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23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

reuters.com

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Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#251

Post by snovv_crash »

DrAwdeOccarim wrote: post #232
kimos wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for saying this. I’ve done some of these saliva samples and I’ve seen the freak outs about what happens if “they” get my genome. But I cannot for the life of me figure out what they would do with it maliciously? It’s not like it can be used to sign up for a credit card or whatever.

My favorite thriller story idea comes from knowing a character’s SNPs that are also covered by the standard forensic DNA panel. Then the antagonist in the story buys a bunch of oligos that flank the panel targets and spreads them around the crime scene to “frame” the character for murder! So once the ‘’’bad guys’’’ purchase the 23andme database, the story is complete! They can then frame our protagonist…

...or they just use your Dropbox deamon to dump a bunch of CP on your harddrive and then send in the FBI.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#252

Post by johnnyanmac »

mort96 wrote: post #200
citadel_melon wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not as worried if this data gets out or not. I think there are negative externalities if the data is sold to insurance firms — who can use the genomic information in litigation and policy rejections — or if the data is sold to some sort of powerful, pro-eugenics political organization. The insurance externalities likely can be mitigated with minimal legislation (protecting consumers in a similar manner to how we…

Look at the current political situation in the US. Do you think there's a lot of legislation protecting consumers from insurance firms any time soon?

Fortuantely my state is still pretty good about this, despite the federal administration throwing consumers by the wayside.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#253

Post by marcus_holmes »

londons_explore wrote: post #209
marcus_holmes wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's not true, shares are a share of the companies assets and future dividends. Possibly true 20 or 30 years ago, but now shares are speculative assets, their worth determined by what the market thinks they might be bought for by a greater fool.

Only for companies who are profitable or might be profitable in the future. If the company has no chance at future profit, it becomes a simple share of assets. There are plenty of companies with assets only and no revenue or employees.

There are tons of examples of unprofitable companies, with no visible prospect of ever becoming profitable, trading at increasingly-higher values. Every tech bubble has their share of these.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#254

Post by johnnyanmac »

mentalgear wrote: post #163
andy_ppp wrote: post #159

As an aside I actually regret signing up for 23andMe, not because this isn't a great idea but more because I find the idea that the future having copies of your DNA around we might end up in some weird sci-fi universe where people can be specifically targeted with viruses or profiled in some other way. Not that I'll ever be important enough for that to happen but it feels like an invasion of privacy having such perso…

> Not that I'll ever be important enough for that to happen Once cheap enough, be sure DNA analysis is used for better ad-targeting at scale, just as users' web traffic is analysed. All is done once economically feasible and grey-legal enough.

Sure hope GDRP would cover that since it's involving "general data"/

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#255

Post by johnnyanmac »

midtake wrote: post #107
ks2048 wrote: post #35

There are troubling privacy issues, but it was able to tell me: "Toe Length Ratio : Likely second toe longer". I didn't even have to look down! Maybe it was a bad idea. But, I figured if we enter a dystopian future, evil health care companies or governments could easily get my DNA if they want to and/or simply require that information to get care. When you get blood drawn, do you see what they do with it? Hopefully,…

> But, I figured if we enter a dystopian future, evil health care companies or governments could easily get my DNA if they want to and/or simply require that information to get care. Yes, because you gave it to them. Nihilism undermines any sort of resistance movement against evil.

There's not much resistance to someone wanting your DNA. It's so trivial to get that you'd basically need to become a hermit to try and prevent it. A hermit that shaves themselves and burns their trash, one that lives with gloves on dyrung every waking hour and disinfects their chair and bed daily.

It's not really something the mass population can physically prevent from a determined actor. Like data, you need to regulate it instead of take excessive preventative measures.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#256

Post by johnnyanmac »

1oooqooq wrote: post #150
k__ wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They told me I have an average to lower risk for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. All I wanted to know, since my grandpa died of Parkinson's.

you could have asked you primary care doctor for a test, instead of paying a company for the privilege of creating a dna map to sell to law enforcement.

That may sadly be more expensive in the US. Even if you're insured, the copay + coinsurance may still cost you more out of pocket for such tests, depending on the specialists needed.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#257

Post by CharlieDigital »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #247
CharlieDigital wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is you are not a malicious actor so you aren't coming up with good scams or truly malicious ideas. How about scam emails that open by asking people about their family history of some disease with a genetic marker and promising some miracle treatment? I can think of even worse outcomes depending on how policy on immigration and naturalization shifts

scam emails are pennies on a dollar, though. it's so easy to just go through any email list ever and blast out thousands at once. It's not really a business that cares about targeted approaches. >depending on how policy on immigration and naturalization shifts Birthright citizenship invalidates such profling, but even then: I don't think the government needs DNA to figure out identities of people in the database.

    > It's not really a business that cares about targeted approaches.
It's called open rate and open rates are heavily driven by titles. Spam filters also use reputation to rank senders and open rates are one indicator of sender "quality". They definitely use targeted approaches if they can get their hands on datasets.

    > Birthright citizenship invalidates such profling
Only if you think that matters and the SCOTUS will uphold it. And of course, US isn't the only government; there are lots of other governments around the world.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#258

Post by johnnyanmac »

mschuster91 wrote: post #148
Naru41 wrote: post #145

Successful Math/CS people have a hard time applying it in biotechnology. https://x.com/iskander/status/1903077361152610374 -- about a dozen of us with math/CS backgrounds ditched tech for biomedicine. And we got humbled hard: most of what we did flopped & techies

> Successful Math/CS people have a hard time applying it in biotechnology. No surprise given that biotechnology has a lot more stakeholders. Ethics aren't just an afterthought because unlike VC/the stock market, academia has lots of ethics review gates in place. And for those that think they can sidestep ethics by going private (be it Theranos, 23andMe or various other such services), they'll all find out one day tha…

they are all very different worlds. math works purely in theory and simply explains phenomenon. Likewise, much of software is ephemeral and gets its ethic indirectly once people are involved.

to work with life is to work in factors that directly affect others, Unless you're doing something like pure biology where you simply observe. Even then, the art of observing sentient beings has its hundreds of quirks.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#259

Post by jvanderbot »

Spacecosmonaut wrote: post #202
shreezus wrote: post #113

Even if you haven't personally used their service, if any close relatives have, they already have a sizable amount of information on your genome. They maintain the equivalent of "shadow profiles" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_profile ) as part of their data model for "ancestry" modeling purposes - for example inferring a paternal haplogroup based on data uploaded by genetic relatives. I can only hope at the…

I'm a genetic engineer at a large pharma company. Genetic engineering of human model systems is my specialty. If I were a malicious actor, I could not do anything useful with the genome of any one person. Most peoples genomes are boring and at best sway the predisposition for disease by a modest degree. Exposing infidelity is honestly the best I can come up with.

Faking DNA test results would be sci-fi nightmare come true. You could frame someone before they were arrested which would be ... Frightening. But even worse is invalidation of all DNA evidence because it is now easy to fake.

But that still seems like a minute possibility.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#260

Post by danso »

ZeroTalent wrote: post #213
piyuv wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Liquidity matters

This. The same thing is happening with Tesla stock. Since it's such a bit part of the S&P500, so half of retail investors buy it in their basket of portfolios and 401ks at trades at 10x it's worth on paper by looking at fundamentals.

haven’t had my coffee yet but I assume you meant “big” rather than “bit”
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