Regeneron is to pay $256 million in cash to acquire “substantially all” of 23andMe’s assets, including its massive biobank of around 15 million customer genetic samples and data.

  • 7bicycles [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    16 hours ago

    23andme was named “invention of the year” by Time in 2008

    perfect, I am now openly pro Trump, Zuckerberg and also Putin, all of whom have been named Time Person of the year from 2007 onwards. This is because I don’t even bother to understand what Time nominates, but also entirely willing to base very important political or life decisions around this. If you call this out as being incredibly fucking stupid you are victim blaming me. Just because I do not have ever read the magazines nominations of awards that I base my being around does not mean you can attack me for this.

    Orphans, people with absent parents, decedents of slaves, the list goes on for folks who would understandably go for an affordable way to access their genetic history.

    This is slightly more sympathetic but also 23andme would help you zilch in this scenario because this is not what they do. But I do understand how coming from a vulnerable emotionial position might lead you there.

    I’m saddened to see more victim blaming here than anger at the ToS/privacy policy fuckery and a complete lack of consumer protection.

    Having said beforementioned, there is 0 consumer protection that would prevent this scenario. This bullshit has to rank among the largest DNA Databse in the world, and, as such, would be the target and has probably been leaked to every major and minor intelligence service in the world since years, even before they just openly sold it off to god knows who. The crux of data security is that while it is a society wide issue, it is also a personal issue. You can’t outregulate some idiot just handing over all their data for funsies or SECURITY to whatever entity, to point out the big ones. This holds true regardless of socioeconomic system in place, because the entire point is that it is your data, not anybody elses.

    Also, and I do agree I am malding over this, I want to point out that people have been warning about 23andme for a decade for obvious reasons and largely got ignored as being doomer nerds

    • pemptago@lemmy.ml
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      14 hours ago

      I take your point and I don’t disagree about personal responsibility or that there are a lot of people who ignored all the warnings. And it’s all the more frustrating to be ignored, or labeled as paranoid, by those same people. I was mostly reacting to the pervading unsympathetic response I was seeing.

      A lot of people in the privacy community are seeing this as an established professional or someone with the experience/insight/know-how, and from that vantage point it seems so obvious. But it’s a journey. I can think of a few moments that woke me up to privacy and it’s importance. Most of those were just tinkering on personal projects. There’s no general education on this stuff and I really don’t think many folks have had the fortune to encounter this info in a way that they grasp, but maybe I’m kidding myself - i’ll leave room for that. I mentioned Time for a sense of the timeline and sentiment, not as a meaningful endorsement. I know I was ignorant about most of this stuff as late as 2014 and I still have so many gaps.

      Maybe this 23andme BS is an experience that turns many more towards privacy, in which case i hope they’re met with a welcoming message like, “that sucks, this is why we have to educate and protect ourselves” instead of an alienating “no shit, idiot.”

    • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
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      16 hours ago

      If this is considered a problem of individual personnal responsibility then I will trigger stateccollapse because we don’t need it if it can’t send goon to those duckers and stop the transfer then we don’t need those ducking statist vampire to go on living for one more microsecond

      • 7bicycles [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        16 hours ago

        If this is considered a problem of individual personnal responsibility then I will trigger stateccollapse

        fucking go for it, king.

        The entire concept of data privacy is antithetical to the modern nation state. Motherfucker you live in the hole. You are in the oubliette. What fucking governmeant bureau, under trump, do you see taking up the fight here, much less winning? You can’t unleak data. That shit’s out there, forever - and, again, probably has been for years considering what a goldmine the DNA databse of the USA is.

        Lobby your state all your want, IT-Security and Data Protection starts at you. All the encryption in the world doesn’t save you from being spear-phished. You can encode this in law, but unless anybody starts executing legal entities and building the great firewall á la china, that shit’s out there in a real “can’t unlick that asshole” situation. It sucks! It is bad! The average person should not have to grapple with the realities of IT-Security and Data Protection much in the same way I don’t have the first fucking clue about how to keep an NPP from exploding. But unless we reinvent the whole thing from scratch that shit’s on you, me, and everybody else. Never give them anything. I own 18 bicycles.

        • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
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          9 hours ago

          I am going to laser off the optics from all russian eks early launch warning satellites at the next moment of tension between the empires.