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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

#261

Post by skellera »

LinuxBender wrote: post #13

The term "At Home" is very disingenuous. Spitting in a tube at home and then mailing your DNA to a lab is not At Home. A proper at-home test would be a kit that allows you to decode your DNA at home without a single strand DNA or byte of data landing on a system that does not belong to you.

Are the services that ancestry and ‘23 and me’ do provided at a loss and made up with the data or is it profitable?

Why aren’t there companies out there doing this at a higher cost without the privacy implications? Just give the user their data and decoding software that is regularly updated with current information.

Seems like low end machines are about $100,000 so it seems like this would work? I would pay 3-4 times as much if I knew I controlled the results.

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

#262

Post by ianai »

kokokokoko wrote: post #9
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…

I think if anything it points to the fallacy that not allowing the government to collect this type of data, but allowing corporations to collect it, ends up with the same result as allowing the government to collect this data itself. All we've really accomplished is making things cheaper for the government as the private sector is footing the bill for collection and storage.

Put differently,corporations exist to put prices on things. Corporations are clearly minting products from peoples DNA samples. They probably can’t deny sales to governments.

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

#263

Post by colordrops »

lipman wrote: post #240
colordrops wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long until this is feasible? I've heard of DNA sequencing machines for $2k, but are not easy or reliable.

The analysis of your sequence is key. While there are some open source resources (hard for non-experts to use), the big consumer testing companies far and away have better analytical tools.

When anyone can sequence their DNA at home I expect this to change.

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

#264

Post by phishfi »

djsumdog wrote: post #247
ptero wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Total surveillance or global DNA law enforcement database would solve many murders and prevent wrongful convictions. However, it would also give many opportunities for framing convenient suspects and "encouraging" confessions. I am sure your case was above board but, being born in a totalitarian state, I do not trust law enforcement too much and prefer to err on the side of not solving some crimes. My 2c.

The UK takes DNA samples of every person arrested. There it's controlled by the government. In the US, it's held privately. Both situations are disturbing.

The US also takes DNA and prints from arrestees and maintains it in a federal database (CODIS for DNA, FBI for prints).

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

#265

Post by infradig »

djsumdog wrote: post #251
kilo_bravo_3 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Homosexuality was once a crime in the US. So was crossdressing. So was sodomy. At one time a woman could be jailed if it was found she cast a ballot illegally. Consuming cannibals use to be totally legal, then it wasn't and now it sorta is, but only on a State-by-state basis and only because Federal courts haven't made concrete rulings. In the UK and France, it's illegal to draw underage Simpsons characters in sexual…

Cannibals? You might want to edit that.

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

#266

Post by kingkawn »

JoeSmithson wrote: post #140
ptero wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Total surveillance or global DNA law enforcement database would solve many murders and prevent wrongful convictions. However, it would also give many opportunities for framing convenient suspects and "encouraging" confessions. I am sure your case was above board but, being born in a totalitarian state, I do not trust law enforcement too much and prefer to err on the side of not solving some crimes. My 2c.

How would it let you frame convenient suspects? Surely you would need to place that suspects DNA at the scene, in which case you already have it...? Where does the database come into this?

With Pcr you’d only need a very small sample to produce enough DNA to smother a crime scene in “evidence”

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

#267

Post by mkl »

dacox wrote: post #141
dangrossman wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and their families That's how a local cold murder case was solved last year. DNA from a 25-year-old crime scene was run against the samples in one of these genealogy databases, and they found a familial match. Police set up a sting to covertly collect DNA from that person's immediate family. They got their DNA match with a brother's water bottle police took from a trash can after he worked a DJ gig at a school. htt…

They just solved the murder of a child near my house using a technique like this. My understanding is they asked everyone they could find in a specific ethnic community if they would volunteer a sample for a kind of dna dragnet. The killer was related to one of the many people sampled.

If the DNA was gathered for one specific purpose like this and not kept on file, I think that's pretty unobjectionable. As soon as it's on file in a database, though, there's potential for uses further and further removed from those envisioned by the owners when they gave the samples.

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

#268

Post by maxerickson »

noonespecial wrote: post #241
kilo_bravo_3 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Right up until that crime happens to be homosexuality (oh you meant western values crimes...) Or you can't get a job because you're closely related to a felon. Or a loan because you are closely related to someone who filed for bankruptcy. I could go on. There's more "ors" here than on a viking raiding ship.

The underlying presumption here is that there is business value in establishing the genetic link.

If there's a real link between genetics and bankruptcy, maybe we should figure that shit out (with the idea of doing pleasant, voluntary, educational interventions). If there isn't and banks use the info anyway, someone will make a good business out of ignoring the information.

Which isn't to say I approve of the privacy destroying business model these companies are trying to establish.

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

#269

Post by [deleted] »

carbocation wrote: post #193
politician wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

[deleted]

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

#270

Post by maxerickson »

Scoundreller wrote: post #133
kilo_bravo_3 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

As a certain Chinese person recently learned, you can start a trip in Country A, get arrested on a stopover in Country B on your way to Country C, accused of breaking the laws of Country D because you (allegedly) did business in Country E through a subsidiary in Country F. I’m worried about getting deported to Saudi Arabia (never been) because I drank alcohol in my home country, but happen to stopover in a country th…

Which countries are you currently not flying into?

I ask because it would help us gauge how worried you are.

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