At least a million data points from 23andMe accounts appear to have been exposed on BreachForums. While the scale of the campaign is unknown, 23andMe says it’s working to verify the data.
And that’s exactly what people were worried might happen.
This was incredibly predictable
But they promised!
If people were actually taught history they would have known exactly what their genetic information being in a registry would result in.
Ooof.
IBM and the Holocaust by Edwin Black should be standard reading for high school students.
I can’t believe people voluntarily sent them their DNA.
The worst part is it you have enough family members who used these services your details are likely on there too.
I sent mine in because 75% of my DNA comes from sources unknown to me. It’s been interesting seeing what pops up.
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Someone help my dumb brain: what does that situation look like?
You only know your mother or father and one of their parents and have no idea of the three other grandparents?
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They also sent your DNA involuntarily. You can be IDed of someone in your genetic vicinity has sent theirs. They don’t even need to be super close.
Top notch victim blaming you got there…
ETA because I don’t engage with bigots:
Imagine that, the descendants of one of the biggest genocides in history want to try and piece their history together, and use the available tools to do it with, fucking shocker…
Then, when they continue getting targeted just for existing, privileged ignorant bigots who couldn’t even imagine what having over 90% of their community gassed is like, and have never been oppressed for who they are a day in their lives, simply can’t help themselves but jump to justify them being attacked again:tHe bAstArDs dEseRve eVerYthInG tHey GeT!!11
And somehow not a word about the attackers, nor the company that failed its customers.
Sure, antisemitic Jan…🙄🙄🙄
“I can’t believe this incredibly obvious thing happened!” Isn’t really victim blaming, is it? They’re not saying they did it to themselves or they deserved it, they’re saying that this was bound to happen and people volunteered their DNA to a private company
… Therefore blaming them for using the service.
Why even have a capitalist economy if private businesses can just abuse people like that and the customer is routinely blamed for participating in the economy the only way they’re allowed to?
Thanks!
As if victim blaming is always wrong.
It is
E. g. if somebody loses money in a multilevel marketing scheme, is it wrong to blame the victim? Or is not every victim a victim?
Regarding your edit, that’s assuming a bit too much to defend your point.
But that’s what I asked for, your reason why there is no responsibility on the side of the victims.
To engage with that line of thinking: if you leave agency at people, you can ask why one would trust a company with that data when every conspiracy theorist doesn’t use that service specifically because of the risk of genocide.
But you are right, there are valid reasons to take the risk.
It’s always wrong to blame the victim, yes. You just genuinely don’t believe they actually are victims, and if you want to have that debate, be honest and have it. But you don’t get to recognize their victimhood and then invalidate it by implying their suffering is partly their fault.
Is this a choice of words issue? Saying that somebody could have prevented something and with that knowledge should prevent it next time doesn’t change victimhood for me. The suffering of the victim remains.
What is lost if the victim had some agency? Is there some metaphysical aspect to it? Are victims prechosen by fate and it’s a sacrilege to question their fate?
I can agree that a zebra being killed by lions shouldn’t be blamed. But a person who ignores advice from friends and joines a multilevel marketing scheme is not entirely innocent.
Because attributing any blame to a victim is always a sleazy attempt to shift all responsibility for a situation away from the aggressor and onto the victim. It’s a common abuse tactic.
Plus, most people really aren’t capable of doing what they need to do in life-threatening or abusive situations. Adults really don’t have as much agency as they like to pretend they do, and I personally am tired of being dishonest about it.
I say that as one of the people who has been abused partly through their own failings and iniquities. I don’t call myself a victim. I’m also not an average representative of people in abusive situations – I have always been and always was capable of doing far more than most other people, and so I am telling you from that experience that you cannot attribute any responsibility for a situation on a victim like that. Most people are just NPCs and you need to respect that.
You say that like it’s a negative thing.
Some people actually want to know things and are curious about where they came from, what they’re made of, who their family is.
Submitting your DNA can increase your knowledge. It sounds like you can’t believe people would seek knowledge.
The point I think you could be missing is that the organizations which do this have been at best irresponsible, at worst negligent, in protecting customers personal information. There are obviously benefits to
thisa genetic record. Preserving a comprehensive genetic record for future generations to study is one. A database for law enforcement to use to solve very serious crimes like murder and rape. All that would be wonderful, but that information is already being misused and abused. Most people, myself included, don’t think these organizations will ever be responsible to their customers cause who the hell would believe that these days?
But they trusted [youtuber]!!!
There are a lot of dumb people that wanted to know they were a pure breed European or something to brag about like an IQ test
The company said its systems were not breached and that attackers gathered the data by guessing the login credentials of a group of users and then scraping more people’s information from a feature known as DNA Relatives.
The information does not appear to include actual, raw genetic data.
The data that’s available on the hacker forum doesn’t contain the raw DNA, but that’s just a promotion to sell much bigger dataset, which the hackers claim has the DNA… https://twitter.com/mattjay/status/1710370443968856559
And people wonder why I’m paranoid about privacy…
a lot of people in these comments who live in privacy-conscious bubbles and aren’t very familiar with “normal” people
there’s also this attitude that certain users never did anything wrong. YouSureAboutThat.jpg
They never signed up for anything that compromised their privacy?
Also, we all live in abodes with wooden doors and glass windows that anyone with a rock or a stick can break into. Doesn’t mean we deserve to be murdered in our sleep.
This is why you don’t reuse passwords
The full picture of why the data was stolen, how much more the attackers have, and whether it is actually focused entirely on Ashkenazim is still unclear.
From the article. Way to sensationalize a title…
My uncle tried to get me to do this for his family tree project.
Super happy I didn’t cave to his persistence.
Wonder what the angle of targeting Jews is here? Are they trying to figure out why they’ve got stomach issues or something?
Wonder what the angle of targeting Jews is here?
…are you seriously asking? I can’t figure out if you’re trolling here. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess it wasn’t breached by a group of geneticists looking to cure Tay-Sachs.
There’s a whole conspiracy regarding Covid that RFK Jr. is blathering about. Supposedly this data breach targeted Jews and Chinese folks. I’m assuming that it’s related in some way, but it’s not clear how.
I am a 23andMe user, and yes I voluntarily sent them my DNA sample. Shit on me all you want. You probably don’t have to live with multiple genetic conditions, chronic illnesses, and have a family history of several more.
Must be nice to be privileged with a healthy body and to get to care about privacy concerns instead wondering which genetic condition you’ll die of first.
ITT: People who have never experienced medical gaslighting before. Think about the relevance of your experiences before commenting. ITT: People who don’t live with chronic ille
I think you are also cursed with the gene that makes you a dick.
Obviously there’s good and bad reasons to get tested.
The point is to be more mindful of who you share your data with. It’s to protect yourself, not to make you feel like a fool.
Read the rest of the comments here before you comment. Everyone is bashing 23andMe users and the bubble they live in while the irony is completely lost on them.
Your so called ‘obvious reasons’ are anything but obviously to the average lemmy user who will find every excuse to feel superior about their niche privacy loving community with no clue how the real world works.
You’re excuse is such garbage it’s beyond stupid. You’ve got health concerns so you willingly gave up your privacy to a tech company… instead of going through, y’know the medical system which has checks and balances for this purpose.
You’re the people they want to be their victims. Ignorant people driven by fear.
instead of going through, y’know the medical system which has checks and balances for this purpose.
This is the single dumbest take on healthcare I have ever heard. You’ve clearly never had to deal with extensive medical issues or chronic illnesses, or you’re a straight white guy in your 30s and have the privilege of being believed by your doctor.
I’ve been forcefully misdiagnosed with ‘anxiety’ by so many doctors who wouldn’t listen to me. No one gave a shit until I threatened to report them to the medical board. That’s the only time they took my symptoms seriously and bothered to do a blood test, where they were proven wrong. No amount of sorry from them will undo the damage they’ve done.
This was one of 5 incidences where I had to advocate for my own health against the doctor’s preconceptions because theywould rather diagnose me based on my age and gender rather than my symptoms.
Medical gaslighting is a pervasive issue that disproportionately affects women, POC, young people, and LGBTQ. It’s a systemic issue that kills people through medical neglect. I would be dead by now had I not fought this hard for my own diagnoses.
The fact that you think modern health care is some pristine and fully reliable process instead of the shit show it is just speaks of how little you’ve had to deal with. Sit down and check yourself before taking about ignorance.
I’ve got nothing to hide
That’s not the point.
It’s a meme… people are fucking stupid and will say this every single fucking time privacy is brought up.
/s is your friend.
It takes so much work to successfully pull off sarcasm in text. I’m still working on it, it’s a craft I hope to master some day. But the fun in it is the ambiguity, so adding a /s takes all the fun out of it. But ideally only a select few get whooshed.
Honestly it has seemed like a fool’s errand to me, especially because sometimes I get wooshed, but best of luck.
Thanks /s
You’re welcome, I love you like my own child. /s
Gotcha.
Idiots believe their personal information was safe, with a private company.
For real, they already share it with the government which is the real danger anyways.
