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Over at StatNews is a story on a recent trend where low cost commercial DNA testing is resulting in a number of White Nationalists taking genetic tests, and sometimes they don't like the results that come back.
The article looks at research on how they respond to the sometimes unexpected results:
[...] In a new study, sociologists Aaron Panofsky and Joan Donovan examined years' worth of posts on Stormfront to see how members dealt with the news.
[...] About a third of the people posting their results were pleased with what they found. "Pretty damn pure blood," said a user with the username Sloth. But the majority didn't find themselves in that situation. Instead, the community often helped them reject the test, or argue with its results.
Some rejected the tests entirely, saying that an individual's knowledge about his or her own genealogy is better than whatever a genetic test can reveal. [...] Others, he said, responded to unwanted genetic results by saying that those kinds of tests don't matter if you are truly committed to being a white nationalist. Yet others tried to discredit the genetic tests as a Jewish conspiracy "that is trying to confuse true white Americans about their ancestry," Panofsky said.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday August 18 2017, @12:24PM (4 children)
Stuff like facial recognition data tends to be hoovered up into law enforcement databases and you expect the same to happen with genomes. That would make it harder to get away with a crime (and you probably have or will commit one as a torch bearer). But it could also allow you to be framed for a crime in the future. Someone can access your genome, synthesize it, which will be cheaper over time, and amplify it using PCR or by cloning synthetic cells with your genome in them. Then plant the evidence as desired. Bonus if you can account for telomere lengths and other loose ends to make it more convincing.
Then you have insurance companies and employers. The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Privacy Act [wikipedia.org] is in effect, but there was an attempt this year to amend it to allow employers to obtain genetic test results. It could be weakened later, or insurers could just ignore it and use genetic data in coverage decisions, and pay a trifling settlement to the government later. Now I don't what impact that will have in the long term since there's only so much discrimination an insurer can do by genome and it doesn't account for environmental factors. And if regenerative medicine and gene therapy take off, the health game is going to change tremendously anyway. But there will be at least a couple of decades where having your genome known will not help you in anyway, since quantifying risks will be much easier than developing targeted gene therapies.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Friday August 18 2017, @03:22PM (3 children)
You raise an interesting point with repercussions for standards of evidence in a court of law. If you can more easily fake video evidence, will it still suffice as proof of a crime? If you can synthesize and plant DNA at the scene of a crime, can it still be used as proof? Will we move to requiring video footage from multiple smartphones to remove 'reasonable doubt,' or will eye witnesses become the deciding factor?
Justice has taken a lot of knocks in the last couple of years with cops murdering blacks and planting evidence and such. What you're positing could pull the rug out from under it entirely.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday August 18 2017, @03:56PM (2 children)
There are multiple studies that shows that witnesses are extremely unreliable.
So there's not much left. Perhaps correlation?
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Friday August 18 2017, @07:11PM (1 child)
Data forensics will become a courtroom staple. Experts will testify as to the veracity of video evidence, and eventually DNA evidence. There are already such experts, of course, but their testimony will adapt to the new challenges. It will be the same as it is now, with different standards.
That is to say, there will be evidence faking and corrupt experts in the future, just as we have now.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @08:07PM
Acting as big brother and meting out arbitrary justice to us all. How many clones do you have left, comrade?