tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993498847203183398.post436953625774590964..comments2024-03-29T11:00:39.953+00:00Comments on RevK<sup>®</sup>'s ramblings: I am meRevKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12369263214193333422noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993498847203183398.post-77914484351778694822017-06-15T11:00:42.543+01:002017-06-15T11:00:42.543+01:00Correction:
s/a 1 in a million chance of a false p...Correction:<br />s/a 1 in a million chance of a false positive/<br /> a 1 in a million chance of someone else generating the same analysis/Grahamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08886928382850688901noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993498847203183398.post-36565864508225119802017-06-15T10:43:55.657+01:002017-06-15T10:43:55.657+01:00There are risks in relying on DNA as a gold standa...There are risks in relying on DNA as a gold standard of (corporeal) identity: think, for example, of mosaicism[1], and mutation (with aging, cancer, etc.), sample contamination, etc.<br /><br />With any form of authentication, the best we can hope for is a probability. We then need to think about the purpose of the authentication, and have regard to Bayesian statistics. For example: if the DNA analysis distinguishes Alice from others with a 1 in a million chance of a false positive, we might consider it OK for access to Alice's bank account, but her defence counsel in the murder case would be quite right to point out that a further 50-odd people in the country would share the "same" DNA analysis. On that evidence alone, the probability that "she dunnit" is about 2%.<br /><br />[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_(genetics)Grahamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08886928382850688901noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3993498847203183398.post-10165929836701479622017-06-15T09:43:26.295+01:002017-06-15T09:43:26.295+01:00Nobody with the power to do something about it has...Nobody with the power to do something about it has any incentive to allow the maintenance of multiple identities. Social network companies make more money the denser the social graph they can draw. Governments always want to be able to track individuals, and can always break the rules for their own people.<br /><br />(This is not my only OpenID URL.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com