New Scientist carries a report that a brother's DNA was used to track down a criminal. What they did was to locate a near match in their database of over 2.5 million entries and then investigated the relatives thereto. Network analysis meets DNA analysis. They're also finding that as they get more false matches, they'll have to use more genetic markers to fine-tune their search. Taking this to its logical conclusion, if they are able to sample a sufficient number of genetic hubs, the odds of being able to indirectly narrow down possible suspects via DNA would be greatly increased. In short, they could essentially be able to effectively search an entire population by sampling a well-connected fraction.
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