Boffins put encrypted bio-copyright watermarks in beer DNA
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No knocking off Blade Runner pleasure replicants German boffins believe they have developed a computer algorithm which can be used to hide encrypted "watermarks" within the DNA of living genetically-modified organisms. The procedure has been successful in simulated tests on live beer ingredients.â¦
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LEICESTER, England Sept. 8, 2004 - One morning 20 years ago, Alec Jeffreys stumbled upon DNA fingerprinting, identifying the patterns of genetic material that are unique to almost every individual.
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The full genome of James D. Watson has been deciphered, marking what some scientists believe is the gateway to an era of personalized genomic medicine.
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Rogue copying software lets users clone anything or anyone they want in the virtual world. By letting its community respond, Linden Labs sets the stage for a bold experiment in alternatives to U.S.-style copyright. Commentary by Jennifer Granick.
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It's another step in the quest to create artificial organisms: Scientists have synthesized the complete DNA of a type of bacteria. The experiment, published online Thursday by the journal Science, isn't a living germ, just its genetic structure.
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To help shoppers avoid mislabeled toxic pufferfish, and pilots steer clear of birds, federal agencies are starting to tap into an ambitious project that is gathering DNA "barcodes" for the Earth's 1.8 million known species.
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By Anonymous  Industrial Biotransformations, Second Edition Edited by A. Liese, K. Seelbach and C. Wandrey, Feb.
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A simple swab of saliva and cells from  inside a mouth can solve crimes and determine parenthood, but  DNA is now also gaining popularity as art.
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Letter Can collective database licensing cure this tragedy of the commons?
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Talk about identity theft: Scientists changed one species of bacteria into another by performing a complete gene swap.
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Researchers get a new tool to determine protein structures.
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A new device capable of detecting and throttling encrypted BitTorrent traffic hits the shelves. The game of cat and mouse between ISPs and BitTorrent users continues. In Monkey Bites.
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Scoperta viene da analisi DNA nucleare di due reperti ossei
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(InfoWorld) - Jeff Jonas, the chief scientist and distinguished engineer at IBM Corp.'s entity analytic solutions group, has developed a means of sharing corporate data without revealing what that data contains. This technology, called anonymization, effectively "shreds" information, making it possible for companies to share information about their customers with governments or other companies without giving away any personal data. Over time, Jonas believes companies will increasingly use anonymization to defend their data, and corporate well-being, from competitors and identity thieves. Jonas recently sat down with IDG News Service in Singapore to discuss anonymization and how protecting customer privacy will make companies more competitive. IDG News Service: How does anonymization work? Jeff Jonas: Normally, somebody with data encrypts it, and then they transfer it. Then, the recipient decrypts the data to use it. But while it's in transit -- in flight -- it's encrypted. Cryptographers have invented math that allows you to shred something, and then unshred it: encrypt it, and then decrypt it. Part of cryptography is something else that creates digital signatures. Smart math people have invented algorithms that are called one-way hashes. It looks like encryption because you put in data and what comes out is not readable to humans. But there's no way to take what came out and take the math and run it backwards, and get the input value. That's why I use the example of a pig and a sausage. If I give you the sausage and the grinder, you can't go backwards and make a pig. I just took advantage of something that someone else has made, and I just used it in a slightly different way to get a new result. IDGNS: In effect, the process of anonymization creates digital signatures of information that can be compared against other signatures for possible matches. At the same time, the signatures cannot be used to recreate the original data. Jonas: Normally, I have data and you have data and we want to figure out what our data means together. But I don't want to give you mine and you don't want to give me yours. This is why information sharing will fail: everyone wants to be the recipient. Sometimes a government may pass a law that says I, as a company, have to give you my data. Maybe you have a watch list, and you don't want me to see it. That's how I ended up creating this. I was getting ready to take my kids on a cruise. I made the reservations and then saw in a newspaper that there was a threat against Port Canaveral, Florida, from terrorist scuba divers. I was thinking, "Oh no, I'm taking my kids on a cruise." The U.S. government has this really cool, big list of bad guys. They don't send it to the cruise line, and the cruise line has all these reservations, and they don't send it all to the government. You could take 10 bad guys, they could just sneak across the border, use their real names and get on the cruise ship. That was the tension point. All of the work I had done prior allows an organization to share data with itself. What happens if you want to share data across two organizations and only find things in common? How would you do that? IDGNS: In the past, you've noted that personal information will get more valuable over time. Where is the incentive for companies to make anonymization of data a common practice? Jonas: Well, this is my theory. The pressures to an organization, every time it makes a copy of its data and sends it someplace else, the risk of someone stealing it grows. It's now twice as hard to protect, because you've just made a copy. You think its hard to protect this copy, but now you have two copies. Then you make another copy and send it to a database-marketing company -- now there are three copies. That creates real stress for an enterprise that's trying to manage their data. IDGNS: The incentive for companies to use anonymization then becomes protection of its own resources, rather than defending the privacy of customers? Jonas: Right. Corporations spend more time trying to be competitive than protecting privacy. If they spent all their time protecting privacy, they couldn't become more competitive. They would become nonexistent. I spend 40 percent of my time now working on privacy and civil liberties. You're right on the crux of this point: how do you create things that companies want to deploy, that make them more competitive and are good for privacy at the same time? Consumers traded privacy left and right, for convenience. IDGNS: And there's no way to get it back at this point. Jonas: Yeah. The toothpaste is out of the tube. Companies don't just say they want to spend money on privacy. They don't and I don't see that as a trend. You have to create something that can make them more competitive. Corporations are very risk averse. The notion of losing all their customer data, either to a competitor or identity thieves, and then having to make a public announcement that they lost all of their banking data, or all of their medical data, it can destroy their entire brand. If you can show them how to be more competitive, and at the same time reduce their risk exposure, then you are taking them on a journey, like in the case of anonymization, that is more responsible than not. It's a very new thing to be able to analyze data after it's been shredded. I am trying to teach the technique and I've heard other companies have announced they're going to create products like that, which is really good. There's a growing number of people using anonymization, and I think the wave is coming.
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(InfoWorld) - A German company is offering MP3 files for download, unencumbered by DRM (digital rights management). Instead, Akuma discourages copying by adding a unique "watermark" to each download. Major record labels have mostly chosen DRM to protect their copyrights, limiting the number of copies buyers can make of a downloaded track, and restricting the music players they can use to listen to it. However, Akuma is taking a softer approach: The music store sells MP3 files which can be played on almostÂ any digital music player, but adds a unique tag to each download using watermark technology from Germany's renowned Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits, which helped create the MP3 audio compression algorithm. The watermark technology makes slight changes to the data in sound files, such as a higher volume intensity in a tiny part of a song, that are undetectable by even the best trained ears, according to Fraunhofer researchers. However, if unauthorized copies of a download turn up on, for example, peer-to-peer file sharing networks, the watermark allows Akuma to identify the purchaser of a file and take action against them. "Around 40 percent of the labels we offer are embedded with watermarks," said Sascha Hottes, a managing director of H2 Media Factory, which launched Akuma. "This is the compromise we've reached with labels that are willing to release their titles in the MP3 format and not in Microsoft's Windows Media Audio format with its DRM technology." As part of its service, Akuma monitors songs embedded with a watermark against illegal distribution on P-to-P services, according to Hottes. "We monitor P-to-P networks on a random basis," he said. Around 350,000 songs, mostly from independent labels, are currently available on the Akuma portal, with 700,000 planned by the end of the year. The roster includes artists such as Katie Melua, Toni Braxton, Simply Red and Deep Purple. A single song title costs â¬0.89, ($1.13) an album â¬4.49. Customers have various payment options: online, direct debit, telephone invoice and PayPal. Akuma offers MP3 files in a quality similar to CDs, with bit rates (a measure of sound quality) from 192KbpsÂ at the low end to 320Kbps at the high end. Like eMusic.com, the German music download store hopes toÂ break into a crowded marketÂ by making song downloading a piece of cake. The German portal requires no special download software and places no restrictions on the choice of music player, including the iPod from Apple Computer. Customers can make as many copies of the songs as they like, burn them to CDs and transfer them onto multiple portable music players. TheÂ akuma.de portalÂ is now available in a beta version to registered users.
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Photocopying wallet information pays off.
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In the latest proof that the label is at least testing DRM-free music sales, consumers can buy gift cards from physical stores and redeem digital albums online. The bad news is that the music is also "anonymously watermarked."