[Cryptography] Sandia storing information in encrypted DNA

[Tom Mitchell]

On Sun, Jul 17, 2016 at 6:08 AM, Henry Baker <hbaker1 at pipeline.com> wrote:

> FYI --
>
> https://share.sandia.gov/news/resources/news_releases/dna_storage/
>
> Sandia storing information securely in DNA
>
> Sandia researchers explore a biologically inspired information storage
> system
>
> George Bachand, a Sandia National Laboratories bioengineer at the Center
> for Integrated Nanotechnologies, is exploring a better, more permanent
> method for ***encrypting*** and storing sensitive data: DNA.  Compared to
> digital and analog information storage, DNA is more compact and durable and
> never becomes obsolete.  Readable DNA was extracted from the
> 600,000-year-old remains of a horse found in the Yukon.
>

Interesting BUT.

 *) replication of DNA is astoundingly easy.
    This ease of replication makes things like CSI detective work possible
and
     yes also possible to inspect 600,000 year old animal remains.
     The ease of replication makes removing and transporting data in a
"stain" easy.

 *) DNA data is simply a four protein encoding.  There is nothing
cryptographic
     in DNA itself.

 *) key management is the likely bounds for obsoleting the data if
encrypted.

 *) writing and reading is is currently beyond the ability of garage and
basement science.

 *) full sequencing (reading) is still hard and expensive.

 *) cryptographic data is sensitive to single bit flips -- biology not so
much.
     storage will need serious ECC.

Yet... IMO of all the research that needs doing this qualifies in my mind
because
DNA technology has applicability well beyond data storage.









-- 
  T o m    M i t c h e l l
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