about the extremely long odds that that would happen, you might have been better off taking the sample, freeze drying it in your freezer and putting it in a safety deposit box rather than handing it over so that it can go in a database somewhere. Seriously, if I were growing up now instead of decades ago, and later found my parents had done that when I was a child, I would be seriously angry. Because now that the police have the sample, they can retest it to match whatever increase in gene fragment sites is used to "decrease the chance of an accidental or falsified match". Storage is cheap enough that in the long run they'll probably wind up tracking all the thousands of possible human DNA gene variations since it's only about 20,000 or so genes. At which point someone can just fake up some introns and insert them randomly to make a pretty convincing copy without ever being near the intended target. Sounds ludicrous now, but it will be borderline trivial in another few decades. Five years ago, most people (particularly those in the law enforcement sphere) would have labeled the scenario described in the article as paranoia.
Re:And I'll be the first to say: (Score:3, Insightful)
yes...we have doubt about fingerprints NOW, but at a point in time people were 100% certain in fingerprint evidence. This a very logical procession of events. There will be nothing that will ever be 100% reliable.
That's called progress.
Re:And I'll be the first to say: (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm alarmed too. But this news is not entirely awful. It just means that DNA is no longer quite so useful in proving that a person is guilty. It is still perfectly useful in the much more important task of proving not guilty.
Re:And I'll be the first to say: (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually it just means it comes down to the integrity of the people involved for the most part. [...]
Therefore the "Well, fuck.".
Re:And I'll be the first to say: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I guess (Score:3, Insightful)
DNA credibility (Score:2, Insightful)
It doesn't. The credibility still lies with the lab scientists themselves handling the DNA samples, as the infamous OJ Simpson case showed.
Re:And I'll be the first to say: (Score:5, Insightful)
However complicated this may be it still means that the chain of evidence is important.
And if a case rests only on DNA it's never a strong case because we all leave traces of ourselves all the time. The best DNA can do is to exclude you from a location, because if your DNA is nowhere to be found it's likely that you weren't there (or weren't wearing those pesky gloves).
It is of course possible to frame someone by planting their faked DNA somewhere, but on the other hand there are other methods to do that too. A tazer and a syringe will allow you to get a good sample.
Re:And I'll be the first to say: (Score:2, Insightful)
Another better case is the twin paradox - or just cases where you have a small population with a lot of inbreeding.
In cases like these you may have to make sure that you get a better match than usual to point out or exclude someone.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And I'll be the first to say: (Score:5, Insightful)
No, that's not true. You START with the presumption of innocence. However, as the trial proceeds, the prosecution piles on more and more evidence. At some point during the trial, there may be enough evidence for the jury to remove all reasonable doubt from their mind and conclude that you did indeed commit the crime you are charged with. At this point in the trial, you are now guilty in their mind, and if you do nothing more, they will find you guilty. On the other hand, you can introduce evidence which creates reasonable doubt...or even better, proves your innocence.
So, while it is not necessary to prove the defendant innocent, it is necessary to defend him/her against evidence which would otherwise suggest guilt. You know the old saying...the best defense is a good offense.
Re:If you have enemies... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:And I'll be the first to say: (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't disagree with the sentiment, but they are still wildly biased illogical meat sacks (we all are).
Re:And I'll be the first to say: (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't need a contrived example like yours. Prosecutors will make, and juries will believe, arguments based on DNA even when the supposed killer was married to the victim. How many times, on the news or on a show like Dateline (which interviews real prosecutors) have you seen a prosecutor claim, as if it was meaningful, "we found the suspect's DNA at the crime scene" when the crime scene was the house or car that the suspect and victim shared?
Anything that makes DNA look more fallible in the eyes of juries is a good thing.
Re:And I'll be the first to say: (Score:3, Insightful)
It doesn't matter. With shit on TV like CSI and Law & Order that wraps up a case in 47 minutes and treats DNA evidence/fingerprints like the holy grail, the average American is trained to think that DNA/fingerprints = 100% guilty.
Re:And I'll be the first to say: (Score:2, Insightful)
Have you considered that most jurors would see DNA as a smoking gun, regardless of most offered alibis, contradictory testimony, or exculpating evidence. That is the real danger...
Re:If you have enemies... (Score:3, Insightful)
Even though DNA evidence can be faked, I don't see any easy way to introduce it into a crime scene. If Alice decides to rob Bob's safe and fix the blame on Charles, would she go in with a plant mister loaded with l'eau du faux Charles and spray it all over Bob's office? I don't think that's going to work.
I think that any use of faux DNA evidence is going to have to be associated with cellular material from the person who is being framed, since the presence of DNA fragments independent of skin cells, hair follicles, blood cells, etc is going to look very much out of place to the forensics technicians. And if Alice has acquired enough samples from Charles to make the fake-Charley-water believable, why doesn't she just plant that? What value does the l'eau du faux Charles add?
Existing good police technique makes fake DNA a non-issue.