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One of the Biggest At-Home DNA Testing Companies Is Working with the FBI

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Re: One of the Biggest At-Home DNA Testing Companies Is Working with the FBI

#61

Post by koolba »

WalterBright wrote: post #56
wonderwonder wrote: post #4

I am torn on this, as on the one hand it does violate privacy to a very large degree and provide massive power to the government. Things I am very much against. On the other hand, essentially all this does is provide law enforcement a means to potentially quickly identify violent criminals via physical traits as opposed to the contents of their mind such as forcing someone to unlock a phone which I am very against. A…

Let's say the government was able to perfectly connect every person who commits a crime with that crime. Combine that against the reality that everyone commits 3 felonies a day. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704471504574438... That's the perfect tool for oppression. Do you really want the government to be too good at solving crimes?

Don’t forget to mention selective enforcement. That’s the real key to “monetizing” the pantopicon.

Re: One of the Biggest At-Home DNA Testing Companies Is Working with the FBI

#62

Post by apo »

Few people taking theses tests understand or care about the privacy-destroying effect of what they're doing to themselves and their families.

For example, this is from the AncestryDNA (different company) terms of service:

By submitting User Provided Content to AncestryDNA, you grant AncestryDNA and the Ancestry Group Companies a perpetual, royalty-free, worldwide, sublicensable, transferable license to host, transfer, process, analyze, distribute, communicate, and display your submission for the purposes of providing Ancestry's products and services, conducting Ancestry’s research and product development, enhancing Ancestry’s user experience, and making and offering personalized products and services.

https://www.ancestry.com/cs/legal/dnaterms_2017_09_22_us?hid...

There's a feel-good statement elsewhere in the document about how the company won't disclose your info to third parties, but this grant of rights pretty much covers anything you'd want to do with a DNA sequence.

Privacy policies change, but grants of rights like this to a service like Ancestry are forever.

I imagine a future in which every casual DNA company has been hoovered into a single powerful corporation. All those rights granted by users will transfer to that new company. That company will be just as mean as Facebook (or Microsoft in its heyday), but 10x more powerful.

Re: One of the Biggest At-Home DNA Testing Companies Is Working with the FBI

#63

Post by js2 »

odorousrex wrote: post #2

I really can't tell if we are headed towards a "1984" dystopia, a "Brave New World" dystopia, a Black Mirror "Nosedive" dystopia, or now a "GATTACA" dystopia. It seems like we're headed to a horrible hybrid combination of all of the above.

It's the Brazil dystopia that seems most likely to me, and about which I worry about the government having access to DNA.

Re: One of the Biggest At-Home DNA Testing Companies Is Working with the FBI

#64

Post by dgzl »

wonderwonder wrote: post #4

I am torn on this, as on the one hand it does violate privacy to a very large degree and provide massive power to the government. Things I am very much against. On the other hand, essentially all this does is provide law enforcement a means to potentially quickly identify violent criminals via physical traits as opposed to the contents of their mind such as forcing someone to unlock a phone which I am very against. A…

> On the other hand, essentially all this does is provide law enforcement a means to potentially quickly identify

People who support government's ability to violate our rights always seem to think that the government will never use it in bad faith... And then they act surprised when their rights are gone.

Re: One of the Biggest At-Home DNA Testing Companies Is Working with the FBI

#65

Post by owlninja »

cellularmitosis wrote: post #51
mimixco wrote: post #3

All of the at-home DNA testing companies include this in their license agreements, including the ability to use your DNA in case any of your relatives might be accused of a crime. This is one case in which you definitely want to read the license before you sign up... then throw that test tube in the trash!

Speaking of "throw that test tube in the trash", I'll share my anecdote: One of the DNA testing companies was offering a free test for folks who suffer from things like autoimmune disorders (which I do). I signed up, got the kit, filled out the survey which asks a bunch of specific questions about which particular medical condition you have, etc. I set the box aside, planning to take it to work and drop it off in out…

I find it a little hard to believe this was just because of the survey...

Re: One of the Biggest At-Home DNA Testing Companies Is Working with the FBI

#66

Post by dayvid »

apo wrote: post #62

Few people taking theses tests understand or care about the privacy-destroying effect of what they're doing to themselves and their families. For example, this is from the AncestryDNA (different company) terms of service: By submitting User Provided Content to AncestryDNA, you grant AncestryDNA and the Ancestry Group Companies a perpetual, royalty-free, worldwide, sublicensable, transferable license to host, transfer…

The biggest insult is that you're paying them money to violate your privacy.

Some links I've seen for DIY thermocycling [1] https://openpcr.org/ [2] https://www.instructables.com/id/Arduino-PCR-thermal-cycler-...

Hope this becomes more of a thing. This is one of the fields where a non-cloud or decentralized solution is more desirable.

Re: One of the Biggest At-Home DNA Testing Companies Is Working with the FBI

#67

Post by shawnz »

astura wrote: post #43
tomsthumb wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a meaningful difference between the government getting a warrant to look for a specific person’s DNA and searching everyone’s DNA to see if it’s a match. Why should the government get to digitally “stop and frisk” three hundred thousand people because they have a hair sample from a murder scene?

Same reason the government should be allowed to search Facebook for information on a person of interest, or use the whitepages, or search public records such as property records, or use Google to search the web. They don't have any more access than a normal user, so they don't need a warrant. They are acting just like a member of the public and get the exact same results you or I would get if we used that site. If it…

> The Family Tree database is free to access and can be used by anyone with a DNA profile to upload, not just paying customers.

But the terms claim you are only able to upload files which are "my own or belongs to someone for who I am legally authorized to act." If FBI agents are creating accounts and then uploading DNA which doesn't belong to them, that seems to me to violate the terms.

Re: One of the Biggest At-Home DNA Testing Companies Is Working with the FBI

#68

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #52
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With regards to political groups, what would DNA tell you that their Facebook profile and network wouldn't?

Who their relatives are. One tool of political assassination is to out the sibling of the { conservative | liberal } party candidate.

I would think that if they had any connection with them, there would be a Facebook link. If there is not even a Facebook connection, I doubt that the fact that a politician has sibling that they don't really keep in touch with is going to be a big deal.

Re: One of the Biggest At-Home DNA Testing Companies Is Working with the FBI

#69

Post by ameister14 »

emiliobumachar wrote: post #37
twoquestions wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

`law enforcement a means to potentially quickly identify violent criminals` Go ahead and replace "law enforcement" with political group you don't like, and "violent criminals" for a group you do.

I don't get it. What political groups rely heavily on not being identified? Most political groups have leaders whose identity is public knowledge.

When the US was still a part of the British Empire, it was pretty important for revolutionaries not to be easily identified. Same with resistance fighters against every empire ever. Spaniards against Napoleon, French against Hitler, Irish against Cromwell, Vietnamese against everybody. If I can identify your family members, I can threaten them and through them, you.

Re: One of the Biggest At-Home DNA Testing Companies Is Working with the FBI

#70

Post by lemmsjid »

emiliobumachar wrote: post #37
twoquestions wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

`law enforcement a means to potentially quickly identify violent criminals` Go ahead and replace "law enforcement" with political group you don't like, and "violent criminals" for a group you do.

I don't get it. What political groups rely heavily on not being identified? Most political groups have leaders whose identity is public knowledge.

I think it's less about the leaders of a group than about its members themselves.

When I read about the government having access to identification attributes of the general populace, I recall that a focal part of the Nazi attempts to eradicate European Jews was actually finding them. One theory for why Dutch Jews were killed at a higher rate than neighboring countries was that the government kept religious affiliation as part of its census information. IIRC, the Dutch resistance made a semi-successful attempt to destroy the records before they could be used. I can't find a direct reference to that particular event yet, hence my 'IIRC', but the general context is laid out in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands_in_World_War_II.

I think the point here is that even if a government is being innocuous in its information gathering, what happens if the government is then occupied by a group that is entirely not innocuous? This can get much more subtle than genocide: for example healthcare groups using data to try to remove people with certain conditions from their rolls.

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