5 ms·

I have a lot of faith in the EFF but in this case I think they are confused. Our DNA is one of the least private aspects of ourselves. We share the vast majorit

by eggie 11y ago

I have a lot of faith in the EFF but in this case I think they are confused. Our DNA is one of the least private aspects of ourselves. We share the vast majority of it with our family and even neighbors. The idea of hiding it is absurdly impossible. We leave it everywhere we go in quantities that are more than sufficient to completely reconstruct our genome. We would literally need to wear full body latex suits with filtered respirators to keep it private. In the medium term, the idea of having private DNA while living in a public environment is as incredible as desiring to have a public social experience while keeping your face completely hidden. DNA sampling arrestees is no more invasive than taking their photo. It is only our current technical capacity that makes us see the two as different.

Lawtonfogle 11y ago
This is kinda like saying that because our bodies constantly emit electromagnetic radiation that could be used to construct a detailed nude image, using a camera with the tools needed to do such isn't invasive. What happens when we have the technology to read internal monologues? What happens when the police are able to hear the lawyer talking to their client because they are talking too loud for the new technology... if they didn't want to be heard should they whisper... and what happens when even that is too loud? Under this reasoning, most all privacy is as good as dead and we are just waiting for the technology to get here.
- eggie 11y ago
  When it comes to DNA we are already nude. You will have better luck keeping your face private and going about a normal life than hiding your genome from the world. The former can be accomplished with a mask. The latter requires living in a plastic bubble and never sharing the genomic information of anyone. I do not want to live in a world where everyone must be masked, and although the utility of sharing information about DNA is of a different kind I will also be profoundly sad if we are too afraid of the bogeyman to let other people know what we are made of. Perhaps I feel so strongly about this because there is literally not one case where DNA information alone has resulted in harm. I challenge you to provide an example. Digitized DNA sequence information from tens of millions of people is floating around in the world. If this were as dangerous as some people make it out to be I would expect there to have been many problems already. (The example that I have heard is when someone learns their biological parents are not who they think they are. Although this may be troubling I find it absurd that someone should have the right to delude or be deluded about their genetic background. At worst it can pose a dangerous liability as someone lacks information about diseases that may affect them or their offspring.)
  - Retric 11y ago
    People can see and directly compare fingerprints, but DNA only showes up after extensive tests which gives it much stronger constitutional protections. Further it's only relevant in significant quantities as individual cells may end up hundreds of miles from where an individual has ever been. Where you at the scene of the crime, or did you happen to walk by the factory where the shelf was manufactured? PS: As we get better at testing DNA we ar e finding it less relevant.
  - tzs 11y ago
    > Perhaps I feel so strongly about this because there is literally not one case where DNA information alone has resulted in harm Wrong: http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-dark-side-of-dna-databases/408709/ http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-dark-...
    - eggie 11y ago
      Unfortunately you are mistaken. The problem here is not the sharing of DNA information, but the incredibly poor resolution of the standard tests that are used in forensics. > Two seemingly unrelated individuals—one white and one black—shared the same two markers at nine of the 13 places in the standard DNA profile. Forensic standards of identity are based on a few _hundred_ base pairs of the three billion in each of our genomes. It is scientifically dishonest to represent this as a conclusive test of identity. The markers are not distributed randomly and large numbers of false positive matches against microsattelite databases are the norm. If the full genome sequence of an individual were the standard of truth this would not be an issue. It would resolve the problem of mistaken DNA identity entirely! This is the problem the EFF should seek to solve. Try again.
      - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
        >The problem here is not the sharing of DNA information, but the incredibly poor resolution of the standard tests that are used in forensics. This seems like a goal post shift from 'DNA information alone cannot cause harm' to 'sharing of DNA information alone cannot cause harm', with the alone excluding all uses of DNA information. To me would be like arguing that giving everyone a nuclear bomb is not harmful, it is their use of the nuclear bomb that will cause harm. Or to generalize further, the harm is always the fault of the last event in a chain of events, and all events leading up to it cannot be blamed. To make another extreme comparison, violations of the 4th amendment related to searches aren't harmful, it is only the (mis)use of that information that is harmful. That isn't an argument I'm buying.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  > Under this reasoning, most all privacy is as good as dead and we are just waiting for the technology to get here. Because it is! Thank you, somebody finally noticed. You can't preserve privacy and push technology forward, it's either-or. The best we can hope for is, if we chose to continue on the path of progress, that we'll establish social customs around expected privacy, that will amount mostly to "gentlemen turn around and do not look when a lady is undressing in a shared room" and to the privacy of correspondence ("we obviously can read your mail, but it's a common courtesy that we don't"). But you can't stop the fact that we're all radiating information to the world. And there's nothing invasive in collecting it - you don't have to touch me, you just have to stand within my light cone and take a look around.
  - mirimir 11y ago
    There's also technology for protecting and defending privacy. So it balances out. If you're in my light cone, I can also be jamming.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      There is, but I don't believe it balances out, not in the slightest. You can obstruct a channel, but I can use others to reconstruct it. Everything you do leaves casual traces within your lightcone - be it low-level like your reflection in the shop window, or high-level like behaviour of your spouse being influenced by his knowledge about your plans, which can help reconstruct them even if you lie about them. It's like with error correction - you can try and damage the information, but we're figuring out more and more ways in which to recreate it. At some point, to protect privacy, you'll have to expend a lot of computing power on lying about everything to everyone around you - which is not exactly a way to live or run a society.
      - mirimir 11y ago
        I strictly compartmentalize. You could call it lying, I suppose. But it's mostly just not sharing anything between compartments. There's nothing complicated for me to remember.
grecy 11y ago
The problem isn't that they're collecting DNA, it's that they're linking it to an individual for future identification. Sure, I left my DNA all over some place I visited, but nobody has any idea who "I" am based on it, in the same way they don't have my fingerprints on file. EDIT: Also note the DNA of everyone born after 1983 in California is on file.
- eggie 11y ago
  As they are taking photos of the same people so that there is not question as to their identity in the future. What makes DNA different than the photo?
  - Vraxx 11y ago
    I don't know about you, but I can change my appearance a lot easier than I can change my DNA. Even this aside, a DNA link to your identity is a lot more accurate than just a photo.
  - grecy 11y ago
    A photo of you at birth is not really going to tie you to something 20 or 40 years later. DNA sure will.
rtl49 11y ago
What you're claiming about the privacy of DNA isn't strictly true. You're correct that, aside from mutations, we share all of our alleles with one or the other parent, and about half of them with full siblings, etc. But this information in itself doesn't enable one to predict the exact composition of your genome, which would be needed to form a predictive model of your body. It would still be possible to, say, link your DNA to that found at a crime scene, but you still sacrifice something by giving it up. I have little hope that we will maintain this form of privacy, but that isn't to say nothing has been lost.
- eggie 11y ago
  We have not had this form of privacy for a long time, and I doubt we will regain it unless we would like to do away with DNA evidence altogether. If anything we should be pushing for more precision in the use of DNA samples as evidence. The standards required for identification are incredibly low and result in large numbers of false positives. These poor standards cause harm. The correct use of DNA evidence can clarify crimescene events and has had the power to exonerate many falsely-accused people.
  - rtl49 11y ago
    I think these are separate issues. There is definitely an important difference between being able to use DNA in criminal investigations and maintaining a database of every genome in the population. The first solves a problem of legitimate social concern, the second is the stuff of dystopian fiction. None of this is at odds with insisting upon higher levels of precision and integrity in forensic science. We can talk about reducing the number of false positives and educating juries about the limitations of forensics without resigning ourselves to the unwelcome collection of our DNA.
    - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
      Yet DNA is so easy to collect; you don't need permission. I think we'll have to get used to the idea of universal identification. Its inevitable. Better to come to terms with it.
privacy101 11y ago
This is like saying that because the NSA could record all communications forever that they should.

by eggie 11y ago

Lawtonfogle 11y ago

This is kinda like saying that because our bodies constantly emit electromagnetic radiation that could be used to construct a detailed nude image, using a camera with the tools needed to do such isn't invasive. What happens when we have the technology to read internal monologues? What happens when the police are able to hear the lawyer talking to their client because they are talking too loud for the new technology... if they didn't want to be heard should they whisper... and what happens when even that is too loud? Under this reasoning, most all privacy is as good as dead and we are just waiting for the technology to get here.

eggie 11y ago
When it comes to DNA we are already nude. You will have better luck keeping your face private and going about a normal life than hiding your genome from the world. The former can be accomplished with a mask. The latter requires living in a plastic bubble and never sharing the genomic information of anyone. I do not want to live in a world where everyone must be masked, and although the utility of sharing information about DNA is of a different kind I will also be profoundly sad if we are too afraid of the bogeyman to let other people know what we are made of. Perhaps I feel so strongly about this because there is literally not one case where DNA information alone has resulted in harm. I challenge you to provide an example. Digitized DNA sequence information from tens of millions of people is floating around in the world. If this were as dangerous as some people make it out to be I would expect there to have been many problems already. (The example that I have heard is when someone learns their biological parents are not who they think they are. Although this may be troubling I find it absurd that someone should have the right to delude or be deluded about their genetic background. At worst it can pose a dangerous liability as someone lacks information about diseases that may affect them or their offspring.)
- Retric 11y ago
  People can see and directly compare fingerprints, but DNA only showes up after extensive tests which gives it much stronger constitutional protections. Further it's only relevant in significant quantities as individual cells may end up hundreds of miles from where an individual has ever been. Where you at the scene of the crime, or did you happen to walk by the factory where the shelf was manufactured? PS: As we get better at testing DNA we ar e finding it less relevant.
- tzs 11y ago
  > Perhaps I feel so strongly about this because there is literally not one case where DNA information alone has resulted in harm Wrong: http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-dark-side-of-dna-databases/408709/ http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-dark-...
  - eggie 11y ago
    Unfortunately you are mistaken. The problem here is not the sharing of DNA information, but the incredibly poor resolution of the standard tests that are used in forensics. > Two seemingly unrelated individuals—one white and one black—shared the same two markers at nine of the 13 places in the standard DNA profile. Forensic standards of identity are based on a few _hundred_ base pairs of the three billion in each of our genomes. It is scientifically dishonest to represent this as a conclusive test of identity. The markers are not distributed randomly and large numbers of false positive matches against microsattelite databases are the norm. If the full genome sequence of an individual were the standard of truth this would not be an issue. It would resolve the problem of mistaken DNA identity entirely! This is the problem the EFF should seek to solve. Try again.
    - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
      >The problem here is not the sharing of DNA information, but the incredibly poor resolution of the standard tests that are used in forensics. This seems like a goal post shift from 'DNA information alone cannot cause harm' to 'sharing of DNA information alone cannot cause harm', with the alone excluding all uses of DNA information. To me would be like arguing that giving everyone a nuclear bomb is not harmful, it is their use of the nuclear bomb that will cause harm. Or to generalize further, the harm is always the fault of the last event in a chain of events, and all events leading up to it cannot be blamed. To make another extreme comparison, violations of the 4th amendment related to searches aren't harmful, it is only the (mis)use of that information that is harmful. That isn't an argument I'm buying.
TeMPOraL 11y ago
> Under this reasoning, most all privacy is as good as dead and we are just waiting for the technology to get here. Because it is! Thank you, somebody finally noticed. You can't preserve privacy and push technology forward, it's either-or. The best we can hope for is, if we chose to continue on the path of progress, that we'll establish social customs around expected privacy, that will amount mostly to "gentlemen turn around and do not look when a lady is undressing in a shared room" and to the privacy of correspondence ("we obviously can read your mail, but it's a common courtesy that we don't"). But you can't stop the fact that we're all radiating information to the world. And there's nothing invasive in collecting it - you don't have to touch me, you just have to stand within my light cone and take a look around.
- mirimir 11y ago
  There's also technology for protecting and defending privacy. So it balances out. If you're in my light cone, I can also be jamming.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    There is, but I don't believe it balances out, not in the slightest. You can obstruct a channel, but I can use others to reconstruct it. Everything you do leaves casual traces within your lightcone - be it low-level like your reflection in the shop window, or high-level like behaviour of your spouse being influenced by his knowledge about your plans, which can help reconstruct them even if you lie about them. It's like with error correction - you can try and damage the information, but we're figuring out more and more ways in which to recreate it. At some point, to protect privacy, you'll have to expend a lot of computing power on lying about everything to everyone around you - which is not exactly a way to live or run a society.
    - mirimir 11y ago
      I strictly compartmentalize. You could call it lying, I suppose. But it's mostly just not sharing anything between compartments. There's nothing complicated for me to remember.

grecy 11y ago

The problem isn't that they're collecting DNA, it's that they're linking it to an individual for future identification. Sure, I left my DNA all over some place I visited, but nobody has any idea who "I" am based on it, in the same way they don't have my fingerprints on file. EDIT: Also note the DNA of everyone born after 1983 in California is on file.

eggie 11y ago
As they are taking photos of the same people so that there is not question as to their identity in the future. What makes DNA different than the photo?
- Vraxx 11y ago
  I don't know about you, but I can change my appearance a lot easier than I can change my DNA. Even this aside, a DNA link to your identity is a lot more accurate than just a photo.
- grecy 11y ago
  A photo of you at birth is not really going to tie you to something 20 or 40 years later. DNA sure will.

rtl49 11y ago

What you're claiming about the privacy of DNA isn't strictly true. You're correct that, aside from mutations, we share all of our alleles with one or the other parent, and about half of them with full siblings, etc. But this information in itself doesn't enable one to predict the exact composition of your genome, which would be needed to form a predictive model of your body. It would still be possible to, say, link your DNA to that found at a crime scene, but you still sacrifice something by giving it up. I have little hope that we will maintain this form of privacy, but that isn't to say nothing has been lost.

eggie 11y ago
We have not had this form of privacy for a long time, and I doubt we will regain it unless we would like to do away with DNA evidence altogether. If anything we should be pushing for more precision in the use of DNA samples as evidence. The standards required for identification are incredibly low and result in large numbers of false positives. These poor standards cause harm. The correct use of DNA evidence can clarify crimescene events and has had the power to exonerate many falsely-accused people.
- rtl49 11y ago
  I think these are separate issues. There is definitely an important difference between being able to use DNA in criminal investigations and maintaining a database of every genome in the population. The first solves a problem of legitimate social concern, the second is the stuff of dystopian fiction. None of this is at odds with insisting upon higher levels of precision and integrity in forensic science. We can talk about reducing the number of false positives and educating juries about the limitations of forensics without resigning ourselves to the unwelcome collection of our DNA.
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    Yet DNA is so easy to collect; you don't need permission. I think we'll have to get used to the idea of universal identification. Its inevitable. Better to come to terms with it.

privacy101 11y ago

This is like saying that because the NSA could record all communications forever that they should.