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Comment by dvdkhlng | Hacker News Reader

The pessimistic side of me would like to point out that in this kind of future, criminals will know how to leave sufficient fake DNA at the crime scene, and random people will suddenly be thrown in jail, because some criminal deliberately used their DNA to cover their tracks...

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I feel like this would be way more involved and many individuals have better more verifiable alibis with the things listed. Like I'm sure there will be drawback cases but it is seems in aggregate that this stuff is generally positive.

Thoughts?

I think you are too optimistic WRT how forensic "science" is generally applied in the US [1] (one prominent example is e.g. [2]). Now imagine this is you standing in front of a scientifically untrained jury trying to argue against junk-science presented by a "forensic expert" testimonial. Not sure an alibi is going to help you much in that case.

[1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/09/why-forensic-science-...

[2] https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2009-08-25-chi-09...

That's why you keep Google location history on at all times, and also post photos to Instagram/Facebook as much as you can so you have timestamped records of photos of what you were doing at all times.

That sure sounds like a dystopia to me, reads like a Black Mirror episode.

Also with the advent of deep fakes [1] I'm not so sure that this is going to be a winning strategy for long.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepfake

That’s exactly why you would need Facebook or Google or your mobile network operator or all of them to serve as proof of your alibi.

If the finger is pointed at you with a deep fake, you can then counter with proof from large corporations which presumably haven’t all been compromised.

You might also be able to use proof of your location in other settings, such as civil suits or domestic disputes.

Lots of people are using dash cams in a similar fashion. Proof to protect themselves from being named the liable party in a collision.

Same with forcing communications over email so you can prove what was actually communicated in the event a legal or public relations matter arises.

To make you a suspect?

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/google-tracked-his-bike...

No, to defend yourself just like the guy in your article did:

> Even then, Kenyon wanted to make sure police didn’t have lingering doubts about McCoy, whom they still knew only as “John Doe.” So he met with the detective again and showed him screenshots of his client’s Google location history, including data recorded by RunKeeper. The maps showed months of bike rides past the burglarized home.

I’m posting kind of tongue in cheek, because it’s almost a foregone conclusion that people have their mobile device on them, which means the mobile networks know where you are at all times. In that event, it’s more advantageous for you to have access to your location history (via Google/Facebook/Instagram) when the full force or the law starts coming down on you.

It's horrible, but it's true, thankfully you can't forge phone history, or time posts to happen at a future time. Right?

I’m assuming a very, very small number of people worldwide can edit a time stamp on Facebook or google’s computers.

But everybody can give his/her smartphone to a 3rd party to carry around, right? Your Google location history only proves where your phone was, it doen't prove where you were.

That’s why you have to combine it with selfies and whatnot on Instagram and/or Twitter, preferably in front of identifiable landmarks or storefronts.

You mean you're using online services to provide you with trusted timestamp? [1]. But you need to consider how a trusted timestamp merely proves that some photo was definitely taking at or before the attested time. It does not prove that a photo was not actually taken a day earlier and then merely submitted at the attested time. To prove something was not recorded earlier is a little trickier. Need something like a newspaper headline that would not have been available earlier. And then how do you defend against claims that you took the photo early, but photoshopped the newspaper headline at the time it was attested?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_timestamping

True, maybe Instagram can roll out a feature where it grabs the GPS data to verify location on the photo, or signals that the photo was not uploaded but rather taken.

Each item isn’t meant to be foolproof, just to assist in creating third party verifiable data when combined with things like credit card transaction data or road toll timestamps to make it improbably for anything else to have happened.

Do random people get thrown in jail because of fake finger prints today?

There's a far easier alternative kingpins are using as we speak: they compartmentalize the criminal organization with the lowest in the hierarchy taking the highest risk. No DNA of kingpin in crime scene as they had their humble servant do the dirty work.

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