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> genetic data starts being resold Or hacked.
by bmmayer1 8y ago
> genetic data starts being resold
Or hacked.
- mtgx 8y agoThat's a given.
- searine 8y agoHonest question. What is a hacker going to do with my genetic data? What threat does having my medical predispositions publicly available have? Is the hacker going to call me up and suggest I start taking high blood pressure medication?
- jonknee 8y agoIt's probably not the juiciest target, but I could see intelligence agencies wanting it. Combine it with the OPM hack of all security clearances and you could in theory use it to find family members of spies, people in high positions who have secret children, etc etc. Imagine if you had Trump's DNA and could then search a massive database to find out if he has any kids we don't know about...
- endorphone 8y agoIf intelligence agencies wanted DNA it seems remarkably easy for them to collect. We leave our DNA everywhere.
- jonknee 8y agoSure, but it would be a massive amount of work to go collect millions of samples and sequence them. Like how researchers are using the data to solve crimes, you need a large set of data to get good results out of. In my scenario you would collect the DNA of your target (say, Trump) and then use the 23andMe data to try and dig up dirt on relatives (say, his illegitimate children).
- bkanber 8y agoWe don't know yet. But, for instance, the Cambridge Analytica data is nearly a decade old, and we didn't know back then that it could be used to (potentially) hijack a Presidential election. It's not so much a matter of what a hacker could do with this data today, but rather in 10 or 20 years.
- mLuby 8y agoWe've established the genetic data are valuable in the aggregate. Also since we're talking criminals, blackmail: eg tell your employer about your predisposition to violent mental illness or reveal your kids aren't actually your spouse's.