Forensics never relies on a single piece of evidence. It takes several corroborating accounts and pieces of evidence to reach "beyond reasonable doubt."

This is why even breathalyzers have to be done twice, with a gap in between (and preferably with different sensors). It's also why several witnesses are examined. It's why fingerprints and lie detectors alone don't pass the muster. Nearly anything can be faked, or misinterpreted. All these things have to be used together to create an unbreakable story.

So there is next to no risk with DNA in the air.

As an example, there recently was a guy who went into a police station and claimed that he was relocating there from another province. The officer on duty was suspicious, and found there was no record of this officer in the entire country, and arrested him. In court, the guy got off the hook, even after impersonating a police officer and trying to infiltrate a station, because the officer on duty did not collect the appropriate evidence. The camera footage looked entirely normal. It became entirely hearsay.

You can pretty much expect him to charge that officer with wrongful arrest now.

We may never know what that guy was up to. But he certainly had chutzpah!

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duped 2 days ago | parent [-]

> Forensics never relies on a single piece of evidence

An uncharitable characterization is that forensics relies on many pieces of _stuff_ that cops and attorneys can reasonably convince a judge meets the rules of evidence and a jury that it is in fact evidence, while hoping the defense can't afford an expert (mind you, almost never a practitioner, but a professional legal consultant) to convince the jury it isn't evidence.

Most forensic analysis is complete bullshit, and it takes decades to convince judges to forbid the junk science.

So I wouldn't say there's "no risk." There's tons of risk.

What I would add is that you almost never have to worry about forensics if you're committing crimes, because the forensics are only going to be used to prove your guilt in court should you choose to fight it. If you're not committing crimes and become the focus of an investigation, you should be terrified of forensics.

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ksaj a day ago | parent [-]

This isn't unlike "the right to remain silent." It's weird that people don't fully understand that to mean stfu for your own good, 'cos the only notes they are writing are toward building their case against you.

Forensics isn't the way you characterized. There are forensic teams for both sides of every coin that needs forensics. It's literally a battle of what side can make the most compelling argument, and nothing more or less.

The most compelling argument is the one that has lots (the term "a preponderance" gets used in law where I am) of corroborating evidence through tools/techniques/people that are presumably not sharing and comparing notes or data with each other.

	▲	duped 20 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> it's literally a battle of what side can make the most compelling argument So it's exactly as I characterized it, a racket. It's not science. Almost all forensic tests are bullshit, and forensic experts simply cannot determine what they say they are able to under any scrutiny.