[ExI] iDnA

[spike]

Big Brother is watching, but what Orwell really missed the real problem for
bad guys: a million little brothers are watching too.

 

Scenario: murder/rapist/burglar/generic-sleazeball perpetrates crime, gets
away, but leaves traces of DNA.  The authorities recover the DNA signature
but it doesn't match any of those from states which require DNA samples from
all felons, soon it's a cold case.

 

But wait, there's more.  We have two huge databases (23&Me and Ancestry.com)
along with several smaller ones now, filled with people who help adoptees
figure out who are their birth parents.  (I don't want to debate the ethics
of that activity under this subject line; it's a separate discussion.)
Adoptee-assistant writes software and learns techniques that help identify
common ancestors for two related people.  It occurs to adoptee-assistant
that he could help bag perps by using this database, comparing with those in
the two major DNA databases.  We probably couldn't go directly to the
answer, but could perhaps identify (assuming enough patience) four or five
sets of his great grandparents, and from that trace it downward, and see
what we find.  Perhaps there is an obvious common descendant from a given
two pairs of great grandparents.

 

The real idea is this: we know this is a laborious process.  We know it is
time consuming, but it is an example of an activity that might be taken on
by groups of volunteers, and in some cases highly motivated victims.  If a
person survives an attempted murder for instance, it would be a worthwhile
activity for the surviving victim to find the bastard before she kills
someone else.  Perhaps the perp is in prison in some state where DNA is not
required, perhaps on a minor charge and will get out soon.  We could get a
crowd of volunteers, perhaps figure out a way to compare the perp's DNA with
one of the two big databases, contact her cousins, etc.

 

Any thoughts?

 

spike

 

 

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