So my solution is to avoid attracting any attention in meatspace. Not doing anything that could generate troublesome records. Such as leaving DNA around. I mean, I certainly leave DNA around, when I go out for stuff. But there's nothing involved that I need to hide.
I also make no effort to hide anything that I do online as my meatspace persona. Because that would attract attention. I do use a VPN service, but that's not at all unusual where I live. And I do torrent some, even when I'm not really after anything. Just as cover.
Anything potentially troublesome, I do via nested VPN chains and Tor. Mirimir just uses nested VPN chains. But then Mirimir just writes about stuff, so hey.
Off to google the term “meatspace” now.
And then Terry Bisson's "They're Made Out of Meat", published in 1990:[0]
> "They're made out of meat."
> "Meat?"
> "Meat. They're made out of meat."
> "Meat?"
> "There's no doubt about it. We picked up several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, and probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."
So yeah, it's a term that we old geeks use.
Recent usage by John Markoff:
> "True Names" by Vernor Vinge (1981): "The basic premise of that was, you had to basically hide your true name at all costs. It was an insight into the world we’re living in today … We have to figure it out. I think we have to go to pseudonymity or something. You’re gonna participate in this networked existence, you have to be connected to meatspace in some way."
And yes, we "have to go to pseudonymity or something". If we care about privacy, anyway.
0) http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html
1) http://renaissancechambara.jp/2017/06/14/oprah-time-true-nam...
Goes back to the earliest days of online existence, to distinguish the two.
I’d like to subscribe to your RSS feed of magnet: links.
I am afraid it could cause wrongful convictions as well. Let's say there is a 1 in a million chance of a false positive, if you have an enormous database there is a large probability of a false positive even though your individual risk is low. As far as I understand DNA evidence is often damaged or incomplete, meaning this could be a serious risk.
If ratio of solved crimes is not high enough -- society tolerates wrongful convictions -- because without risking wrongful convictions it is hard to make any convictions at all.
Because DNA testing increases the ratio of solved crimes, it decreases the chances of wrongful convictions.
"The scientists fabricated blood and saliva samples containing DNA from a person other than the donor of the blood and saliva. They also showed that if they had access to a DNA profile in a database, they could construct a sample of DNA to match that profile without obtaining any tissue from that person." [0]
Oh wow. Really??? Any experts in this field reading this? Would love to hear someone with pertinent authority tell us this isn't true. (Please don't be true)
Genotyping works as follows: there are thousands of regions of “junk” dna in the human genome that don’t code for anything. There is no evolutionary pressure to preserve the exact length of these regions. (They probably help the chromosomes fold up in ways that encourage/suppress the activity of certain genes, help the molecule be more robust, etc).
Since there is no evolutionary pressure to preserve the regions, they tend to be full of hard to copy junk like ATAT..... that tends to change every few generations.
Genotyping works by isolating a bunch of these regions, and using PCR to create millions of copies of each region (with ~one sample per region).
Finally, you put a drop of the each sample and some die on a electrophoresis gel, and apply some current. Different sized molecules move at different rates, so this gives you a crude measurement of the length of each molecule.
To fake a match, all you need to do is produce something that will trick the first step of all this into grabbing molecules of your choice of length, which will fool the rest of the process. If you want to see how that would work, read up on “pcr primers”.
Source: I used to work in a genotyping/sequencing lab as a bioinformatician, and worked on algorithms that did exactly this sort of analysis (not the forgery bit though).
So you could fake everything. Video surveillance, DNA samples, testimony from dishonest informers and investigators, etc. This is just a tweak to parallel construction. And outright framing.
Instead CSI has taught your average juror that it is irrefutable proof of guilt.
Don't underestimate DNA transfer. Your DNA can end up in locations you have never been:
If you're already a "convenient suspect" the police wish to build a case against, they don't need to find you on a consumer genetics database to be able to obtain a sample of your DNA or strongly hint that they expect to be able to use DNA evidence (truthfully or otherwise) to send you away for a very long time if you're not willing to consider moving to plea bargaining territory.
Consider a public bathroom: how much DNA is at that location? How much is relevant to the event?
Consider a corrupt lab tech: The DNA at the event might be reported as DNA from their database. Does a defense attorney get to see the untainted sample?
Consider a corrupt/hacked DNA database: The database might report that the DNA belongs to one individual when it actually doesn't. Does a defense attorney even get to see the source code?
In these scenarios, the link to any individual is either of little consequence, or fraudulent.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/annie-dookhan-chemist-at-mass-c...
I am sure your case was above board but, being born in a totalitarian state, I do not trust law enforcement too much and prefer to err on the side of not solving some crimes. My 2c.