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Comment by google234123 | Hacker News Reader

Does that mean that this guy used a service or was a close family member found?

This article doesn’t elaborate and I’m not convinced their source(s) are accurate. There is a competing “source” from another news organization that is claiming they caught this guy when his phone pinged a “smart device” (Alexa or similar) and its MAC address was logged.

However from other cases where genealogy databases are used, typically what happens is once a DNA profile is developed, it can be compared with other entries in the public databases. If there are family members that exist in the database, you can develop a family tree from the known person and attempt to identify the target from public records. Typically the more distant the relative is from the target, the harder it is to come up with a family tree.

AFAIK law enforcement uses publicly available databases and not the private Ancestry or 23andMe DBs, which are thought to be much larger.

These aren't contradictory. You could have DNA id a subject and his phone provide a location, or DNA and the smart phone both point to the same person.

I agree they could both be used. For some reason I find it much more likely they caught him because his phone tried to connect to a device. But maybe I am giving too much credit to the tech surveillance dragnet.

Law Enforcement absolutely uses data from 23 and me and Ancestry

“ In certain circumstances, however, 23andMe may be required by law to comply with a valid court order, subpoena, or search warrant for genetic or personal information.”

https://www.23andme.com/law-enforcement-guide/

While it might be true that 23andMe complies with court orders in specific cases, there is likely a distinction between individual subpoenas and carte blanche catalog access for law enforcement. I say this because a famous cold case in Philadelphia was recently solved with genetic geneaology and the researcher notes explicitly that law enforcement uses GEDMatch and not Ancestry or 23andMe for these cases [0]

[0] https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia/joseph-zarelli-bo...

The GSK case (California’s worst serial killer) was also solved through GEDMatch, and only public queries ie you can remove your profile from it if you care. To the extent that helps anything.

> There is a competing “source” from another news organization that is claiming they caught this guy when his phone pinged a “smart device” (Alexa or similar) and its MAC address was logged.

Link? I haven’t seen this story yet, but I am seeing the genealogy story reported in several places.

It seems unlikely he would have connected to their in-home wifi before/during/after murdering them.

A home wifi that offers guest access through the provider like Comcast or ATT could cause that. I had my iPhone automatically connect to an ATT public access point against my wishes the other day. Beyond that, something like an airtag could have logged a connection, or some bluetooth device that happened to log all IDs it saw.

and from a CNN article

>Genetic genealogy helped investigators identify the suspect, a source with knowledge of the case said. DNA found in Idaho was taken through a public database to find potential matches for family members, the source said. Once potential family matches were found, subsequent investigative work by law enforcement led to the identification of Kohberger, according to the source.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/30/us/university-of-idaho-studen...

From my understanding, you dont even have to do it directly. If any family member does it, you are still toast.

The genealogical technique can work even if only distant relatives have done it.

Well, I suppose you still have to do the murdering…

Think bigger: just being an enemy of an unfriendly state, potentially in your own country 25 years hence, who knows?

> Think bigger: just being an enemy of an unfriendly state, potentially in your own country 25 years hence, who knows?

I don’t understand the logic of the supposed threat you’re talking about: if you’re so worried about some future dystopian authority that throws its ‘enemies’ into prison without them committing any crime, why would they need a relative’s long-ago stored DNA to do it?

A foreign adversary hacks the ancestry database and creates individually targeted genetic attacks.

The ancestry databases (at least, the ones I'm aware of) contain SNPs and not full genomic sequences. Even if "targeted assassination virus" was a real thing, it would almost certainly need more data.

Seems like a lot of work when a bullet or dioxin is much cheaper. In any case, if they really wanted to off someone with a targeted genetic attack, surely they could just swipe their DNA from a door handle, or a piece of mail, or a piece of trash carelessly thrown out, or from their sewage line, or a million different ways.

Sure they can make evidence up, but the logic is that even authoritarian regimes need an inner circle of honest supporters. Think CCP or USSR, they do honestly believe in what they do was right.

Here’s a bigger thought. Imagine a world where serial killers get caught a lot earlier before killing scores of people. The government is not the only enemy.

That unfriendly state would have no issue forcing everyone to give up a dna sample.

So it's not exacly a slippery slope.

On the other hand there's clear benefits of DNA database now in catching murderers and the like. So a clear win.

What I'm more worried about is insurance companies using this info to say you are part of a cohort expressing allele group X% and is thus more likely to Y, and then acting accordingly based on that info. What if in the future your grandchild gets told they express an allele that gives them a propensity to alcoholism, and on those grounds is barred from entering certain establishments without losing coverage, or without permission? It sounds outlandish, but it's not when you consider in some of our lives, we were born able to buy alcohol at any age, then 16, then 18, then 21. Recently in the past 5 years I've heard more than one conversation about possibly revisiting this to include smoking at age 21, and limiting the size of sugar drinks in a single purchase.

I don't consume sugar or alcohol, but it's also not my choice to say what you should do, especially not because of your genetics, yet if I were an insurance company we sign a contract that gives me that right, so why enable it?

Vote for universal healthcare then?, or vote to force coverage on all.

This seems unavoidable otherwise.

I'm more on the side of abolish all insurance and gambling-industry, but I think I'm alone on that sentiment. *

* (and that is completely okay, different strokes and all that)

https://www.wired.com/story/man-found-guilty-in-a-murder-mys...

I remember this story of a killer getting caught by his cousin’s DNA

GSK was found because one of his third cousins had their DNA on GEDMatch. So, someone he shared a great-great-grandparent with. Based on GSK's age, that could mean the DNA uploader and GSK had a single common ancestor who was born in 1845.

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