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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

#301

Post by Symmetry »

deadbabe wrote: post #293
prolly97 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Luckily most of us live in democracies, where we can just decide whether we want the rules to allow this kind of differentiation.

You live in a democracy until you don’t. It can disappear overnight with the stroke of pen from some populist leader who just ignores laws. Never think you are safe just because you’re in a democracy.

If a future totalitarian government wants to save money on medical treatments then they can just euthanize anyone who gets cancer rather than euthanizing anyone whose genes say that they have a 50%+ greater risk than average of getting cancer. Or collect genetic samples themselves and use that to cull the population rather than just do it for people who were 23andMe customers.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#302

Post by amelius »

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.

Perhaps you can explain a bit more because on the one hand you say that genetic data is worthless, but on the other hand, it provides you with an income ...

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#303

Post by BrandoElFollito »

sandos wrote: post #83
cwbriscoe wrote: post #22

I have never participated in any of these DNA sites but I have an aunt that pretty much put in our full family tree. Is there anything I can do to remove myself without making an account?

How do you propose deleting you family tree? That info is obviously not very private.

Well to us Europeans it is. This is PII so its handling is documented.

You can requires all your data to be deleted and tastiest none is added.

This deletes the "family tree" to be seen by everyone

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#304

Post by mystraline »

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.

1. "We found you are the product of infidelity. Pay to find out who." (Paternity tests are banned in France)

2. There is incest in your family. Pay to find out.

3. We have found 4 significant markers of X diseases. Pay to find out. (Against FDA in claims of illness)

4. A lost family member was found in $location. Do you want to identify them and send money? (Likely faked, scam)

5. Surrogate or adopted: we know your birth parents. Pay to find out.

There's just a few unethical and/or illegal business opportunities for malicious actors. And that was just 5 off the top of my head.

If you wanted to be really evil, you combine it with other hacked/leaked/ransomed data sources and turn the screws.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#306

Post by speff »

johnisgood wrote: post #131
silisili wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that a little from the company perspective, but it leads to its own issues of perhaps more important magnitude. If you have data for a user, who wants to delete it, you can soft delete to allow recovery to prevent complaints. On the other hand, 5 years from now your system gets hacked, and now you have to email some person you haven't done business with in 5 years to tell them their data that you claimed was de…

Why not educate the customer? "If you request deletion, do not expect your data back, because it truly will be deleted!". Sad state of world that this has to be said, however. Discord (and many other places) allow you to recover your account within a specific period of time, but they do not delete anything, you just simply lose access and your name gets changed (and avatar and status removed), but all your DMs are th…

People in general simply do not read warnings like that. It’s a form of autopilot that everyone utilizes to function/cope in an age where they’re being bombarded with too much information

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#307

Post by bbqfog »

delichon wrote: post #299
Spacecosmonaut wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Exposing infidelity is honestly the best I can come up with. I'm concerned with being put on a list of ashkenazi, and sold to people who work for my death on that basis. https://www.wired.com/story/23andme-credential-stuffing-data...

I’m much more concerned about Palestinians being targeted since they’ve already been the victims of AI weapons attacking civilians. Imagine if people with Palestinian/semitic DNA were leaked?

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#308

Post by gbin »

kimos wrote: post #223
Spacecosmonaut wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Sell the entire database to a police state. Identify embarrassing mutations and blackmail people to prevent them from being released publicly. Corner high value individuals / billionaires, find an out of wedlock child, blackmail. ...

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#309

Post by trollbridge »

Symmetry wrote: post #297
SecretDreams wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've gotta think bigger. How about generic profiling by a future malicious government that only wants certain types of genomes to proceed to the next generation?

The government can just run the tests themselves in that case. I think people will resist coercive sterilization more than coercive genetic testing.

Blood is drawn from basically every infant born in the US and then genetically tested for various diseases. And the health departments retain these cards with the blood draws, although I’m not sure how usable they are decades later.

If you have a baby at home with a lay midwife, the health departments retain will hound you endlessly to get this done, although legally you can choose to decline as a parent. Barely anyone does, since most parents want to know if their newborn will have a serious genetic disorder that can be easily avoided by (for example) avoiding artificial sweeteners.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#310

Post by trollbridge »

jvanderbot wrote: post #259
Spacecosmonaut wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

23andme doesn’t check your identity at all, so you could just put in someone else’s name and submit your own saliva, and then.. go on a crime spree?
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