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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

#281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which countries are you currently not flying into? I ask because it would help us gauge how worried you are.

Well, the US is #1 by GDP, China is #2 and Canada (the pushover) is #10. Saudi Arabia is #18, so going by the evidence, us alcohol enjoyers should consider staying out of countries with #28 rank GDP or less, as they could fall over for S. Arabia. All based on one crude comparison between countries. But you don't see the USA arresting too many people for violating other country's laws.

So is that not very worried or not at all worried?

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

#282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the US is #1 by GDP, China is #2 and Canada (the pushover) is #10. Saudi Arabia is #18, so going by the evidence, us alcohol enjoyers should consider staying out of countries with #28 rank GDP or less, as they could fall over for S. Arabia. All based on one crude comparison between countries. But you don't see the USA arresting too many people for violating other country's laws.

So is that not very worried or not at all worried?

Uhhh, those mean the same thing, no?

Anywho, even if I think I know I'm safe, a billionaire CFO with far more legal resources than I could dream of has been wrong.

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

#283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're missing an important way of looking at DNA. It is clear that most people view the details in their DNA as being specific, private information about themselves and want to have control of what can be done with it. DNA is also shared, however. A relative can currently choose to reveal private information in their DNA that also reveals information that you consider private in your DNA. This is the way in…

Given that you leave DNA all over the place, we should really ask if DNA is indeed actually private. In many regards it seems less private than your facial features as I don't routinely leave my facial features on restaurant silverware.

DNA dies in a day.

That Dropcam stream Google flagged your facial fingerprint on...not so much.

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

#284
Speaking of which. I sent two samples to 23andme and both times they rejected my sample saying that there was not enough DNA to recover. Hopefully that is in fact what happened......

They did send me a refund though.

I really really dont like the idea of someone potentially having my DNA while I didn't even get my end of the bargain (dietary recommendations, possibly knowing what will likely kill me, etc)

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

#285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the US, it is already illegal for genetic information to be used as a qualification for employment. No. In the US, it is currently illegal for genetic information to be used as a qualification for employment. Your DNA never changes. Once it's on record it's on record. This isn't like prohibition where as long as you quit before the law comes into effect you are safe. If there is ever a future time you can be pun…

If some future hell has us ruining people because of their DNA, it's not gonna be opt in. At least not for very long.

Most of the problems today with privacy are opt-in. There's also a national security argument for dragnet surveillance. For another potential justification, I'll just throw in a great, older movie and a good, newer one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DO_x-po_Nsc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWw4V6GTyKw

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

#286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where does the database come into this? "The scientists fabricated blood and saliva samples containing DNA from a person other than the donor of the blood and saliva. They also showed that if they had access to a DNA profile in a database, they could construct a sample of DNA to match that profile without obtaining any tissue from that person." [0] [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/18/science/18dna.html

> if they had access to a DNA profile in a database, they could construct a sample of DNA to match that profile Oh wow. Really??? Any experts in this field reading this? Would love to hear someone with pertinent authority tell us this isn't true. (Please don't be true)

It is simple to do, assuming the police are using genotyping instead of a full genome sequence for the match. (This is the common case today.)

Genotyping works as follows: there are thousands of regions of “junk” dna in the human genome that don’t code for anything. There is no evolutionary pressure to preserve the exact length of these regions. (They probably help the chromosomes fold up in ways that encourage/suppress the activity of certain genes, help the molecule be more robust, etc).

Since there is no evolutionary pressure to preserve the regions, they tend to be full of hard to copy junk like ATAT..... that tends to change every few generations.

Genotyping works by isolating a bunch of these regions, and using PCR to create millions of copies of each region (with ~one sample per region).

Finally, you put a drop of the each sample and some die on a electrophoresis gel, and apply some current. Different sized molecules move at different rates, so this gives you a crude measurement of the length of each molecule.

To fake a match, all you need to do is produce something that will trick the first step of all this into grabbing molecules of your choice of length, which will fool the rest of the process. If you want to see how that would work, read up on “pcr primers”.

Source: I used to work in a genotyping/sequencing lab as a bioinformatician, and worked on algorithms that did exactly this sort of analysis (not the forgery bit though).

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

#287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where does the database come into this? "The scientists fabricated blood and saliva samples containing DNA from a person other than the donor of the blood and saliva. They also showed that if they had access to a DNA profile in a database, they could construct a sample of DNA to match that profile without obtaining any tissue from that person." [0] [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/18/science/18dna.html

> if they had access to a DNA profile in a database, they could construct a sample of DNA to match that profile Oh wow. Really??? Any experts in this field reading this? Would love to hear someone with pertinent authority tell us this isn't true. (Please don't be true)

DNA is supposed to be supporting evidence of guilt (A number i've heard thrown around is it narrows down to 1 in 1m, with >300m people in the US that is still not perfect).

Instead CSI has taught your average juror that it is irrefutable proof of guilt.

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

#288
post #119

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…

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.

Same here. However, I have no illusions about stopping any of this. The global panopticon is just too useful for authoritarians.

So my solution is to avoid attracting any attention in meatspace. Not doing anything that could generate troublesome records. Such as leaving DNA around. I mean, I certainly leave DNA around, when I go out for stuff. But there's nothing involved that I need to hide.

I also make no effort to hide anything that I do online as my meatspace persona. Because that would attract attention. I do use a VPN service, but that's not at all unusual where I live. And I do torrent some, even when I'm not really after anything. Just as cover.

Anything potentially troublesome, I do via nested VPN chains and Tor. Mirimir just uses nested VPN chains. But then Mirimir just writes about stuff, so hey.

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

#289
I’m of two minds on this. On the one hand, catching the golden state killer is awesome.

On the other, DNA matching is a stochastic process. False positive matches are possible, and likely if used to identify suspects at scale with no other evidence or links to the crime.

We’re probably still in the infancy of DNA-based law, I suspect.

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

#290
post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if they had access to a DNA profile in a database, they could construct a sample of DNA to match that profile Oh wow. Really??? Any experts in this field reading this? Would love to hear someone with pertinent authority tell us this isn't true. (Please don't be true)

It is simple to do, assuming the police are using genotyping instead of a full genome sequence for the match. (This is the common case today.) Genotyping works as follows: there are thousands of regions of “junk” dna in the human genome that don’t code for anything. There is no evolutionary pressure to preserve the exact length of these regions. (They probably help the chromosomes fold up in ways that encourage/suppr…

Hey, that's just like fake video.

So you could fake everything. Video surveillance, DNA samples, testimony from dishonest informers and investigators, etc. This is just a tweak to parallel construction. And outright framing.

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