Scientists Create "DNA Barcodes" To Thwart Counterfeiters 42
Zothecula writes "Earlier this year, we heard about a gun and a fogging system, both of which tag criminals with synthesized DNA. The idea is that when those people are apprehended later, they can be linked to the crime by analyzing the location- or event-specific DNA still on their skin or clothing. Now, scientists at the Technology Transfer Unit of Portugal's University of Aveiro are developing something similar – 'DNA barcodes' that can be applied to products, then subsequently read as a means of identification."
Read "Rule 34" by Charlie Stross (Score:5, Interesting)
It's set a few years from now, when police DNA testing is ubiquitous. There was a very clever criminal who stumbled into a crime scene by accident. He had a spray bottle of "Stadium DNA" with him, so he squirted it around the room before leaving.
Tagging with DNA is fine, if you can pick out the exact molecule you need. But anything can be defeated.
DNA is actually fairly fragile (Score:5, Interesting)
DNA doesn't hold up well in the environment. The reason it's used as a "measure of identity" is because we have really good technology for amplifying it.
When used as a marker in a commercial/industrial/everyday-exposure environment, I think it will fail quickly
Ironically, when discussing counterfit purses, there is already a better option that will not fail: you can sequence the proteins in the leather fairly easily, and those proteins can be a good MOI when you get enough coverage of the right sequences. You can't amplify the proteins, but the sensitivity for unamplified material is top-notch. So you can imagine that it's possible to identify the exact cow that produced a purse, and so long as you have a physical scrap of the purse left, you can still get a result. Contrast this to a DNA-barren purse because it sat in the sun too long.
Since you can't really amplify proteins, it's somewhat counterfit-proof as well, and the detection is less stochastic than with DNA, so it has potential to be more quantitative at trace levels.
Obviously this technology has other applications as well, which is why it's being funded by the FBI (forensics), DoD (body ID), etc. You can read more about it by looking up work by Glendon Parker, although it's not 100% public yet due to IP concerns, privacy (working with human samples), etc.