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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

#191

Post by politician »

vetinari wrote: post #157
csallen wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because the government finds your DNA at the crime scene doesn't mean they know it's yours. They have to match it against some sort of database that connects the DNA to your identity.

With enough corruption, they might also "find" it on the crime scene.

Exactly, while DNA may identify an individual with high precision, we have to trust that that DNA was actually associated with the location or event.

Consider a public bathroom: how much DNA is at that location? How much is relevant to the event?

Consider a corrupt lab tech: The DNA at the event might be reported as DNA from their database. Does a defense attorney get to see the untainted sample?

Consider a corrupt/hacked DNA database: The database might report that the DNA belongs to one individual when it actually doesn't. Does a defense attorney even get to see the source code?

In these scenarios, the link to any individual is either of little consequence, or fraudulent.

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

#192

Post by cwkoss »

icelancer wrote: post #135
cellularmitosis wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is the kind of thing that makes people not believe in the OP's story, because this is absolutely ridiculous. It's called cookie and fragment tracking across the Internet. That's what happened to you. You sold yourself out by browsing the web without sufficient content blockers.

Maybe it should be illegal to do ad tracking on sites about medical information. The fact that someone is browsing that site may be private medical information.

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

#193

Post by carbocation »

politician wrote: post #191
vetinari wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With enough corruption, they might also "find" it on the crime scene.

Exactly, while DNA may identify an individual with high precision, we have to trust that that DNA was actually associated with the location or event. Consider a public bathroom: how much DNA is at that location? How much is relevant to the event? Consider a corrupt lab tech: The DNA at the event might be reported as DNA from their database. Does a defense attorney get to see the untainted sample? Consider a corrupt/h…

And in case this sounds implausible, a corrupt lab tech handled 60,000 cases in MA:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/annie-dookhan-chemist-at-mass-c...

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

#194

Post by jyrkesh »

kilo_bravo_3 wrote: post #113
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…

>what they're doing to themselves and their families. This only encourages me. My DNA is on record in various places, and if any relative of mine commits a crime I want the honor of being the person who fucked them and sent them to prison. I would tout the event as an esteemed accomplishment. Everyone seems to be worried about a sci-fi movie where clones are made from cheek swabs or corporations use DNA to deny certa…

Does anyone else feel like there's a growing assumption of benevolent governments and states? It might just be my own anecdotal experience, but I'm constantly surprised at how often people overlook the entire point of the 4th and 5th Amendment because Western states have been "mostly better" (these are both relative qualifiers, I am NOT saying they're perfect) in the last 10-30 years.

This entire post read as if there's not dirty cops all over the US doing asset forfeiture, planting evidence, shooting innocents, raiding the wrong houses...why does anyone believe that giving those agents ANOTHER tool, and one that's seen in the general public as even more legitimate? (It's not the accuracy of the DNA match that's the problem, it's how easy it is to create false circumstances using someone's DNA, which is pretty easy to get.)

And all of this in a time when most of those same people (myself included) are decrying how horrible the federal government has recently become under Trump. Again, you want to give Trump and the people in his administration another tool for muddying the waters around his opponents?

Going even further, any of these genealogy companies could pull a full-on Cambridge Analytics like Facebook and just leak all our DNA to some private company operating on behalf of a foreign government.

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

#195

Post by cwkoss »

trumped wrote: post #145
module0000 wrote: post #138

If this bothers you, consider fighting back. Submit as many DNA samples to as many firms as you can find. Send each sample from a different [consenting] donor, and ask that they do the same and include you among their donors. This action at scale dirties the data sets of all the companies involved.

right... but almost nobody is going to do that...

we just have to create the public perception that it has already been done

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

#196

Post by gammateam »

It is interesting how the crowd - as in relatives - are helping solve violent crime cases, from DNA at the scene.

I think a lot of people have been taking advantage of this system for a long time. Like they know they get a free pass on assaulting people because they haven't been arrested yet.

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

#197

Post by jchook »

superfamicom wrote: post #187

I would gladly donate my DNA to be tested to find criminals. I signed up to 23andMe years ago just for fun, but if that data can be used to help someone who was hurt by someone genetically related to me, I am all for it. Reading the reactions here makes me feel crazy, as if their intention is to make me feel manipulated or otherwise bad. It is really interesting to me how many people are fearful of dystopian futures…

The only folks with this skewed perspective on the issue already donated their DNA to a company and simply want to convince themselves that it was a great idea.

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

#198

Post by newscracker »

trumped wrote: post #175

How does an at-home dna testing company get any of your infoemation?

Only the sample collection is “at home” using a kit mailed to the customer with instructions on how to collect the sample. The analysis is done in a (hopefully good and clean) lab where the sample gets mailed to by the customer.

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

#199

Post by oh_sigh »

jessaustin wrote: post #190
superfamicom wrote: post #187

I would gladly donate my DNA to be tested to find criminals. I signed up to 23andMe years ago just for fun, but if that data can be used to help someone who was hurt by someone genetically related to me, I am all for it. Reading the reactions here makes me feel crazy, as if their intention is to make me feel manipulated or otherwise bad. It is really interesting to me how many people are fearful of dystopian futures…

The intent is to encourage you to consider the relative incidence rates of various misfortunes. Police ineptitude and the prosecutor's fallacy are vastly more common in this world than serial killers are. You seem eager to screw over your cousin, but it could just as well be you who is screwed over.

Serial killing is the extreme example, but is police ineptitude and prosecutor's fallacy more common in this world than rape, murder, assault and battery, burglary, etc?

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

#200

Post by paulryanrogers »

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…

> There's a feel-good statement elsewhere in the document about how the company won't disclose your info to third parties

Can a lawyer answer whether or not such promises apply to an acquiring company, should they ever be sold?

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