Intelligent Design in Action: DNA Cryptography
Twelve years ago, in a series on Intelligent Design in Action, I discussed the science of cryptology as an example. A review of terms is in order; what is the difference between cryptology and cryptography? Basically, it’s theory vs application.
Merriam-Webster defines cryptology as “the scientific study of cryptography and cryptanalysis.” Cryptography is the process of writing or reading secret messages in code. Cryptanalysis involves the theory of solving cryptographic systems. There’s a Journal of Cryptology. There are professors of cryptology. Cryptology involves theories, data, experimentation, and testing. It has all the accouterments of science — and is entirely based on intelligent design principles. Which makes sense. It takes a mind to encode a message, and mind to decode it.
If cryptology is an example of ID in action, how much more when it involves biologically coded information? Such is a new application of cryptology discussed in The Scientist. Dr. Danielle Gerhard explained why “DNA Cryptography” represents a cutting-edge technique to reduce biosecurity risks.
Over the last two decades, synthesizing DNA has become faster and easier, but researchers worry that this will make it easier for people to access potentially dangerous products. While many experts call for more federal guidance and regulation over the production of synthetic nucleic acid sequences, others have drawn focus to biosecurity concerns that are a little closer to home: in research labs. Jean Peccoud, a synthetic biologist at Colorado State University, and Casey-Tyler Berezin, a molecular biologist on Peccoud’s team, discussed the biggest biosecurity issue facing research, approaches for encrypting messages into DNA sequences, and the importance of sequencing technologies for mitigating biosecurity risks.
Sequencing: that word rings a bell. Doug Axe in his book Undeniable, and Stephen Meyer in Signature in the Cell, explained that the carrier of information in biomolecules is not the building blocks but the sequence in which they are arranged. In The Design Inference 2.0, Dembski and Ewert expanded their earlier concept of complex specified information, showing that “short description length” is sufficient to identify design. A sequence of ones and zeroes that looks random might only be describable by repeating the whole sequence, unless a pattern like “the series of prime numbers” were found in it. That would shorten the description and identify the product of a mind.
How does this relate to the new science of DNA Crytography? Similar to a series of numbers, DNA consists of building blocks or “letters” whose sequence can—and does—convey information. As we know from genetics, DNA conveysfunctional information when it codes for proteins. It can also, as discussed here, convey non-biological information in human language. Craig Venter’s team, for instance, embedded their own watermark in DNA when completing their “synthetic cell” project. A highly versatile molecule, DNA has also been used to encode music, art, and even movies
Biosecurity with DNA
Dr. Gerhard writes that “Hidden Messages in DNA Could Reduce Biosecurity Risks.” The reason is that DNA is a good substrate for digital information. The subtitle says, “To improve traceability and enable authentication of synthetic nucleic acid sequences, researchers are embedding digital signatures into DNA.” Her article includes a transcript of a recording between Jean Peccoud, a synthetic biologist at Colorado State University, and Casey-Tyler Berezin, a molecular biologist on Peccoud’s team.
Peccoud highlights a big risk that till recently was thought impractical: sending text messages across international borders that could be translated into DNA sequences for biological warfare. “How do we know that what we have in our labs is what we think it is?” Peccoud asks. Digital signatures — encoded strings difficult to crack — could provide needed assurance. Digital signatures have long been used in business and government to authenticate messages. If DNA is a form of text, it can be used in a similar way.
For example, every research sample, such as a tube with a DNA plasmid, has two facets: a computer record that contains information about the sequence or provides a plasmid map and then there’s the content of the tube. When the two don’t match, there are all sorts of potential problems that arise. This may not be a biosecurity problem in the regular sense because you’re not dealing with infectious agents, but people are spending millions of dollars on research that they cannot reproduce because they don’t know what they have in their flasks. It’s a security problem that comes from the fact that what you’re working with is not what you think it is.
This risk is not science fiction. “That’s something that is happening in every lab, every day, and we have very few tools to figure out what’s going on in our own lab,” he adds. Berezin shows why the time has come for DNA Cryptography.
I became interested in the topic when I joined Peccoud’s synthetic biology team. I realized that a lot of the methods that we’re using, such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and bacterial transformations, are methods I had used before but never wondered where the DNA sequences came from or how I would know if something had changed in the sequences. This is the status quo — we work with DNA and take for granted that it’s going to be what we think it is. Once you are aware of the biosecurity issues, it’s something you can’t turn your back on. Now, I see those issues everywhere.
DNA Cryptography mirrors existing methods to authenticate digital messages in communication channels. When sequences of code transfer across the internet, how does a receiver know that the message has not been corrupted by noise or malware? A system at the receiving end, such as a router, can recalculate the digital signature, often reduced to a string by a hashing algorithm, to find out. If not validated, the receiver can ask for a retransmission. This way, a human or software system at the end of the line can have confidence in the message.
Similarly, digital signatures in DNA can authenticate a product from a sender or warn the receiver if mutations in the DNA have corrupted it. DNA Cryptography reduces uncertainty.
DNA is going to mutate. That’s what it likes to do. It likes to replicate and sometimes that doesn’t go perfectly. So even if you might have something safe in a tube in your lab, after you propagate it 100 times or 1,000 times, you might not have what you think you do. Whether that’s dangerous or not really depends on the specific scenario, but that uncertainty of not knowing what you have, is very prevalent across academic research labs.It takes a lot of work on the part of the user to ensure that they’re tracking all the sequences that they have and that they are sequencing their plasmids as they go on.
DNA barcoding is already widespread, Berezin adds. What’s new is creating ciphers in DNA that are secret and difficult to break.
We’re interested in encoding encrypted messages that provide the user with information about the authenticityof the materials they’re working with. For this, our group has been developing a digital signature approach called DNA Identification Number (DIN), which is a more complex cryptography approach that makes it even more difficult for the receiver to open unless they know what they’re looking for.
The national security ramifications of DIN are obvious. Berezin goes on to explain how DINs are created and hashed into standard string lengths, and how techniques are being developed to assist those wishing to use it. From this article, we see several points relevant to ID:
Information is conveyed by the sequence, not the building blocks.
Information can be translated from one medium into another.
Mutations or noise degrade information, contrary to the expectations of Darwinism.
Intelligent design is an integral part of many sciences. Now we see new applications with the building blocks of biomolecules. But what about all those sequences in DNA that were not manipulated by humans? I wonder if some of the non-coding DNA might turn out to include natural hidden messages. Will we find compression algorithms, digital signatures, or steganography in things labeled pseudogenes or junk DNA? Given our experience in artificial cryptography, intelligent design advocates have reason to investigate.
