[HN Gopher] Nebula Genomics - First to offer consumer anonymous ...
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Nebula Genomics - First to offer consumer anonymous sequencing
Author : all2
Score : 154 points
Date : 2023-12-09 05:38 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (nebula.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (nebula.org)
| aquafox wrote:
| All this would not be neccessary if they just deleted the data
| afterwards, but I didn't see this advertised.
|
| As vatys explains in his longer comment: You are just as
| anonymous as the least anonymous person related to you.
| carbocation wrote:
| > _As the understanding of genomics advances, you can stay up-
| to-date on your genome with the Nebula Library._
|
| Then to the privacy policy:
|
| > _Nebula will store your Personal Information as long as your
| Account is open, unless you make a request for us to delete all
| or any of your Personal Information prior to the closing of
| your Account as described in this Policy. If you decide to
| close your Account, then Nebula will automatically destroy all
| Personal Information related to your account, including User
| Data, Survey Data, and Genetic Data._
|
| So, my reading of all of this is aligned with how you and vatys
| have read it, too.
| sorokod wrote:
| I'd wonder if Personal data includes derived, calculated and
| cross reference data.
|
| Probably not
| winwang wrote:
| Yeah, I'd also be curious why they can't simply send it
| over to a company which "just so happened" to buy anonymous
| data, before Nebula "happened" to process your deletion
| request.
| pas wrote:
| Yes, it's a bit hard to take them seriously as a US
| company. (I wonder would it matter if they were CA based
| instead of NY? Does the CCPA provide some better
| effective data protection - at least awareness, similar
| to the GDPR? And does NY have something similar?)
| jacoblambda wrote:
| That of course is an option. It's in their privacy policy. Tbh
| that you could demand they delete your data when you were done
| with them is the entire reason I actually used them. There are
| definitely benefits to keeping your data with them though. The
| research they contribute to is useful and the relevance is easy
| to interpret through their client.
|
| I'll probably delete everything off their site in the event it
| looks like they might get sold but for now I figure it's fairly
| well guarded and they keep most of it offline anyways.
| vatys wrote:
| When I signed up for 23andme many years ago, it was via a friend
| in another country, who re-mailed it for me under a fake name and
| paid in cash. For some time I would log in through a locale-
| specific 23andme sub-domain until they eventually merged it all
| together.
|
| It wasn't long before they figured out who I was and placed me
| within my family tree. My fake name now lives among near and
| distant relatives I was not aware had signed up themselves or
| their parents/grandparents. They know who I am, who my siblings
| and cousins and aunts and uncles are, etc. This was always going
| to happen as soon as I sent them my sample.
|
| I never believed my anonymity trick would truly work, I just
| wanted to make it sufficiently difficult for when 23andme
| inevitably sold out, got gobbled up, or turned evil. I learned
| what I wanted from the service, and have only logged in once a
| year or so since to see if they updated any findings or disease
| studies.
|
| While I truly appreciate the concept of bringing privacy and
| anonymity to this field, it's worth considering we are all quite
| easy to identify using these samples.
| Euphorbium wrote:
| I wish I was that smart when buying 23andme. Bitcoin is also
| not anonymous, unless you happen to mine it up yourself. Does
| Nebula accept Monero?
| carbocation wrote:
| Paying anonymously does not resolve the problem of identity
| by descent / genetic relatedness for a service that retains
| your genetic data. As relatives sign up with any identifiable
| bit of information, your anonymity erodes.
| autoexec wrote:
| > I just wanted to make it sufficiently difficult for when
| 23andme inevitably sold out, got gobbled up, or turned evil.
|
| You might as well add "hacked" to that list given recent
| events.
| vatys wrote:
| Yes, I definitely considered that as well. Basically, I knew
| that 23andme data would eventually exist outside 23andme,
| whether that be via hack, acquisition, or eminent domain.
|
| I accepted that and did it anyway, taking steps to at least
| not be directly associated with my sequence, even if my
| association can be inferred or derived later. My main concern
| is that their testing would identify something which in the
| future would be a "pre-existing condition" and get me denied
| medical care, but there is certainly a long list of other
| possible consequences.
|
| At this point I don't trust any company or agency that
| collects and uses data, or the promises made in any privacy
| policy, but I also don't lose any sleep over it.
| hifreq wrote:
| There used to be a way to request full data deletion on
| their website. Probably too late to do it now for people
| who are included in the hack, but could still be a good
| idea to do it asap.
| jtsiskin wrote:
| ...if you wanted full anonymity, why did you turn on DNA
| relative sharing? Why don't you turn it off now? Or do you
| mean, you assume they could place your profile within a tree,
| if they wanted to?
| DevX101 wrote:
| I did the same, sans the cash payment. I REALLY wanted my DNA
| sequenced but they were the only consumer option at the time.
| Anonymous sequencing is the way to go. There's just too much
| opportunity for abuse or incompetence around my most private
| data.
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| > While I truly appreciate the concept of bringing privacy and
| anonymity to this field, it's worth considering we are all
| quite easy to identify using these samples.
|
| Yes, as long as they have the data. If a company would process
| the sample, send me a thumb drive of my information, and not
| retain a copy, that data can't leak because it doesn't exist.
| hifreq wrote:
| > not retain a copy
|
| Unfortunately this is just one step away from a blog post
| where the CEO apologizes for letting down their customers by
| keeping copies of all data in an unsecured s3 bucket that was
| downloaded in its entirety by a 13 year old "hacker".
| gruez wrote:
| If you prominently advertised that you don't retain data,
| but it turned out that you did and it got leaked, that's a
| straightforward case of fraud. Given that the services
| would be advertised over the internet, it probably counts
| as wire fraud which means the feds would get involved. On
| the other hand if they had permission to keep your data and
| they got hacked, it becomes a messy tort case where the
| plaintiffs has to prove that the company didn't try hard
| enough to secure the data. In other words, the point isn't
| to guarantee that your data won't be leaked/hacked, it's to
| make it straightforward to go after you if you decide to
| lie.
|
| This is why I won't use any genome sequencing service that
| has a bunch of ancillary services attached (eg. analyzing
| your ancestry, or figuring out what diseases you're at risk
| for), and you have to request deletion of data. The fact
| they provide such services means that your data is getting
| automatically uploaded to the cloud, probably resulting in
| multiple copies to different systems/databases/vendors.
| Even though you can theoretically request deletion, all
| those copies means there's a non-negligible chance that
| there's a copy lying around in a decommissioned s3 bucket
| that they didn't delete. If they service promises sample ->
| sequencing machine -> lab computer -> [PGP encrypted
| email/mailed CD], that cuts the risk considerably.
| abecedarius wrote:
| Consider a service which promised to scan your genome, send you
| the data file, and delete the sample, and their copy of the
| file on confirmation of your receipt. This is still vulnerable
| to dishonesty, but only transiently.
|
| There's nothing logically impossible about such a service, and
| I'd trust it modulo actual red flags. Too bad afaik nobody's
| offering it. Once they're archiving their copy I just don't see
| how they can credibly promise privacy in the longer term.
|
| Last I looked it didn't seem really practical to just buy your
| own sequencer.
| dyeje wrote:
| I thought about offering a product like this but the market
| seems tough given:
|
| 1. Most people don't care about the privacy aspect
|
| 2. People who already got a test from 23andme, Ancestry, etc
| are unaddressable
| EarthAmbassador wrote:
| People are conditioned not care, but I seriously doubt that
| is avoid argument for not providing anonymity as a default
| product considering the risks when genome data is breached.
|
| Surely, it's not that costly to delete data? The only
| reason to keep this data is for ulterior motives like
| monetizing.
| jampekka wrote:
| .org domain for a commercial entity gives a scammy smell.
| gojomo wrote:
| Neat that they're crafting this kind of product. But, given how
| easily such full sequences can plot your exact relations with any
| other unblinded records, this may be largely "DNA Security
| Theater" against the threat of _their_ malfeasance or compromise.
|
| Also, I can't find anywhere in the Nebula materials describing
| the chain-of-custody of submitted DNA, & jurisdiction(s) of the
| sequencing labs.
|
| For example, if provided samples are sent outside the US for
| sequencing - are they? - I'd have even less confidence they'll be
| kept secret from local authorities.
| dannyw wrote:
| Even in the US, California requires 23andme to "bank" the DNA
| and store it for 10 years along with the name and PII. This is
| available to authorities.
|
| You cannot request for this to be deleted or destroyed by law.
| collegeburner wrote:
| It's all about user privacy until the jackboots might want
| that data, then suddenly it's Very Important and Law
| Enforcement Critical!
| EarthAmbassador wrote:
| That's outrageous. Paying for a service should not mean
| concurrent subscription to populating police databases. I'm a
| bit surprised California would permit this.
| ros86 wrote:
| At some point, I would love to setup something like this but then
| completely local and open-source. This could e.g. include a
| sequencing kit (Nanopore MinION sequencer (<$ 1,000) plus
| necessary consumables), protocols, and in silico workflows for
| basecalling, SNP calling, and interpretation.
| pointlessone wrote:
| You can snatch a 30x full genome sequence from Nebula at
| $100-150 on sales they do a few times a year. Open-source is
| cool but prob not economically feasible unless you'll be using
| it for all your extended family or something.
| ros86 wrote:
| My point is not about having the cheapest solution. I just
| don't trust anyone else with my genomic information, even if
| they say it's anonymous. (I'm a biotech engineer, from
| Europe; maybe that explains my reservation ;-))
| qiine wrote:
| to me this is like blood testing at home, I am surprised this
| is still not a thing
| IndySun wrote:
| Reading their blurb, well intentioned or not, it becomes apparent
| the service will be a boon to someone other than yourself,
| possibly nefariously, sending your specimen and receiving your
| details.
| danbruc wrote:
| Why do they build this Rube Goldberg system? Do consumers demand
| that they can access their data from everywhere so keeping it on
| some server is necessary? Do they need the data from everyone to
| do statistics on them? Is it related to selling the analysis
| software as a subscription?
|
| All in comparison to the obvious solution, send in a sample,
| receive the resulting data. Plus some offline analysis software
| that you can buy a license for and maybe update from time to
| time.
| pointlessone wrote:
| One of the services they provide is giving you reports on new
| genetic studies and how it relates to your DNA. Another is
| online genome browser. Both require access to your genome. If
| you only want to sequence your DNA you can do that, download
| your files and delete your account. They promise to delete your
| genome once you close your account.
| danbruc wrote:
| Those things you can do locally as well, you might just need
| an update from time to time to make new analyses available.
| At least unless they require doing statistics or whatnot on
| all the genomes they have.
| pointlessone wrote:
| Depending on format full sequencing can be larger than 100
| GB. It's possible to keep that locally on most devices but
| it's a sizeable chunk of storage for relatively rarely used
| data.
|
| They do use statistics in their reports. One of the numbers
| they give with each report is where you are in the
| population for that particular report. E.g. 85th percentile
| for this thing in the population.
| danbruc wrote:
| $10 USB flash drive.
| plagiarist wrote:
| Do they promise not to share the information with third
| parties who won't delete my genome when I close my account?
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| It's interesting to imagine how this would've worked in 1995
| or something, if the sequencing was possible. You'd have done
| the sample, and in response they'd send you three CD-ROMs.
| The first is the visualizer program which you'd install as an
| executable. The other discs are your genome*. If your spouse
| or kid got their genome sequenced, you'd get two more discs.
|
| Every year the company would print an update to the disease
| database on more CDs, and make them available for a
| relatively small price, probably exclusively by mail.
|
| Obviously there's some aspects of this that suck, but it's
| interesting to see how it's so much better for privacy,
| because data hoarding wasn't viable at scale or as a
| business.
|
| * Two, because a genome is > 700MB, so it won't fit on a
| single disc. How annoying the size limit of a CD would've
| been if you had to solve this problem at work!
| pointlessone wrote:
| Depending on format your genome can be upwards of 100 GB.
| Granted they probably don't use full sequencing for
| analysis. They probably use just genetic variants, which is
| about 300 MB, so would fit a single CD.
|
| I imagine a couple of floppies a year might've been cheaper
| in 1995 than a CD.
| andersrs wrote:
| Seems like a great honey pot for the three letter agencies once
| they stitch it together with your stupid aunt Janice at 23andMe.
| Podgajski wrote:
| This coming from someone who is obviously using the Internet
| and a computer...
| jbstack wrote:
| This peaked my interest until I saw:
|
| "Requires [paid] Nebula Membership".
|
| I see zero reason that I should need to pay them a subscription
| when all I want is a one-off product. Sure, I can see the use in
| being alerted when new genetic diseases are discovered, but that
| should be my choice. It's frustrating that everything is becoming
| subscription based these days.
| hh3k0 wrote:
| They offer a life-time membership that requires a one-time
| payment.
| jbstack wrote:
| A life-time membership costs 12 - 23 times more than the
| monthly subscription fee depending which package you choose.
| I'm not sure that paying a huge lump sum for a subscription I
| don't want is a good alternative to taking a monthly
| subscription that I don't want.
| etdr wrote:
| Generally agree with this, though they do frequent sales
| that bring the lifetime price down substantially. For
| myself, I thought that the bundled sequencing plus lifetime
| membership ($400) was fair just for the sequencing itself,
| so I didn't mind too much.
| sitharus wrote:
| You don't need to keep paying, you can just get a one-month
| subscription and download your genome once it's sequenced. The
| subscription is just for the alerting.
| tdsone3 wrote:
| If you have a publicly available photo of yourself (e.g. public
| social media), it's possible to match that to your genomic
| sequence. I.e. you already have to be anonymous online to have a
| chance that a private company cannot reidentify you.
|
| https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abg3296
| ryanschneider wrote:
| Seems like the technique only works in highly controlled
| scenarios (e.g. you have tens of phenotypes and images and want
| to have a better than random chance of assigning one to the
| other):
|
| > Nevertheless, re-identification risk in the wild does not
| appear to be especially high. While we observe a success rate
| as high as 25%, this is only achieved when the genomic dataset
| is extremely small, on the order of 10 individuals. In
| contrast, success rate for top 1 matching drops quickly and is
| negligible for populations of more than 100 individuals.
| Moreover, it should be kept in mind that this result assumes
| that we can predict the phenotypes perfectly.
| tdsone3 wrote:
| That's a good catch. This study uses images for
| reidentification. I wonder which other factors, not contained
| in an image could be used for reidentifying someone and by
| how much that would increase the reidentification accuracy.
| gillesjacobs wrote:
| I tried Nebula's kit but refunded after two attempts. They took
| on average 3 months to attempt to sequence my sample (due to
| sample batching) and they both failed. It costs me a fair bit to
| send the sample to Georgia (US) every time so the cost and wait
| times were too much.
|
| It's a matter of luck whether your sequencing fails though so I
| will try again when they offer truly anonymous sequencing (my
| last attempts were eponymous).
|
| Their website has been saying for at least two years that
| Anonymous Sequencing is coming. So take their product launch
| timeline with a grain of salt. In any case true anonymity and the
| price of 175usd are really impressive if they iron out the
| logistics.
| etdr wrote:
| I had my genome sequenced by Nebula. Honestly I know I shouldn't
| have from a privacy standpoint (especially since I signed up with
| my real name and details) but the idea of having my entire genome
| stored on my hard drive was too tempting for me, and now that's
| what I have. I have started looking into the software to analyze
| it, and I'm happy that it's a purchase that will be valid my
| entire life.
| Podgajski wrote:
| I was the same way. I have a genetic condition in my family of
| unknown origin and the risk of anything happening. My genetics
| outweighed the possibility, and what turned out to be the
| evidence of what my even partial genome could uncover.
|
| Unfortunately, I was the only one in my family who understood
| this and the rest were too afraid to get the test done even
| though people in my family have died of this disease.
|
| A few years ago I tried to get my full genome from nebula but
| they messed up my order really badly and it took over a year to
| get my money back. But it looks like they might be cleaning up
| their act and the $250 price is really tempting.
|
| Since our disorder is polygenic, there's still a lot of
| questions I have so I'm probably going to get a nebula run as
| well.
| romainsimon wrote:
| I did the same thing. Have you found any software to analyze
| it?
| etdr wrote:
| It's all command line tools, one is called samtools and
| another is called picard, there might be another one I'm
| forgetting.
|
| The interesting this with the data is that it isn't your raw
| genome, it's the entire data from all the sequencing runs of
| 30 or whatever base pairs (I got my scan done at the 30x
| level which is supposed to mean that on average every base
| pair is read 30 times). So it's not like you can just read
| your DNA directly in one string (not sure why I want to do
| that but I like the idea of a single file containing just all
| my nucleotides in sequence). The next step for me, when I go
| back to it, is to get on the forums for those above tools and
| ask how to do the things I want, there are a LOT of
| subcommands.
| Metacelsus wrote:
| BWA and plink are other tools you're forgetting.
| boldlybold wrote:
| Welcome to the wonderful and confusing world of
| bioinformatics!
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| IGV is very nice for viewing sequence data. I've never loaded
| anything into it that wasn't already prepared to be loaded
| into it, but this is probably fairly easy to do. It's really
| nice for viewing three-frame translation to look at the
| proteins encoded by DNA, but for eukaryotes you have to pay
| attention to mRNA splicing even if you know the boundaries of
| the protein coding sequences.
|
| https://igv.org/doc/desktop/#UserGuide/reference_genome/
|
| Edit: Since you use Nebula's service, have you emailed them
| to ask what they recommend for genome viewing and analysis?
| sjaak wrote:
| They mention this: "Access to blockchain based secure storage"
|
| What does that even mean? And do they completely destroy the
| sampled data from all their systems incl. backups? Can't find
| that anywhere.
|
| If not: is it really anonymous?
| NickM wrote:
| Yeah that one bullet point destroyed any trust I might have
| otherwise given this service. I was excited to try it until
| they mentioned blockchain.
|
| There's no plausible reason to use a blockchain instead of a
| traditional database, and many possible risks/downsides. So
| either the company is incompetent, or they're not really using
| a blockchain and their marketing is misleading, but either way
| it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
| DevX101 wrote:
| Just looked at the team and it's founded by George Church,
| professor at Harvard/MIT. There's certainly been some great
| research to come from his labs, but this guy is on the board of
| almost every biotech company to emerge from the Boston area. His
| wikipedia says he cofounded 50 biotech companies, lol. There's a
| few of these 'rockstar' professors that collect companies like
| infinity stones from all the students to pass through their labs.
|
| I wonder how many of these companies were just his name tacked on
| for credibility vs him being deeply involved in the product
| development of direction of the company.
| Nuzzerino wrote:
| I'm pretty sure he has been involved. A friend of mine started
| a company where Church was an advisor, said he was a huge help.
| The same friend also was the one who recommended Nebula to me,
| and I was happy with the service.
| bnjemian wrote:
| I find this fascinating. I once was considering getting my whole
| genome sequenced from Nebula but then I realized that their
| sequencing was being done by Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI).
| The quality of sequencing from BGI is very high, but the reality
| is it has some fairly established ties to the PLA (to the extent
| that it's considered for sanctions by lawmakers). There's been
| concern in the bioinformatics community for years that the
| CCP/PLA, through BGI, has been amassing substantial genomics data
| on people (most notably pregnant women). Unclear why, but - given
| the authoritarianism - the mind can go places. That's the thing
| with running any genomics-oriented organization; at minimum,
| pretty sordid optics can emerge if you're not careful.
|
| I bring this up because Nebula is clearly making a play for
| anonymity which, in my mind, is strange. Perhaps deceitful. The
| thing about genetic data, especially WGS, is that it's hopelessly
| not anonymous. Sure, it can be protected, but given the world we
| live in (hacks, data brokers, etc.), it's the type of data that
| will likely get out into the wild. This past week at 23 and Me is
| a case in point. The comment from another poster here about
| whether they delete it or not is an important one. I suspect they
| don't; for a while Nebula was touting a setup where they held
| onto your data and you could license it for use by pharmaceutical
| companies or researchers and receive payment. Not sure if that's
| still a thing. Either way, I find the notion of "anonymity" here
| very dubious, even if you pay with Monero or similar, use a PO
| box, etc. But that's kinda the reality - these genomics companies
| aren't especially open about a several key facts when you get
| your genome sequence. Another example is that they don't make
| clear that when you get your genome sequenced you are effectively
| unmasking the genome of your extended family.
| mfld wrote:
| AFAIK they do no longer rely on BGI for sequencing, but set-up
| their own facilities.
| PedroBatista wrote:
| Yeah, another round of these "anonymous" services.
|
| It's better than having your name slapped into it, but let's be
| honest here unless you have all your material and tools inside
| your home with no Internet connection, all these things are NOT
| anonymous by definition.
|
| Case in point: 23andMe
| minsight wrote:
| They insist that they have a genome sequencing company but when I
| attempted to use them it became apparent that any success happens
| despite their equipment and processes, rather than because of it.
| Months of waiting led to admonitions that no valid samples could
| be found, which then precipitated further waiting for test kits
| to be re-sent and new tests to be run. Although they eventually
| refunded my fee (after about a year in total of waiting), that
| only happened despite their customer service. I was left with the
| impression that they were selling something that sometimes might
| work but hoping that you'd be willing to hang around for months
| or years until you win the lottery and their process actually
| generates genomic data. Avoid.
| kennywinker wrote:
| Great! Now I can sequence the dna of women I'm creepily
| interested in, coworkers, bosses, and any celebrities i can
| manage to get a sample from by pouring thru their trash at 2am.
| Thanks, Nebula!
| figglestar wrote:
| If another poster's story is true, you could have done that
| before with 23andMe by just paying cash.
| wslh wrote:
| I was curious about this I think we can offer more sophisticated
| (but more computing intensive) anonymity using homomorphic
| encryption. For example, using RISC Zero [1].
|
| [1] https://www.risczero.com/
| kapilkaisare wrote:
| How does this hold up against Sequencing.com [0][1]?
|
| [0]: https://sequencing.com/ [1]: https://sequencing.com/our-
| difference/privacy-forever
| Ringz wrote:
| They are not the first to offer this. Maybe in the US but you can
| do this easily with minimal effort in Germany. And I think they
| don't have that much time till it will be ,,mainstream ,, for
| every patient.
|
| Genome sequencing has become so cheap in recent years (and will
| be much cheaper in the next few years) that everyone who wants it
| will simply get it. Against the background of personalized
| medicine, this is also very useful. (My background: CEO of a
| company for personalized cancer therapy through WGS)
|
| https://www.bundesgesundheitsministerium.de/en/en/internatio...
| jsenn wrote:
| I wonder if there's a way to physically encrypt the DNA before
| sending it off for sequencing--e.g. randomly permute the base
| pairs, send jumbled DNA to sequencing company, get digital
| results back, then decrypt them. Of course generating the
| physical "private key" and then turning it into something usable
| to decrypt the results would have to be much simpler/cheaper than
| the sequencing itself, otherwise you're back at square one...
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| I think the major issues with this approach are:
|
| 1) You aren't sending them naked DNA which can be modified in a
| test tube, you're sending them epithelial cells that they
| extract the DNA from.
|
| 2) Any changes you make would mostly not be complete, and
| they're generating your reference genome from a consensus (to
| account for sequencing errors and DNA damage). This increases
| the odds that any randomization you do is basically swamped by
| the consensus algorithm. If the changes are not swamped then
| your decryption depends on knowing exactly which changes are
| from your encryption algorithm, and exactly which are from
| their consensus algorithm.
|
| 3) Bisulfite conversion, methyltransferases, general
| deamination, and the like make _known_ changes to your genome
| that can easily be fully accounted for during analysis. There
| 's no easily done "random" cryptographic technology that you
| can do on your DNA. And even if there was, it probably wouldn't
| be doable without already knowing your specific sequence.
| renewiltord wrote:
| IMHO this stuff is not necessary. My DNA and that of my wife will
| be public. The rest of my family will volunteer theirs soon. And
| I am looking to expand the amount of public DNA from my ethnic
| group.
|
| Given sufficient time, this information will be useful for the
| progress of science.
|
| In some sense, this is part of a genetic adaptive mechanism. With
| a sufficiently tight-band public genetic release with full health
| history, it is possible that future science will bias to my
| genes.
|
| Perhaps some of mine will be ones people desire and others not.
| But they will optimize to the ones that are studied. That means
| my genes will live on slightly preferentially.
|
| Which, of course, means that I should encourage everyone else to
| keep theirs private.
|
| Amusing thought. But I think we will all be for the better with
| our genomes public. It's okay if others won't submit theirs. We
| will submit ours and may humanity benefit from it.
| Dig1t wrote:
| This is amazing. I will actually pay for this.
|
| Also cool to note that this service sequences your entire genome
| and lets you download the raw data. Which is not something 23 and
| Me offers.
|
| You can open the data in an open source genome browser and read
| the raw information that encodes you. Which I just think is the
| coolest
| rsync wrote:
| Reading the recent New Yorker article about genomic sleuthing[1]
| caused me to conclude that there is _no such thing_ as anonymous
| genomic analysis - at least not the type that analyzes your
| genome to identify risks and commonalities.
|
| All it takes are a few related (even distantly related) samples
| and a skilled observer can quickly narrow down where on a genetic
| tree a sample came from - without knowing anything about the
| person at all.
|
| [1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/11/22/how-your-
| famil...
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(page generated 2023-12-09 23:01 UTC)