8 ms·

This 2021 New Yorker article: How Your Family Tree Could Catch a Killer (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/11/22/how-your-family-tree-could-catch-a-killer

by anon35 3y ago

This 2021 New Yorker article: How Your Family Tree Could Catch a Killer (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/11/22/how-your-family-tree-could-catch-a-killer https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/11/22/how-your-famil...) was incredibly illuminating and changed my perspective on our sense of privacy. With a surprisingly small fraction of the world's population sequenced, we can still match a sample to a person whose sequence we don't have. To quote the article: "Genetic genealogy, it turned out, could function as an all-purpose de-anonymizer". So perhaps be less upset that Mom signed up; our DNA really isn't ours in the same way the documents on our hard drive. You were never going to be able to opt-out.

throwoutway 3y ago
And now a nation state hacker can use the same database to identify U.S. citizen descendants (to what generation?). Good luck with "illegals" style espionage
- CuriousCosmic 3y ago
  Or you know just a normal hacker (see this incident when a DB identifying 1 million people with Ashkenazi jewish ancestry from 23andMe data was leaked: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/genetics-firm-23andme-says-user-data-stolen-in-credential-stuffing-attack/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/genetics-firm...)
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    They just had to have that data eh? Idiots. This is criminally irresponsible. This makes me so angry it is hard to describe.
consumer451 3y ago
This feels like a "think of the children" type of appeal. I personally don't have any murderous history to hide. But there are unintended consequences with all of these losses of privacy. As a peer comment has rightly pointed out, nation state adversaries now have these same profiles. Maybe they can find a common DNA profile for an efficient bio-weapon. Oops. I escaped an authoritarian regime as a child, thanks to the same mother. I hold no ill will towards her, but I am deeply aware of the issues that bad actors can create with by compiling huge databases of otherwise unnecessary information.
- jimbob45 3y ago
  Maybe they can find a common DNA profile for an efficient bio-weapon. Oops. I think we already reached the end of the bioweapon tech tree with Sarin gas.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    No, you are misreading the GP. What they mean is a bioweapon specifically tailored to match a particular DNA profile. Think Germany, 1939, or South Africa, 1985, but with this capability to see what the possibilities are and how utterly unstoppable that would be. And probably there are contemporary examples as well, but I don't feel like starting a flame-fest.
    - consumer451 3y ago
      It could be specific to a family, or with this broad a DNA + meta data dataset, it could be enough data to wipe out much of an entire group. Choose the common traits in people who self-identified as a group. English, Jews, Slavs, Native South Americans, non-Han, etc. The problem with bio-weapons has always been "blow back." Narrowing the scope of the weapon would help a lot with that.
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        Exactly, the better the control the bigger the chance that a weapon like this would be used.
      - anonymouskimmer 3y ago
        Any narrowing of scope would be temporary.
    - Libcat99 3y ago
      I think the important takeaway is such a weapon could potentially target a DNA profile while ignoring others.
      - 3y ago
jacquesm 3y ago
That took them until 2021? I wrote this in 2012: https://jacquesmattheij.com/your-genetic-information-is-not-just-yours-but-it-is-family-property/ https://jacquesmattheij.com/your-genetic-information-is-not-...
- consumer451 3y ago
  > Before you submit your data for genetic testing please realize that you are giving away a portion of the ultimate family heirlooms, the genes that run in your family and that this decision could easily come back to bite others. I wish my mom had read this. She would have understood the implications, and not done it.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    I actually wrote it for my mom... It's very annoying how these companies sucker people in to do things they might come to regret later, there is absolutely zero transparency here. Besides the potential for massive privacy violation there is also always the specter of future uses against your interests.
    - drivebyadvice 3y ago
      >there is also always the specter of future uses against your interests. This. The danger isn't even necessarily that we gain some crazy ability to predict things about a person from their DNA, but that people believe that it can be done accurately and that police, courts, government, marketers, etc believe it as well. Police don't need much convincing if it gets them a conviction. Courts will already admit evidence from forensic labs which have been proven to fabricate evidence. Governments will let just about anything fly if someone donates enough, and if marketers are convinced that it might work, there will be no shortage of cash for campaign funds. Currently, to my knowledge, you can take somebody's DNA and do just about anything with it without their knowledge or consent, and there seem to be a lot of well-monied interests with a stake in keeping things that way.
- Diederich 3y ago
throwaway2037 3y ago
This is essentially how the Golden State Killer[1] was caught. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_James_DeAngelo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_James_DeAngelo
Joeri 3y ago
Doesn’t that imply that we should object to all dna databases? If a database can be used to identify people not in the database, does the scale of the database matter? The consequence would be that law enforcement can no longer compile databases of dna materials (a curtailment which I wouldn’t mind, but many people see these databases as essential for modern law enforcement).

by anon35 3y ago

throwoutway 3y ago

And now a nation state hacker can use the same database to identify U.S. citizen descendants (to what generation?). Good luck with "illegals" style espionage

CuriousCosmic 3y ago
Or you know just a normal hacker (see this incident when a DB identifying 1 million people with Ashkenazi jewish ancestry from 23andMe data was leaked: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/genetics-firm-23andme-says-user-data-stolen-in-credential-stuffing-attack/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/genetics-firm...)
- jacquesm 3y ago
  They just had to have that data eh? Idiots. This is criminally irresponsible. This makes me so angry it is hard to describe.

consumer451 3y ago

This feels like a "think of the children" type of appeal. I personally don't have any murderous history to hide. But there are unintended consequences with all of these losses of privacy. As a peer comment has rightly pointed out, nation state adversaries now have these same profiles. Maybe they can find a common DNA profile for an efficient bio-weapon. Oops. I escaped an authoritarian regime as a child, thanks to the same mother. I hold no ill will towards her, but I am deeply aware of the issues that bad actors can create with by compiling huge databases of otherwise unnecessary information.

jimbob45 3y ago
Maybe they can find a common DNA profile for an efficient bio-weapon. Oops. I think we already reached the end of the bioweapon tech tree with Sarin gas.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  No, you are misreading the GP. What they mean is a bioweapon specifically tailored to match a particular DNA profile. Think Germany, 1939, or South Africa, 1985, but with this capability to see what the possibilities are and how utterly unstoppable that would be. And probably there are contemporary examples as well, but I don't feel like starting a flame-fest.
  - consumer451 3y ago
    It could be specific to a family, or with this broad a DNA + meta data dataset, it could be enough data to wipe out much of an entire group. Choose the common traits in people who self-identified as a group. English, Jews, Slavs, Native South Americans, non-Han, etc. The problem with bio-weapons has always been "blow back." Narrowing the scope of the weapon would help a lot with that.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      Exactly, the better the control the bigger the chance that a weapon like this would be used.
    - anonymouskimmer 3y ago
      Any narrowing of scope would be temporary.
  - Libcat99 3y ago
    I think the important takeaway is such a weapon could potentially target a DNA profile while ignoring others.
    - 3y ago

jacquesm 3y ago

That took them until 2021? I wrote this in 2012: https://jacquesmattheij.com/your-genetic-information-is-not-just-yours-but-it-is-family-property/ https://jacquesmattheij.com/your-genetic-information-is-not-...

consumer451 3y ago
> Before you submit your data for genetic testing please realize that you are giving away a portion of the ultimate family heirlooms, the genes that run in your family and that this decision could easily come back to bite others. I wish my mom had read this. She would have understood the implications, and not done it.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  I actually wrote it for my mom... It's very annoying how these companies sucker people in to do things they might come to regret later, there is absolutely zero transparency here. Besides the potential for massive privacy violation there is also always the specter of future uses against your interests.
  - drivebyadvice 3y ago
    >there is also always the specter of future uses against your interests. This. The danger isn't even necessarily that we gain some crazy ability to predict things about a person from their DNA, but that people believe that it can be done accurately and that police, courts, government, marketers, etc believe it as well. Police don't need much convincing if it gets them a conviction. Courts will already admit evidence from forensic labs which have been proven to fabricate evidence. Governments will let just about anything fly if someone donates enough, and if marketers are convinced that it might work, there will be no shortage of cash for campaign funds. Currently, to my knowledge, you can take somebody's DNA and do just about anything with it without their knowledge or consent, and there seem to be a lot of well-monied interests with a stake in keeping things that way.
Diederich 3y ago

throwaway2037 3y ago

This is essentially how the Golden State Killer[1] was caught. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_James_DeAngelo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_James_DeAngelo

Joeri 3y ago

Doesn’t that imply that we should object to all dna databases? If a database can be used to identify people not in the database, does the scale of the database matter? The consequence would be that law enforcement can no longer compile databases of dna materials (a curtailment which I wouldn’t mind, but many people see these databases as essential for modern law enforcement).