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Freaky. Dna samples should sort of be viewed as banking information. Some point I am sure dna will be correlated with different arguments styles people are vu

Freaky. Dna samples should sort of be viewed as banking information. Some point I am sure dna will be correlated with different arguments styles people are vulnerable to. Or their purchasing style etc. Or even better correlated with their overall life outcomes. I wonder if they are looking for genetic correlates with homeless or marginalization or mental health. It is surely a study without consent of the participants. Super illegitimate and shady.

azinman2 8y ago
You leave your DNA everywhere. It’s not exactly a giant secret.
- code_duck 8y ago
  Then why don’t they just collect it ‘everywhere’ and not directly from people’s mouths?
  - jghn 8y ago
    Sometimes they do [1] [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/nation/2018/12/18/she-swiped-her-co-workers-coke-can-police-say-it-cracked-year-old-murder-case/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/nation/2018/12/18/she...
    - Scoundreller 8y ago
      URLs that strip out punctuation are fun. Is the article: "She swiped her co-worker’s coke. Can police say it cracked a 28-year-old murder case?" or "She swiped her co-worker’s Coke can. Police say it cracked a 28-year-old murder case."
  - azinman2 8y ago
    So aside from the other post showing just one of many instances of crime scene investigation (unofficial in that case), this particular story is obviously extremely shady and very unclear what their exact goals are. Otherwise if you really wanted lots of DNA you’d be a “dishwasher” at a restaurant.
    - car 8y ago
      That would include the DNA of all food items and microbes. Doable, but a costly waste of sequencing capacity, at least at the moment.
    - code_duck 8y ago
      Right, I was posing that question rhetorically to make essentially those points. Obtaining DNA in this manner is different than collecting samples left publicly. I also wonder if they’re asking these people for their names, IDs, medical history, classifying or selecting by race, etc information.
- Real_S 8y ago
  So I guess then we might as well just post it online for everyone to see at the click of a button! Someone could also follow you around or put a GPS tracker on your car, so why not just post our GPS data online while we're at it. /s Genetic data security is a real problem, and making it difficult to obtain this sensitive information has real value.
  - 420codebro 8y ago
    I understand your apprehension to just having it all "out there" - I'm wouldn't support such a foolish approach either. However, you conflated two separate issues: Immutable Identifier (DNA), and Real-Time / Historical Location Data. While both have issues attached, I will say the latter has far more (real-time stalking / surveillance).
  - inciampati 8y ago
    I for one live in a plastic bag to mitigate any risk that I might leave DNA around to be exploited. Really, it's not a risk. You won't be able to name a single case of active harm caused by disclosure or sharing of genetic information. The worst thing that is possible is to learn your family isn't what you expected it to be. There have been no other known cases of harm due to genetic disclosure. This will absolutely change if someone decided that DNA makes for a good way to access your bank account. It is not. It would be no better to key your bank account to an image of your face. Face unlocking phones look to be a good testbed for what might go wrong if security is placed on this kind of footing.
    - Real_S 8y ago
      >You won't be able to name a single case of active harm caused by disclosure or sharing of genetic information. The worst thing that is possible is to learn your family isn't what you expected it to be. There are many reasons to keep DNA private, it gets much worse than just family surprises. Your DNA is yours for the rest of your life, so even if there are no current threats (which there are to some), there may be threats in the future. Please watch this video if you are interested in learning more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKQDSgBHPfY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKQDSgBHPfY
- cuspycode 8y ago
  But DNA needs to be copied to be analyzed. So we could invent a law that makes each person owner of the copyright to their own DNA. There could be legal penalties for anyone who copies the DNA without permission. Twins will need some special consideration though since they share the same DNA.
  - inciampati 8y ago
    It does not need to be copied to be analyzed. You can feed it through a nanopore without any copying, and do an analysis in current flux space without ever instantiating the original sequence. But I am just being semantic. Really, we are all copies of each other, remixed and so forth. If Joe's body makes sperm that includes a haplotype in Sally's genome, is he violating her copyright? We quickly get to an absurd place. We no more own our genome than we own our great grandmother, or she owns us.
  - alexis_fr 8y ago
    « Copyright case #326: Cancer vs Mr. Smith, for violating copyright by reproducing DNA as derivated work. AIDS cited as a witness. »
Real_S 8y ago
> Dna samples should sort of be viewed as banking information. Actually, because your DNA is yours for life it should be kept far MORE secure than your banking information. You can always change your bank account! To your other points, this is already being attempted in some countries. Imagine getting a bad "social credit" score because you were born with DNA unfavorable to your government.
- jghn 8y ago
  The problem with this is that all it takes is a relative to narrow things down tremendously so you could protect your DNA with Fort Knox and it wouldn’t really matter if your near-ish family did not
  - Real_S 8y ago
    Your family only shares part of your genome. Even if you have full sequence data on both parents, you don't have anything near full information about the child. With siblings you would have less information, and the information gained from distant relatives becomes astonishingly small the farther you go. Don't assume that your DNA is fully compromised just because someone in your family has surrendered it. I work to apply encryption directly to DNA molecules, the Fort Knox of DNA data security ;)
    - jghn 8y ago
      And my background is in genomic analysis. There's not nearly as much variation as you're describing here.
- inciampati 8y ago
  Your DNA is barely yours. It's all shared with a lot of other people. You have only a handful (~100) private mutations that could really be called "yours", which is moot next to the six billion base pairs that make up the rest of your genome. Now yes, the unique combination of DNA that is in your genome is virtually impossible to be shared with anyone else. But, you are not going to be able to precisely and completely reconstruct it. Even the human reference has dozens of remaining gaps. Nobody really knows exactly what is in their own genome, and every reconstruction is based on sharing with other humans, so the idea of ownership is somewhat strange to me.

azinman2 8y ago

You leave your DNA everywhere. It’s not exactly a giant secret.

code_duck 8y ago
Then why don’t they just collect it ‘everywhere’ and not directly from people’s mouths?
- jghn 8y ago
  Sometimes they do [1] [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/nation/2018/12/18/she-swiped-her-co-workers-coke-can-police-say-it-cracked-year-old-murder-case/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/nation/2018/12/18/she...
  - Scoundreller 8y ago
    URLs that strip out punctuation are fun. Is the article: "She swiped her co-worker’s coke. Can police say it cracked a 28-year-old murder case?" or "She swiped her co-worker’s Coke can. Police say it cracked a 28-year-old murder case."
- azinman2 8y ago
  So aside from the other post showing just one of many instances of crime scene investigation (unofficial in that case), this particular story is obviously extremely shady and very unclear what their exact goals are. Otherwise if you really wanted lots of DNA you’d be a “dishwasher” at a restaurant.
  - car 8y ago
    That would include the DNA of all food items and microbes. Doable, but a costly waste of sequencing capacity, at least at the moment.
  - code_duck 8y ago
    Right, I was posing that question rhetorically to make essentially those points. Obtaining DNA in this manner is different than collecting samples left publicly. I also wonder if they’re asking these people for their names, IDs, medical history, classifying or selecting by race, etc information.
Real_S 8y ago
So I guess then we might as well just post it online for everyone to see at the click of a button! Someone could also follow you around or put a GPS tracker on your car, so why not just post our GPS data online while we're at it. /s Genetic data security is a real problem, and making it difficult to obtain this sensitive information has real value.
- 420codebro 8y ago
  I understand your apprehension to just having it all "out there" - I'm wouldn't support such a foolish approach either. However, you conflated two separate issues: Immutable Identifier (DNA), and Real-Time / Historical Location Data. While both have issues attached, I will say the latter has far more (real-time stalking / surveillance).
- inciampati 8y ago
  I for one live in a plastic bag to mitigate any risk that I might leave DNA around to be exploited. Really, it's not a risk. You won't be able to name a single case of active harm caused by disclosure or sharing of genetic information. The worst thing that is possible is to learn your family isn't what you expected it to be. There have been no other known cases of harm due to genetic disclosure. This will absolutely change if someone decided that DNA makes for a good way to access your bank account. It is not. It would be no better to key your bank account to an image of your face. Face unlocking phones look to be a good testbed for what might go wrong if security is placed on this kind of footing.
  - Real_S 8y ago
    >You won't be able to name a single case of active harm caused by disclosure or sharing of genetic information. The worst thing that is possible is to learn your family isn't what you expected it to be. There are many reasons to keep DNA private, it gets much worse than just family surprises. Your DNA is yours for the rest of your life, so even if there are no current threats (which there are to some), there may be threats in the future. Please watch this video if you are interested in learning more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKQDSgBHPfY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKQDSgBHPfY
cuspycode 8y ago
But DNA needs to be copied to be analyzed. So we could invent a law that makes each person owner of the copyright to their own DNA. There could be legal penalties for anyone who copies the DNA without permission. Twins will need some special consideration though since they share the same DNA.
- inciampati 8y ago
  It does not need to be copied to be analyzed. You can feed it through a nanopore without any copying, and do an analysis in current flux space without ever instantiating the original sequence. But I am just being semantic. Really, we are all copies of each other, remixed and so forth. If Joe's body makes sperm that includes a haplotype in Sally's genome, is he violating her copyright? We quickly get to an absurd place. We no more own our genome than we own our great grandmother, or she owns us.
- alexis_fr 8y ago
  « Copyright case #326: Cancer vs Mr. Smith, for violating copyright by reproducing DNA as derivated work. AIDS cited as a witness. »

Real_S 8y ago

> Dna samples should sort of be viewed as banking information. Actually, because your DNA is yours for life it should be kept far MORE secure than your banking information. You can always change your bank account! To your other points, this is already being attempted in some countries. Imagine getting a bad "social credit" score because you were born with DNA unfavorable to your government.

jghn 8y ago
The problem with this is that all it takes is a relative to narrow things down tremendously so you could protect your DNA with Fort Knox and it wouldn’t really matter if your near-ish family did not
- Real_S 8y ago
  Your family only shares part of your genome. Even if you have full sequence data on both parents, you don't have anything near full information about the child. With siblings you would have less information, and the information gained from distant relatives becomes astonishingly small the farther you go. Don't assume that your DNA is fully compromised just because someone in your family has surrendered it. I work to apply encryption directly to DNA molecules, the Fort Knox of DNA data security ;)
  - jghn 8y ago
    And my background is in genomic analysis. There's not nearly as much variation as you're describing here.
inciampati 8y ago
Your DNA is barely yours. It's all shared with a lot of other people. You have only a handful (~100) private mutations that could really be called "yours", which is moot next to the six billion base pairs that make up the rest of your genome. Now yes, the unique combination of DNA that is in your genome is virtually impossible to be shared with anyone else. But, you are not going to be able to precisely and completely reconstruct it. Even the human reference has dozens of remaining gaps. Nobody really knows exactly what is in their own genome, and every reconstruction is based on sharing with other humans, so the idea of ownership is somewhat strange to me.