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from the remember:-they-can't-use-what-they-don't-have dept.
Hackers have been able to gain access to personal information from about 6.9 million users of genetic testing company 23andMe, using customers' old passwords:
In some cases this included family trees, birth years and geographic locations, the company said.
After weeks of speculation the firm has put a number on the breach, with more than half of its customers affected.
The stolen data does not include DNA records.
[...] As was first reported by Tech Crunch, the company has acknowledged that by accessing those accounts, hackers were then able to find their way into "a significant number of files containing profile information about other users' ancestry".
The criminals downloaded not just the data from those accounts but the private information of all other users they had links to across the sprawling family trees on the website.
The stolen data includes information like names, how each person is linked and in some cases birth years, locations, pictures, addresses and the percentage of DNA shared with relatives.
I'm with Bill Burr on this.
See also: 23andMe Says Private User Data is Up for Sale After Being Scraped
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Ox0000 on Friday December 08 2023, @03:03PM (4 children)
If you have never used or even touched this service and yet have even only one relative that has used it, distant or not, then you too are affected. Because that's how genetics works.
This is the problem with people not understanding the implications of handing data out willy-nilly in exchange for trinkets.
Some people take fiction ("1984", "Gattaca", ...) and assume it to be an instruction manual, rather than the warning they were intended to be. What is there not to understand about the word "dystopian"?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RS3 on Friday December 08 2023, @05:14PM (3 children)
Yeah, my full blood brother did it about 5 years ago, so I'm as good as scooped up in this mess. And yes, I'm very unhappy about this. Not sure what to do. Moving to another country and changing my full identity seems in order.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Reziac on Saturday December 09 2023, @02:55AM (2 children)
My aunt did the basic test some years back. Learned absolutely nothing we didn't already know. "You are 100% Norwegian!"
But yeah, the more-extensive tests and relationships are starting to become a problem. I vaguely recall a few crimes have been solved (was one a murder? I forget) thanks to this. No,. assume they don't always get it right... and consider how small the profile data really is... what is the incidence of false positives and negatives?
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Funny) by RS3 on Saturday December 09 2023, @03:27AM (1 child)
Ah, everything makes sense now. Norseman. Viking conqueror. Excellent swordmakers. Runes and stones and such. :)
(Score: 3, Funny) by Reziac on Saturday December 09 2023, @03:47AM
LOL. And the other side are basically Scots and Normans. So it's all one. :D
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.