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Relative's DNA from genealogy websites cracked East Area Rapist case
- ajudson 8y agoI wonder if this sort of method will be challenged and end up in the Supreme Court.
- JoblessWonder 8y agoI can't imagine it WON'T be challenged.
- acomjean 8y agoSome states have banned familial searching. I took a genomics class and the guest speaker was a forensic scientist, he explained the pros and cons. Clearly getting these serial criminals off the street has some benifit. Its been done before. One of the first was the "Grim Sleeper" case with an arrest in 2010. In that case they used the police database though (california has dna of all felons.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grim_Sleeper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grim_Sleeper "Police had found no exact match between DNA found at the crime scenes and any of the profiles in California's DNA profile database, so they searched the database for stored profiles that demonstrated sufficient similarity to allow police to infer a familial relationship. They found similar DNA belonging to Franklin's son, Christopher, who had been convicted of a felony weapons charge. According to Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley, detectives then used a piece of discarded pizza with Franklin's DNA to make the link. One Los Angeles undercover police officer pretended to be a waiter at a restaurant where the suspect ate. He collected dishes, silverware, glasses, and pizza crusts to obtain DNA.[20] The identification was used to arrest Franklin after his DNA was obtained and deemed a match.[21] Saliva found on the victims established a DNA match linking Franklin to the deaths"
- JoblessWonder 8y agoThis is pretty huge. I'm wondering if it is from something like YSearch [1] where you can just put in any-old Haplotype and see results or if it is from one of the larger, well known firms like 23AndMe or Ancestry.com. [1] http://www.ysearch.org/search_search.asp?uid=&freeentry=true http://www.ysearch.org/search_search.asp?uid=&freeentry=true
- curtis 8y agoThe reporting on exactly how DNA was used to identify the Golden State Killer is still pretty limited. It sounds like they submitted DNA from GSK crime scenes to a number of genealogical sites and got back one or more familial matches. From that match or matches, they were able to backtrack to a specific suspect. Once the suspect was identified, they were able to surreptitiously obtain the suspect's DNA, then they directly tested that DNA against GSK DNA samples, and were able to confirm the match. It hasn't been stated directly, but it seems like there is plenty of still-usable DNA from GSK crime scene evidence, even though it will now be 30+ years old.
- jopsen 8y agoThe idea of finding suspects based on DNA is not without problems, is it?
- Chriky 8y agoIt seems like one of the least problematic ways of generating suspects to me - what's the issue compared to, say, eye witness testimony?
- arbitrage 8y agoWhereas eye-witness testimony is incredibly unreliable, but laypersons typically believe it to be accurate, the opposite is true with DNA forensic evidence. The public generally believes it to be infallible, when in reality it's not always that clear cut. It should be regarded as another tool in the toolbox, not the be-all and end-all of criminal forensic investigation.
- partiallypro 8y agoHe left behind a lot of semen. Rape kits were used in some cases to get his DNA, clothes in others.
- rgejman 8y agoDoes anyone have any more information on this? How do the police get access to DNA from genealogical databases? Do they need a warrant for a specific persons DNA? Do the police check for matches or does the company?
- Maxious 8y agoThey used "crime scene" samples and what they are calling “abandoned” DNA from the suspect ("You leave your DNA in a place that is a public domain” they don't need a warrant?) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/26/us/golden-state-killer.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/26/us/golden-state-killer.ht...
- rgejman 8y agoI meant the access to commercial DNA databases. Looks like it’s been explained above.
- Spellman 8y agoNope. rummaging through the trash doesn't require a warrant.
- conanbatt 8y agoThis is more than that: it wasnt his dna, it was one of his relatives dna on the site that got him found. Im guessing that any relative has a right to divulge his dna and rat out a blood relative in a situation like this, but I doubt people actually consent to that use when they are looking at a genealogy site.
- paxys 8y agoWell one of the big uses of ancestry services is to find unknown relatives, so...yay?
- ArcticUnicorn 8y agohttp://abc7news.com/dna-that-cracked-golden-state-killer-case-came-from-genealogy-websites/3396310/ http://abc7news.com/dna-that-cracked-golden-state-killer-cas... This article states that the main DNA sites and Ancestry.com didn't release the information, so I'm curious about where it came from as well. Though it does say they'll comply with 'valid legal requests' it also says they weren't contacted.
- ArcticUnicorn 8y ago'As he was being arrested, he told officers he had a roast in the oven. They said they would take care of it.' Humans are an odd bunch.
- toomanybeersies 8y agoThat quote has reminds me of the classic short story: Lamb to the Slaughter [1]. [1] http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/lamb.html http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/lamb.html
- whatshisface 8y agoArrest isn't conviction, so it's a good thing that officers don't always act like they're putting away a killer (and that the accused don't always act like they're about to be put away for life.)
- Rebelgecko 8y agoArrest isn't conviction, but since the topic here is DNA it's worth noting that in California you can have your DNA taken against your will and put into a database when you get arrested even if you're never convicted or even charged with a crime.
- gojomo 8y agoFurther, in California and most other states, a 'fetal blood spot' is taken from every newborn and tested for a variety of genetic diseases, and the spot is retained in some state filing cabinet (or refrigerator?) somewhere. See an older comment for details & links: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6811167#6811805 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6811167#6811805 Just as there was a state proposition (sponsored by the relatives of one of this killer's victims) to expand DNA-testing of criminal suspects, a future policy change could send investigators into those filing cabinets, if the blood DNA isn't too degraded, to do a broad genetic dragnet for criminal suspects (or their relatives).
- 8y ago
- conroy 8y agoI was very confused about this. The genealogy website did not probide any information to law enforcement. Instead, law enforcement uploaded DNA from the crime scene to the genealogy website. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/26/us/golden-state-killer.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/26/us/golden-state-killer.ht...
- chatmasta 8y ago...and then the genealogy website provided information to law enforcement by showing profiles of people with similar DNA. Perhaps that’s the real privacy issue... anyone can find a piece of hair on the sidewalk, send it to a genealogy website, and identify who it might belong to and/or any relatives.
- maxerickson 8y agoThe sites have more privacy controls than that.
- chatmasta 8y agoBut I have no say over my uncle’s privacy controls. If someone finds my hair, and my uncle allows himself to be publicly searchable by DNA, then the person who found the hair knows it belongs to someone associated with my uncle. They can then find him on Facebook and commence further analysis. It’s the same problem we saw with Cambridge Analytica. Incidental data shared by our friends can reveal information about ourselves when analyzed in bulk or supplemented with additional data.
- eksu 8y agoYou don't have a reasonable right to privacy of relations. That's all public record.
- mattnewton 8y agoThis in effect makes my DNA a matter of public record based on the decisions of my relatives (behind some hoops, but in practice it doesn’t seem hard). That seems like a breach of privacy.
- chatmasta 8y agoInterestingly it wasn’t even his DNA in the database, but a relative’s. It just goes to show that there is nowhere to hide. Even if you stay completely offline, it only takes one relative to log the bulk of your DNA onto the Internet. Metadata strikes again.
- nasredin 8y agoLiteral metadata (DNA) preempts this guy from striking again.
- Faark 8y agoYou usually use obviously beneficial cases to push boundaries. Having your medical insurance pay one of your relatives for their DNA to re-rate you and other relatives or other horror scenarios will follow later down the line, once we've shown willing to give up privacy. This entire "you share lots of info (DNA) with your relatives, thus they can screw you with it" is a pretty new issue. I doubt we understand the full ramifications, yet, and thus i'd prefer caution instead of the government giving others a green light to screw me in ways i cannot even imagine, yet.
- fixermark 8y ago"Family members can screw you via relation" isn't really a new issue. English Common Law generally moved the legal needle on literally being killed or sent to jail for the crimes of a relative thanks to the abolition of "corruption of blood" law, but there are a lot of other ways you can be on the hook for a relative's actions.
- btilly 8y agoDon't forget "innocent until proven guilty". I want to know what DNA they got from the Golden State Killer, and how they know that it was his. The guy that they arrested was a police officer during the period where the killing was going on, in an era before DNA tests existed. Did they take DNA from a sample that was accidentally contaminated by a police officer at the scene, and conclude that the DNA belonged to said police officer?
- stevenwoo 8y agoIn the first press conference the Sacramento police chief said they had DNA evidence lying in stuff that was already in an evidence room that they did not realize until recently, the chief was an advocate for more genetic testing at the state level. The killer did not work for the Sacramento police, ever.
- maxerickson 8y agoYou think it is likely they arrested a cop based on a facile interpretation of the evidence?
- djrogers 8y agoA former cop, who was fired in 1979. Please try to be somewhat familiar with the facts before posting inflammatory speculation.
- gojomo 8y agoMy possibly-incomplete understanding is: * there was enough genetic evidence at several of the original crime scenes to establish one particular person was involved * after this suspect came to their attention, apparently via DNA on genealogy sites, they surveilled his home and collected additional 'left-behind' DNA – perhaps from his trash, or a haircut, etc? – to confirm a match with the older crime-scene evidence
- gwern 8y agoIt sounds like they had semen or saliva from an old rape kit which has been in storage for decades from a GSK rape victim (http://www.nj.com/data/2018/04/how_a_nj_pathologist_may_have_helped_solve_the_gol.html http://www.nj.com/data/2018/04/how_a_nj_pathologist_may_have...), they sequenced it, uploaded it to the genealogy website, got a hit on one of his relatives, investigated that person's relatives until they noticed one guy fit the GSK profile perfectly (law enforcement training, trouble with the law, right age and height, lived in the right place) and then staked him out until they got a discarded soda can or cigarette butt he tossed or which was in his garbage can (remember, if you put your garbage can out on the street, anyone is allowed to take it!), but the first sample was too degraded for a match and they had to get a second one, which then matched perfectly.
- readhn 8y agodamn ... so the guy is going to jail based just on the data obtained from the website? What if the "match" is not correct? This should scare a lot of people away from these family tree websites. One day you might have FBI knocking on your door for being a close match to some killer somewhere.
- detaro 8y agoThe article describes that they found him through the database, and obtained a DNA sample from him to match to the evidence material.
- devnonymous 8y agoHang on, am I'm missing something - guy is a suspect, they have yet to find proof he is the Killer and he has been arrested based on a second attempt of trying to match the DNA after the first was inconclusive. Why does the article read like they found the killer?
- Bud 8y agoHe's not just a suspect. He's been charged. The article is crystal clear about his status and completely appropriate.
- aqme28 8y agoThe evidence sounds pretty damning to me. I'm curious why you think it's wholly inconclusive >Investigators then obtained what Anne Marie Schubert, the Sacramento district attorney, called “abandoned” DNA samples from Mr. DeAngelo. “You leave your DNA in a place that is a public domain,” she said. >The test result confirmed the match to more than 10 murders in California. Ms. Schubert’s office then obtained a second sample and came back with the same positive result, matching the full DNA profile.
- devnonymous 8y agoUgh, my comment, alongwith a whole bunch of others, was moved by @dang from this post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16936533 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16936533 ...which is a less detailed article.
- gamblor956 8y agoThe first discarded item could have come from a blood relative, i.e., his kids, or been intermingled with his wife's DNA, which could have yielded an inconclusive match (i.e., similar to the killer but not an exact match). They already knew that someone in the house was related to the killer--for their purposes, they needed an exact match.
- vermontdevil 8y agoOne guy I know sent in his dna to ancestry. He was immediately matched with a woman as highly likely to be his sister. He was shocked and they connected. Turns out they are siblings and both adopted at birth. So there’s some upsides to these sites Nevertheless hopefully ancestry etc would have sensible policies to protect peoples’ privacy unleSs a court order is involved.
- txsh 8y agoThere are other downsides, too. I have a cousin who found out, in his 50s, after his mother and father had passed away, that he was not related to anybody in our family. It crushed him.
- loufe 8y agoMy family found an estranged relative from a one off affair in another country through Ancestry's "probably related" tool. It was an incredible experience.
- adenadel 8y agoSample mixups and other mistakes can happen. I know of cases where family history could become exposed through these tests, but if you get results that are unexpected it's worth some follow up to be sure.
- frogpelt 8y agohttps://www.vox.com/2014/9/9/5975653/with-genetic-testing-i-gave-my-parents-the-gift-of-divorce-23andme https://www.vox.com/2014/9/9/5975653/with-genetic-testing-i-... This guy gave his parents the gift of divorce.
- nasredin 8y agoUgh. The guy has a PhD but writes like a BuzzFeed writer. Unreadable.
- 8y ago
- pg_bot 8y agoAn excerpt from Michelle McNamara's letter to the golden state killer. The race was yours to win. You were the observer in power, never observed. An initial setback came on September 10, 1984, in a lab at the University of Leicester, when the geneticist Alec Jeffreys developed the first DNA profile. Another came in 1989, when Tim Berners-Lee wrote a proposal for the World Wide Web. People who weren’t even aware of you or your crimes began devising algorithms that could help find you. In 1998, Larry Page and Sergey Brin incorporated their company, Google. Boxes holding your police reports were hauled out, scanned, digitized, and shared. The world hummed with connectivity and speed. Smartphones. Optical-text-recognition technology. Customizable interactive maps. Familial DNA. I’ve seen photos of the waffle-stomper boot impressions you left in the dirt beneath a teen-age girl’s bedroom on July 17, 1976, in Carmichael, a crude relic from a time when voyeurs had no choice but to physically plant themselves in front of windows. You excelled at the stealth sidle. But your heyday prowess has no value anymore. Your skill set has been phased out. The tables have been turned. Virtual windows are opening all around you. You, the master watcher, are an aging, lumbering target in their crosshairs. A ski mask won’t help you now. https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/letter-to-the-golden-state-killer https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/letter-to-the-go...
- jasode 8y ago>People who weren’t even aware of you or your crimes began devising algorithms that could help find you. [...] Familial DNA. The killer left behind 800 megabytes of information[1] at the crime scene in the 1970s. A present day genealogy website had another 800 MB uploaded from a family member. Algorithms found a match. [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=dna+800+megabytes https://www.google.com/search?q=dna+800+megabytes
- anigbrowl 8y agoThat's an excellent piece. But let's not forget that the suspect is a former police officer. Assuming he's the right person, he was less of a brilliant tactician than a turncoat who knew knew the system inside out, and who may well have had access to investigative information afterwards. He was fired for shoplifting in 1979, having committed many of these crimes during his tenure as a police officer; it was after that he began killing his victims. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/04/26/606060349/after-arrest-of-suspected-golden-state-killer-details-of-his-life-emerge https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/04/26/606060349...
- Install_Gentoo 8y agoHa, suckers. (just realized my sister is also a sucker :(, and me by association.) SAVE OUR SOULS
- StavrosK 8y agoI don't see this anywhere: This is most likely not statistically significant. A DNA match might be 99.99% accurate, but when you try to match based on a database of a million people, you're going to get a few false positives. I really hope the police have some more evidence to go on, because otherwise it sounds like they just arrested an innocent person.
- paxys 8y agoOnce you have a solid lead it's pretty easy to build a case, especially considering they have mountains of evidence saved from the >60 crimes committed.
- tysonzni 8y agoDNA wasn't the only evidence police had. 3 pieces of additional information: 1) his history in the Sacramento area, 2) he served in the Navy and law enforcement which fitted the profile police were looking for, and 3) police sketches matched a photo of his from the 70s. edit: In addition to the physical evidence gathered from suspect's house that could be linked to the crime scenes. This isn't public information yet.
- bsder 8y agoSo why did it take so long to cough this guy up? Served in the Navy and law enforcement in Sacramento area isn't that large a set. Something isn't being reported correctly. This seems more like they got his DNA, and then backfilled the correlations. While it may have worked in this case, it's more than a little worrying because it changes the police from "finding the correct suspect" to "justifying the DNA identified suspect". And we already have a case in California where the police let the DNA guide them to the wrong person.
- tysonzni 8y agoThis seems more like they got his DNA, and then backfilled the correlations. This is always a concern with any investigation or analytical work. I'm curious to find out which other suspects they looked at after the initial DNA lead, and how they went about eliminating other suspects. But keep in mind the public isn't yet privy to all the physical evidence that were collected at the crime scenes.
- ninkendo 8y agoThis is a very interesting issue with sending your DNA to sites like 23andme. This means that a police officer can get a warrant to submit a DNA sample to the site, and get back anyone who matches. (Or in this case, their relatives.) The reason I think it's particularly interesting is that it passes one of the basic tests I have for whether something should be searchable by law enforcement: Do they have a target in mind and a warrant to search for that target? For PRISM and the other things that Snowden warned us about, the answer was no: the government was doing dragnet surveillance of all sorts of data warehouses to find people who fit a profile, without knowing who they're looking for ahead of time. With this, they have to have a DNA sample found at a crime scene, and they're using that combined with a warrant to do a targeted search for people with matching DNA. It just happens to be a website that people send their DNA to, rather than a police database. So I'm actually inclined to say I think this is ok? But I'm not 100% sure how I feel yet. EDIT: ok it looks like this was done not necessarily with a warrant, but with the officer just submitting the DNA as if they're a customer of the site. But actually my point still stands if they changed their technique to instead use a warrant and ask the site directly, not hiding that they were police officers... it's just that in this case they didn't even need to because it's so easy to just send others' DNA samples to these sites? It really seems like the lack of a warrant was a technicality here and could have easily gone the other way and still got to the same result.
- Harelin 8y agoIf the officer submitted the DNA as if they were a customer of the site, I wonder how they complied with the company's sample collection process. You usually have to submit a generous amount of saliva or cheek swabs.
- tzs 8y agoCould they make a fake saliva sample that has the same consistency as real saliva and whatever other characteristics that the analysis equipment depends on, but contains no DNA (or take a real saliva sample from someone and strip out the DNA), and then but the DNA they want to test into this fake saliva and submit that?
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- airstrike 8y agoThis comment section reads like half the people didn't bother to read the article or even Google the case and somehow think the police are framing an innocent man.
- adventured 8y agoThat's part of it. The other part is that it has become a pop-knowledge meme - Reddit & Imgur style - that DNA tests are nearly worthless, are almost never a sound means to convinct someone, and that they mostly just convict innocent people when used by the police. That immediately becomes the go-to parroted premise anytime discussions like these occur, without exception. It's bumper sticker forensic science knowledge.
- azemetre 8y agoWell, in the public's defense of being skeptical of "forensic science" has been a range of outright lying[1] to mystical beliefs that look no different than shamanism or voodoo[2]. You should also be aware that the Nation Research Council has done a study[3] on "forensic science" where DNA was the only barely reliable measurement in the entire field. These are methods the US Justice Department/Police/Judges/Prosecutors routinely uses to destroy innocent lives and trick juries. It's not hard to see how people become skeptical. I'm not saying this is the case with the capture of the Golden State Killer, but it's not hard to see how the public lost its trust in these institutions we hold to be accountable and make choices. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/fbi-overstated-forensic-hair-matches-in-nearly-all-criminal-trials-for-decades/2015/04/18/39c8d8c6-e515-11e4-b510-962fcfabc310_story.html?utm_term=.bf2b4a7470a4 https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/fbi-overstated-fo... [2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-we-trust-crime-forensics/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-we-trust-crim... [3] https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/228091.pdf https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/228091.pdf
- rdl 8y agoI'm surprised they are being so public about this (they could have downplayed it, even if they didn't go full parallel construction.) This will potentially cause people to be less willing to use sites like this, and this could have long-term negative public health impact. Plus, it hurts the commercial businesses. (My DNA is on record with DOD for personnel recovery purposes, as are most military/contractor personnel of the past 15 years or so, but I'm not sure how the actual database works. I suspect in reality it means China, Russia, Israel, and any other competent infosec adversary also has a full copy of this database.)
- caf 8y agoWill it, though? I would bet most people wouldn't consider "maybe this will expose a murderer in my family" as a realistic possibility, and even among those who would, most probably would be OK with that.
- rdl 8y agoMurderer in my family, probably not, but what if it is "drug crime in my own family" or the more likely "expensive medical disorder which will preclude insurance, employment, dating, etc.". It's still data being used "against" the user or his relatives. This long article that someone on Twitter sent me is interesting: https://medium.com/matter/23-and-you-66e87553d22c https://medium.com/matter/23-and-you-66e87553d22c
- fixermark 8y agoThose are reasonable extrapolations but are outside the purview of the police's concern. I don't expect they would stop a police chief (let alone a beat-cop) from bragging about a cool new method for narrowing a suspect list, because the benefit to other cops knowing about it outweighs the harm to the companies' bottom lines.
- fixermark 8y agoI don't think either of those concerns are really the police's concern. If the public reacts to this news by mistrusting those sites, so be it. (One could, I suppose, make an argument that the police, for purely selfish reasons, would want as many people as possible to use these sites so would keep mum on this methodology, but that's assuming police act as a coherent unit or organization and are not themselves individuals and citizens with their own red-lines for creepiness).
- MaikuMori 8y agoI guess they produced export which is similar or exact format to the exports of one of the popular sites and imported it. For example 23andme currently has DNA day promotion which lets you import ancestry exports. Seems a bit shady to me.
- fipple 8y agoThis kind of screening is extremely fucked up because average people are terrible statistical reasoners. A 99.999% accurate DNA test will find mostly innocent people if applied to a database of tens of millions of people. And even without corroborating evidence, juries will convict on the DNA because average people aren’t wired for this kind of statistical reasoning.
- fixermark 8y agoThe defense will need expert witnesses to explain why genealogical-resolution matching is unreliable, but any defense attorney worth their salt should have a stable of such witnesses; the difference between "A 100% correlated match between DNA at a crime scene and the suspect's DNA" and "An N% correlation between a suspect's DNA and a suspected relative of the suspect" is pretty clear even to this layperson. IANAL, but even without the expert witness, defense should be able to throw enough doubt for a criminal case defense with a line of questioning that begins "If the DNA matched to person Q in the DNA database and not to my client, why is person Q not the one being charged with this crime?" Defense can then move from there to the observation that the match to a relative in the database merely narrows the field of subjects to a whole family tree of relatives of the matched individual. (Note that in this case, the police used the geneology matches as a tool to focus suspect list, not as primary evidence in a murder trial. That's more in the realm of "Looking for everyone in town who buys that brand of cigar" than in the realm of "Your dad's DNA got you sent to prison!!!").
- pfarnsworth 8y agoI did 23 and Me but under a fake name. It correctly identified me as a 1st cousin with my cousin, whom I had no idea had already taken the test as well. It was very very spooky, and I can see how useful this would be for law enforcement. At some point in the future, you can drastically limit the number of people to search for based on DNA to a single family tree, if enough people submit their own DNA. It's scary. It's exactly like your contact list. Facebook doesn't need you to give them your phone number. They just need 1 out of your 500 contacts to upload their entire contacts list so that they get your phone number. The law of numbers is completely against you and your privacy is already violated completely because one of your friends did it to you.
- randyrand 8y agoSo 23andme shares our DNA with government? Screw that...
- alexk307 8y agoNo. Read the article or any other comment in this thread.
- eqtn 8y agoIs it legal to search a medical database to get details of people with a certain genetic disorder?
- astura 8y ago"A medical database." What medical database? You mean, like a database of patient records compiled by a hospital? No, most countries have laws on how those medical records can and can't be used. A database of DNA of felons collected by police departments where the DNA is also tested for genetic conditions? Barring any specific laws preventing that specific scenario, I don't see why that would be illegal.
- thelittleone 8y agoGreat to see justice in this case. On the flip side, privacy treasure trove's like this may become a tool for targeting non-criminals, for example classified cases targeting anonymous political activists or similar. It's no longer their own opsec activists need to worry about. It's all so very Gattaca.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Sir_Cmpwn 8y agoHighly recommend this DEFCON talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKQDSgBHPfY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKQDSgBHPfY
- scotty79 8y agoHe spent 12 years of his life as rapist and murderer. I wonder why he stopped? Mid-life crysis?
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- dexen 8y agoTo what extent the bone marrow donor databases are subject to the same risk of police fishing expeditions? Do they hold full DNA profile, or just the fragments relevant to immunocompatibility?
- astura 8y agoOf course not. Unlike ancestry websites, the purpose of bone marrow database is not to connect users to relatives. Police don't have the ability to send crime scene data into the bone marrow registry and get back "here's the subject's siblings." I don't even think you're allowed to meet someone you're matched with and donate bone marrow to; for at least several years, if not forever. The police literally uses the website as designed: "here's DNA; get back known close relatives." https://bethematch.org/privacy/ https://bethematch.org/privacy/ Edit: looks like they used an "open source" genealogy DNA website GEDMatch; not one of the commercial ones: https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2018/04/26/ancestry-23andme-deny-assisting-law-enforcement-in-east-area-rapist-case/ https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2018/04/26/ancestry-23andme-den... "Lead investigator Paul Holes, a cold case expert and retired Contra Costa County District Attorney inspector, said his team’s biggest tool was GEDmatch, a Florida-based website that pools raw genetic profiles that people share publicly. No court order was needed to access that site’s large database of genetic blueprints. Other major private DNA ancestral sites said they were not approached by police for this case." GED Match describes itself as such - "GEDmatch provides DNA and genealogical analysis tools for amateur and professional researchers and genealogists."
- known 8y agoWhat if Evidence is planted by Corrupt officials?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- clarkevans 8y agoI do hope the prosecutor is being careful about representing the strength of DNA evidence as this person was found through a fishing expedition via a DNA database. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutor%27s_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutor%27s_fallacy However, if the DNA evidence is the sole evidence against the accused and the accused was picked out of a large database of DNA profiles, the odds of the match being made at random may be increased, and less damaging to the defendant. The odds in this scenario do not relate to the odds of being guilty, they relate to the odds of being picked at random.
- fixermark 8y agoRTA. The relative match was used to narrow the suspect list and focus the investigation. I don't know the prosecutor is even going to bring up the ancestry DNA in the trial, and I doubt they will given the much more accurate direct DNA match they were able to acquire after staking out the suspect's home.
- clarkevans 8y agoYour reply, "I don't know the prosecutor is even going to bring up the ancestry DNA in the trial", exactly reflects my concern. Are you asserting that the DNA search and the "much more accurate DNA match" are statistically independent or that their dependence (overlapping genetic markers) is not relevant? P.S. Regarding your "RTA" ... from the Hacker News guidelines at the bottom of the page, I quote: "Please don't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article."
- fixermark 8y agoQuite correct on the guidelines; my error. I don't know about the statistical independence of the DNA search and the match on separately-collected DNA directly from the suspect (once a suspect was found via the DNA search), but I think it's a little irrelevant; as long as existing laws aren't broken, I understand the court to generally not care how police became aware of evidence of a crime. Consider the oft-maligned "Stopped for a broken tail-light but there were drugs in the car" scenario. If the defendant goes to trial for the drug possession, the broken tail-light doesn't enter into the trial as evidence (mention of it may enter if someone asks the arresting officer why they chose to stop the defendant). Bringing the analogy around to this case: if a DNA relative match narrowed the field of suspects to the relatives of match candidate X, then the police still need evidence tying relative Y directly to the crime. In this case, they subsequently investigated Y and found such evidence. Should the initial scan of a DNA database for candidate X have been illegal? I think that's an open question. I personally don't think it should be.
- iamgopal 8y agoI see a future where all foreign visitors needs to submit DNA instead of finger prints.
- yani 8y agoLet us the police collect this data and ask everyone who is honest person to add their DNA to it. I have no problem adding my DNA to such resource but when this data is obtained without my knowledge or permission it is the same as stealing.
- astura 8y agoLooks like that's exactly what they did... https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2018/04/26/ancestry-23andme-deny-assisting-law-enforcement-in-east-area-rapist-case/ https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2018/04/26/ancestry-23andme-den... >Lead investigator Paul Holes, a cold case expert and retired Contra Costa County District Attorney inspector, said his team’s biggest tool was GEDmatch, a Florida-based website that pools raw genetic profiles that people share publicly. No court order was needed to access that site’s large database of genetic blueprints. Other major private DNA ancestral sites said they were not approached by police for this case. >"“GEDmatch exists to provide DNA and genealogy tools for comparison and research purposes,” the site states on its policy page. “It is supported entirely by users, volunteers, and researchers. DNA and Genealogical research, by its very nature, requires the sharing of information. Because of that, users participating in this site should expect that their information will be shared with other users.” >“If you require absolute security, please do not upload your data to GEDmatch. If you have already uploaded it, please delete it,” it continues. “While the results presented on this site are intended solely for genealogical research, we are unable to guarantee that users will not find other uses.”
- klarrimore 8y agoHow many other police departments do you think just read this and are frantically sending in cold case DNA samples?
- at-fates-hands 8y agoI wonder if they're doing the same thing for the Zodiac killer and other high profile cases.
- DanielBMarkham 8y agoI'm really glad they caught the guy. I am concerned about the way it happened. They didn't match evidence to a person directly. They matched evidence to a DNA database to find the person. That sounds like the same thing, but it's not. There was no warrant. The DNA database company did not know they were participating in a law enforcement case. There could be other people (unlikely but possible) that matched but weren't on file anywhere. People will start viewing such evidence as "Science!" instead of evidence like all the rest. Finally, if this okay, we have an economics question. It cost the cops 40 or 50 bucks to catch a serial killer. Well-spent money in my book. But what if they could catch people for 10 bucks? Or a dollar? What if they could automatically collect samples and run them without any manual effort? If this happens -- and I see no reason that it won't -- it won't be just serial killers. It'll be parking violations, trespassers, urban graffiti artists -- anybody that can leave DNA. And who's got the money to fight something like this over a traffic ticket if they get it wrong? People will just pay up or go to prison. It's continuing the destruction of our human-powered, adversarial, community-approved justice system, replacing it with automation and faux certainty. Catching evil killers is awesome, but the rest of it doesn't seem like such a good future for my kids or grand-kids.
- dwild 8y ago> And who's got the money to fight something like this over a traffic ticket if they get it wrong? People will just pay up or go to prison. I don't know for you but I known many people who just fought their ticket just because they knew the cops wouldn't show up in court. Some of them did do the infraction too... You just multiplied the number of offense in an incredible way and believe they will have more time to fight them in court? Don't think so... Also, if you leave enough DNA while doing any of theses activities, well you are doing something pretty wrong...
- astura 8y agoPolice used an "open source" genealogy DNA website GEDMatch; not one of the commercial ones: https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2018/04/26/ancestry-23andme-deny-assisting-law-enforcement-in-east-area-rapist-case/ https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2018/04/26/ancestry-23andme-den... >Lead investigator Paul Holes, a cold case expert and retired Contra Costa County District Attorney inspector, said his team’s biggest tool was GEDmatch, a Florida-based website that pools raw genetic profiles that people share publicly. No court order was needed to access that site’s large database of genetic blueprints. Other major private DNA ancestral sites said they were not approached by police for this case. >"“GEDmatch exists to provide DNA and genealogy tools for comparison and research purposes,” the site states on its policy page. “It is supported entirely by users, volunteers, and researchers. DNA and Genealogical research, by its very nature, requires the sharing of information. Because of that, users participating in this site should expect that their information will be shared with other users.” >“If you require absolute security, please do not upload your data to GEDmatch. If you have already uploaded it, please delete it,” it continues. “While the results presented on this site are intended solely for genealogical research, we are unable to guarantee that users will not find other uses.”
- darkstar999 8y agoIf law enforcement can make use of a private sector DNA database like this, is there a good argument against a mandatory national database?
- youpassbutter 8y agoI've been saying this for years. DNA sites are a goldmine for unresolved cold cases ( rape, murder, missing persons ) where DNA is available. In the past, if there was a rape in a city, the cops couldn't force everyone in the city to give their DNA to find the rapist. Now, everyone in the city is paying to give their DNA to DNA sites. All cops had to do is submit the DNA of cold cases to these sites and see if they get a match of any kind ( cousins, siblings, parents or the suspect themselves ).
- notadoc 8y agoDNA is not infallible, and DNA transfer is so common that DNA "evidence" is not really evidence of anything at all. Here's an interesting recent story on this very topic: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/framed-for-murder-by-his-own-dna/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/framed-for-murder...