(03-17-2025, 12:25 PM)F2d5thCav Wrote: I reckon at some point "they" will try to force people to get digital hashes of their DNA as part of some signature/authentication scheme, with penalties for those who don't participate. It is all about control in the end.
I suspect you're right, but when they try that, therein lies madness.
Which DNA file? From which company? Each company tests for slightly different SNP's. So a hash from a 23AndMe file will differ from a hash from an Ancestry file, and both will differ from a hash from any other company's file. They all test for different SNP's, which means that every hash from a different company will "prove" a different digital ID.
Then you have "no calls", where a chip failed to read a particular SNP position, and left a blank space where an allele should have been recorded. That "no call" may be cleared up upon a second run, or it may not. Therefore, each run, even from the same company, will lead to a radically different hash... much less runs from other companies. Remember, changing just ONE digit, in hundreds of thousands or millions of digits, will create a radically different hash, which is what "blockchain" is based upon when it comes to verification.
Some DNA files are "interpolated" - the machine simply makes a guess as to which marker properly belongs at which position. That adds another layer of uncertainty. Sure, it's an "educated" guess, based upon a "reference genome" of an "average human" (which doesn't really exist), but it's a guess all the same.
I took two DNA files of the same person (me) from two different companies, and created one huge - and more accurate - DNA file. The input files were about 18 MB each, but the single output file is about 34 MB, because the result file placed all of the SNP's read into their proper positions, interleaving the two files to create one huge file that accounted for ALL of the reads from both companies, ALL of the SNPs from each. One had about 750,000 SNPs, the other about 650,000 SNPs, and the result file had 1.4 million SNP's. What if I hash THAT file? It would create an entirely different hash, and entirely "new" digital ID. I would be a whole new "person".
And that is only from two companies. Now factor in all of the DNA companies out there, and you'll begin to see how complicated and impossible such a scheme would be.
And that doesn't even account for the "now you see 'em, now you don't" no-calls.
So, yeah, they can give it a shot, and probably eventually will, but it will lead to more headaches than it "solves".
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