Discussion Forum: Automated Sewer Surveillance
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Capitalizing on recent advances in very fast genome sequencing technologies, Sentinel Genetics is pleased to offer its new real-time in-stream wastewater sequencing system. Genetic material is randomly harvested from the waste-stream, usually at the sewage treatment facility. The automated system then prepares the DNA for sequencing and individual samples can be sequenced to the extent necessary to compare it to the National Registry in less than one second. A small bank of sequencers can process tens of thousands of samples each hour.
Sentinel Genetics developed the single strand sequencing technology, which works by quickly pulling strands of DNA through tiny nanoscale pores. Breakthroughs in micro and nanoscale mechanical devices that are small enough to automate preparations with the very small DNA strands have allowed for sequencing prices as low as pennies per thousands. Due to the large amount of non-human DNA that is in a wastewater stream, it was only through this high speed processing of samples at low price that large scale screening of municipal populations could become cost beneficial.
The database of America’s genetic information has been available to law enforcement agencies since the inception of the United States Genomic Registry, but only in the last several years has it been complete enough to look for individuals. The Sentinel Genetics Sequencer data processing system is fully compatible with the Registry and provides advanced algorithms for comparing genomic and partial genomic material against the data in the Registry. By combining the massive throughput of the treatment-facility-based sequencer bank with portable units for signal triangulation through upstream testing, it is possible to track the location of individuals in metropolitan areas.
Posted Wednesday, 06/11/2008, 3:20pm AZ A previous blogger objected to this scenario because he or she thought that it was a disgusting topic and that more interesting applications of nanotechnology could be discussed.
Objectively, it really does not matter whether topics relating to human waste are regarded as disgusting or not; this exists as, possibly, a real application of nanotechnology and, clearly, the point of including it in this discussion was not to disgust readers or to present them with what might be an amazing advance in technical science. Without a doubt, the significance of this subject is the extremely high level of surveillance that the full development of these nanotechnologies would allow for law enforcement or, say, anyone with the means to produce and install such a system.
So, we must ask ourselves, is it morally acceptable that the government – or really anyone – might possess such intimate knowledge of members of society? This is not merely a question of whether or not the location of different individuals will be known, but their DNA, presumably, will be known as well. This is because the process by which possibly fugitive individuals would be located would be based purely on their DNA sequence. Naturally, this would mean that the government – or who uses this technology – would be in possession of perhaps millions of people’s genetic codes, regardless of whether or not it knew whom these codes belonged to in particular.
Should this trouble us?
Personally, I am not sure. From a certain point of view, it is always a good idea to implement measures that should ensure the more rapid and accurate administration of justice to those who have broken the laws of society. Yet the cost of this particular technology, again, is the surrendering of a certain level of privacy for apparently law-abiding private citizens – by giving the government a copy of their DNA codes. There are also the further concerns that this technology might not only be used by law enforcement agencies, it could be misused by law enforcement agencies, or that it could start civilization down a slippery slope leading to the knowledge, by some agency, of the locations and doings of every member of society simultaneously.
I find the final outcome of such a scenario highly disturbing. This is because the question should not really just be, “Where are our citizens and are they abiding by the laws of society?” but also, “Who is our government and how can we justify giving those in power such supreme levels of control over the rest of us?”
Full discussion at: http://nano-ology.blogspot.com/
Posted Saturday, 05/17/2008, 10:57pm AZ first of all is disgusting to talk about human waste like we have no other good topic.What we are going to have in the future is totally beyond the understanding of today scientist.i would like to see more open space and nature,We have to claim back our land .We have to take it back from the asfalt and cars.I live in a big sity and everywhere i go i have to watch for the blody cars passing by.just crosing the street takes so much concentration.you cant walk in strait line for 1 minute and you have to stop for mister driver to pass.thats why we have to claim our land and we have to put the trafic in the air.they can drive on the rails,bridges above us and we can walk in peace.but in the future you cant drive those big suv's and trucks.no way Hose!there are not going to be anymore guss gazling trucks but the trafic is going to be automated and electric and everubody is going to go from A to B in automated way.they can drive with small individual electric units or bigger rail cars.so our daily life is going to be "walk in the park".
Posted Saturday, 05/17/2008, 10:52pm AZ first of all is disgusting to talk about human waste like we have no other good topic.What we are going to have in the future is totally beyond the understanding of today scientist.i would like to see more open space and nature,We have to claim back our land .We have to take it back from the asfalt and cars.I live in a big sity and everywhere i go i have to watch for the blody cars passing by.just crosing the street takes so much concentration.you cant walk in straiy line for 1 minute and you have to stop for mister driver to pass.thats why we have to claim our land and we have to put the trafic in the air.they can drive on the rails,bridges above us and we can walk in peace.but in the future you cant drive those big suv's and trucks.no way Hose!there are not going to be anymore guss gazling trucks but the trafic is going to automated and electric and everubody is going to go from A to B in automated way.they can drive with small individual electric units or bigger rail cars.so our daily life is going to be "walk in the park".
Posted Friday, 05/09/2008, 1:35pm AZ If you could get past the political barriers against deploying this, why not just implant a tracking device in everybody, or fix today's broken facial recognition cameras? Either would seem simpler and more reliable, and would have better spatial resolution.
... and, no, it wouldn't be a good idea to set up a system for tracking everybody, by whatever means. It WOULD be abused, and the results of abuse on the scale that universal tracking would enable could very easily be far worse than the worst waves of crime and terrorism the world has ever seen. That's not to say that governments won't do it, but it's not a win, not while we are governed by people and not angels.
Now, if you wanted to start looking for DNA from pathogens, rather than humans, you might have something... except that everybody would, perhaps justifiably, worry about it turning into this sort of human tracker.
Posted Friday, 05/09/2008, 7:50am AZ Yeah this would be great if it was used for just catching criminals. But in the long run I think it would be a big brother is watching you kind of situation. That scares me a little.
Posted Friday, 05/09/2008, 6:10am AZ To the commenter from Wednesday 5/7 - If they can perform this at the cachement today, how long before they can start putting newer systems further up-stream, and eventually anywhere the sewers are entered?
Moore's so-called Law, after all.
Given the huge volume of wastewater such systems process, and the paucity of genetic material within the area, your proposed system is VERY likely to miss people. Given time, those odds increase, admittedly, but unless the system is capable of harvesting very large percentages - say, 5-15% - of all DNA passing by, you're going to have a VERY porous detection capability with no way to know how much you're really missing.
Additionally, DNA isn't homogenous. That is, unless you're capable of grabbing cells and pulling out DNA from that one cell, you're going to have non-trivial cross contamination. Given how "rapid DNA prototyping" is done today (Thank you, Mr Ventner!) this seems to be a very serious problem of reliability for such a system.
And, worst case - what's to stop a criminal from digging a slit trench latrine?
Not well conceived, in my opinion.
Posted Wednesday, 05/07/2008, 10:58am AZ Did anybody bothering thinking about the scale of the catchment area for the average municipal wastewater treatment system? The police already know there are wanted criminals in the area served by my local ALCOSAN system. So let's say they would now know who they are. Unless the system could backtrace where the sample came from, that information is of limited value. Plus we'd be spending how much money to set up systems that could be defeated by peeing into a bottle and throwing it into the trash. Not sure this idea is ready for prime time.
CTR
Posted Friday, 05/02/2008, 4:31pm AZ Another potential use for this surveillance technology would be to track illegal immigrants--if all U.S. citizens have their DNA in a database, any DNA sequence that is not in the registry would be from a non-citizen. However, in order to implement this there would need to be some way to ensure that the DNA from legal immigrants and visitors from other countries is recorded. Perhaps a temporary database could be used to contain the genetic information from legal non-citizens.
Posted Thursday, 04/24/2008, 12:03pm AZ This seems like the ultimate "Big Brother is watching you" -- he's watching the sewers to see where you are. We are in the process of planning a forum about new sensor and computational capacities that may be enabled by nanotechnology and the issues raised in connection with privacy. Do the benefits of automated sewer surveillance outweigh the dangers envisioned in the future scenario depicted in the novel 1984 where government surveillance is ubiquitous?