How They Caught The Golden State Killer

What Hacker News said

Strong rec falcolas · 2022-02 · on “San Francisco police linked a woman to a crime using DNA from her rape exam”

DNA is a genie that's flown far and free from their bottle. Even if you are not in the system directly (from, say, 23&me, rape kits, arrests, etc), someone within 2-3 degrees of separation on your family tree is. It's enough for you to be identified in most cases. If you haven't watched the video Veritasium did about the Golden State Killer, I highly recommend it. It details quite nicely how if anybody has your DNA sample, the police have access to it. [this video] Bonus points for noticing how many of these company reps who tout "nothing to hide" like protecting their own privacy.

Cites johncessna · 2021-10 · on “Investigators say they've finally identified the Zodiac Killer”

Weird, I just finished watching Veritasium's [1] latest video which featured the techniques for finding the Golden State Killer, and saw this one come across the feed. [1] [this video]

Cites nextaccountic · 2021-10 · on “Why kidney failure led me to found an Health Tech Startup”

Do they store the dna in a database that law enforcement could, perhaps with a subpoena, have access to? Here's a video how law enforcement can get a match on a dna database through any of your relatives that did a dna test there. [this video] This kind of thing creates a chilling effect in which people avoid getting the medical help they need just to not contribute with a permanent genetic database. This kind of stuff is exactly why HIPAA exists. Also: why did they give you a summary, but gave the doctors a full report? Could you get the full report if you asked them?

Cites donatj · 2021-11 · on “Facebook plans to shut down its facial recognition system”

If you don't like that, you're going to hate this. [this video] Basically they can find you from your DNA, even if only a couple very distant relatives ever gave theirs.

Cites aaron695 · 2021-11 · on “Ask HN: Have you done a DNA test for health reasons and learned anything useful?”

Not directly useful to me. In hind-site I guess obvious. All the solutions you should do anyway. Lung cancer, any cancer, Alzheimer's, heart disease - Don't smoke, filter your air, don't drink (to much), lower stress, eat healthy, have good relationships with people. My skin cancer was low, should I wear sunscreen less? Maybe it breaks some peoples self denial or gives them a kick in the ass? Definitely do it though a Chinese company if you can. Keep it out of the hands of governments that control you. Probably you are screwed anyway on this - "How 1 Person Can Expose The Identities of 1000" - Veritasium - [this video] I think it's good to get control of your body. Maybe it's busy work. Maybe it'

Cites timmytokyo · 2021-11 · on “All Those 23andMe Spit Tests Were Part of a Bigger Plan”

Except that this kind of person is related to other people who might have different views on such consent. [this video]

Cites afiori · 2022-02 · on “San Francisco police linked a woman to a crime using DNA from her rape exam”

Finding people from remote relatives and medical inferences. If someone has access to enough nicely distributed DNA samples they can correctly identify you from your DNA even if you are not in any database only based on your family tree. Varitasium video for reference: [this video] This is generally time consuming and done to identify criminals but it is very simple.

Cites morebortplates · 2023-06 · on “We can ID people from DNA that shows up in environmental studies”

That's exactly how the so called Golden State Killer was caught. [LINK] Video by Veritassium about the case: [this video]