Being of Japanese ancestry, it would be difficult if not impossible to find anyone on my family tree past my grandparents who were born in the 1880's. I already know where they came from. I'm pretty sure everyone previous to them were peasants.
Company “23 and me” hacked. DNA information on members and relatives released to web hackers
- Thread starter John Galt
- Start date
I have learned a lot from my DNA testing on 23andMe and Ancestry and was able to fill in large portions of my family tree. Fun stuff.
A few years ago I was contacted separately by two guys who saw we were related through DNA, but had no information on their paternal side. They asked for my help in learning their heritage. Turns out one's father was a first cousin of mine who I never met since he was adopted in 1947, and the other guy was a love child of a second cousin. I filled them in on their entire father's side of their family and the love child happily reconnected with his family. Both were extremely grateful.
A few years ago I was contacted separately by two guys who saw we were related through DNA, but had no information on their paternal side. They asked for my help in learning their heritage. Turns out one's father was a first cousin of mine who I never met since he was adopted in 1947, and the other guy was a love child of a second cousin. I filled them in on their entire father's side of their family and the love child happily reconnected with his family. Both were extremely grateful.
Reminds me, I work for the govt, and our network security B]>
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- Jun 8, 2022
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- 5,570
What's crazy is cops/detectives/investigators have had a real tough time figuring this out. Pretty easy to get most anyone's DNA in my opinion....
1) Many people really don't have the truth on their ancestry. Grandma can have it wrong - told wrong, etc.
2) The accuracy on 23me is not perfect (sometimes dubious) , based on regional haplo-grouping but gets better with data/time
3) It really angers me that medical companies have so many data breaches. It's not a theory that some hackers do this for pride or vengeance, but money IS involved. Think ransom as just a forward way, or worse long term use of data.
4) It's interesting. Medical, credit unions, stores seem to be agencies that are hacked which directly impact my life. With wife and kids, I think I can count 4 maybe 5 hacked medical institutions alone. What is curious, why not more hacks of financial institutions, banks, brokerages? They must have some serious protection. Not a theory, just thinking out loud. Not political, not lewd, not religion.
2) The accuracy on 23me is not perfect (sometimes dubious) , based on regional haplo-grouping but gets better with data/time
3) It really angers me that medical companies have so many data breaches. It's not a theory that some hackers do this for pride or vengeance, but money IS involved. Think ransom as just a forward way, or worse long term use of data.
4) It's interesting. Medical, credit unions, stores seem to be agencies that are hacked which directly impact my life. With wife and kids, I think I can count 4 maybe 5 hacked medical institutions alone. What is curious, why not more hacks of financial institutions, banks, brokerages? They must have some serious protection. Not a theory, just thinking out loud. Not political, not lewd, not religion.
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I'm not sure how it happened...but I have an ATM card for the estate account for my dad's estate. I have ONLY ever used it in a Truist ATM, to make check deposits. Somehow about $125 of fraudulent charges for "Twitch TV" showed up on it. I had to call the bank to get them removed.
No explanation as to how that happened. Card had NEVER been used otherwise. Had NEVER been used to make a purchase anywhere.
My wife read an article a few years ago about how our main geopolitical adversary could use DNA info to their benefit against us in the future....I decided I wouldn't get tested.
On another note, my daughter adopted a puppy from a 'kill shelter' in North Carolina 6 years ago...she was a mixed breed with obviously a lot of pitbull in her. She resembles a small Rottweiler in color and appearance (about 45 lbs). My daughter paid for DNA testing out of curiosity ($80 or $90 IIRC). She had several breeds show up on the test, Pitbull, Golden Receiver, and a few that I can't remember....no Rottweiler at all. We later read about a guy who had his purebred GSD tested without the lab being told what breed it was and it came back as totally different breeds. Needless to say, I have little faith in a $80 DNA test.
PS: I just texted my daughter asking about her dog's DNA test and here's the result:
37.5% American Staffordshire Terrier (I can see that)
25% Miniature American Shepherd (I can't see that at all)
12.5% Boxer (possibly)
12.5% Golden Retriever (I can't see that but she will retrieve balls, sticks etc...as long as you keep throwing them)
12.5% Breed Groups (I assume that means small amounts of other breeds)
On another note, my daughter adopted a puppy from a 'kill shelter' in North Carolina 6 years ago...she was a mixed breed with obviously a lot of pitbull in her. She resembles a small Rottweiler in color and appearance (about 45 lbs). My daughter paid for DNA testing out of curiosity ($80 or $90 IIRC). She had several breeds show up on the test, Pitbull, Golden Receiver, and a few that I can't remember....no Rottweiler at all. We later read about a guy who had his purebred GSD tested without the lab being told what breed it was and it came back as totally different breeds. Needless to say, I have little faith in a $80 DNA test.
PS: I just texted my daughter asking about her dog's DNA test and here's the result:
37.5% American Staffordshire Terrier (I can see that)
25% Miniature American Shepherd (I can't see that at all)
12.5% Boxer (possibly)
12.5% Golden Retriever (I can't see that but she will retrieve balls, sticks etc...as long as you keep throwing them)
12.5% Breed Groups (I assume that means small amounts of other breeds)
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With regards to the theory that hackers who got into a 23andme account could have access to the raw DNA--no. You have to request your raw DNA file and they send you a download link via email. (I believe that download link expires after a period of time). So they'd have to break into your email too.
Someone somehow managed to computer generate a valid 16-digit card number, an expiration date, AND a pin?
The chances of that are very, very small.
It has happened. I doubt still it was a mass data breach.
There are other methods, but the use method was obviously remote.
They'd have to attempt a transaction with each computer generated number..and what bank is going to allow the huge number of attempts required before blocking the card?
That is, unless, they happened to generate all the correct numbers on the first try. The lottery has better odds.
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More info emerging. Potential username/password breach. The fact they didn’t require two factor authentication is embarrassing and completely unacceptable, imo.
www.wired.com
www.which.co.uk
Now the world has permanent access to who is related to whom. Insurance companies could use this to tailor rates against familial risk factors, law enforcement could use this to incriminate people, foreign or even domestic actors could use this to track debts, find people in witness protection, scam people, or create any myriad of other insidious associations. Worse yet, people who never signed up will be affected if anybody remotely related to them has participated.
For those unbothered by this, suggest brushing up on data science, data table joins, classification/regression, etc. Data like this is potentially incredibly powerful when linked with other datasets.
This is a sad day for liberty and privacy rights.
The 23andMe Data Breach Keeps Spiraling
23andMe has provided more information about the scope and scale of its recent breach, but with these details come more unanswered questions.
23andMe data breach affected 6.9 million customers - Which? News
The DNA testing company was hacked by cybercriminals trying to sell its user data online
Now the world has permanent access to who is related to whom. Insurance companies could use this to tailor rates against familial risk factors, law enforcement could use this to incriminate people, foreign or even domestic actors could use this to track debts, find people in witness protection, scam people, or create any myriad of other insidious associations. Worse yet, people who never signed up will be affected if anybody remotely related to them has participated.
For those unbothered by this, suggest brushing up on data science, data table joins, classification/regression, etc. Data like this is potentially incredibly powerful when linked with other datasets.
This is a sad day for liberty and privacy rights.
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The criminal computers bounce the numbers around not all numbers hit the same service, nor is one number repeated. It's not a human doing it.
Anyway we are both way off topic here. PM me if you want to talk about other scenarios. I've dealt with this stuff since 2007
Just gonna put this here, I think the problem is with Truist and this seems to show that:
And:
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Months after Channel 2 investigation, Truist Bank customers still experiencing fraud problems
The issues first started after the merger of Sun Trust and BB&T banks were finalized.
www.wsbtv.com
About 20 years ago a woman came forward with a story that she had been adopted, later found out who her real mother was but the mother wouldn't reveal who her father was. Her mother made a deathbed confession and named my dad as her father. My dad died when I was a child so he wasn't around to defend himself and my siblings and I tried to make sure my mom didn't get a hint of the story before she passed away.
Fast forward to a few years ago. The woman did a DNA test on one of the popular websites and not only found out who her real father was, but found a couple of siblings from her real mom and real dad, and another one from her real mom and another guy.
It was a relief for my siblings and I but still raised the question as to why her mom named my dad as the father. We'll never know but at least the DNA test proved she wasn't our half sister.
Fast forward to a few years ago. The woman did a DNA test on one of the popular websites and not only found out who her real father was, but found a couple of siblings from her real mom and real dad, and another one from her real mom and another guy.
It was a relief for my siblings and I but still raised the question as to why her mom named my dad as the father. We'll never know but at least the DNA test proved she wasn't our half sister.
Just gonna put this here, I think the problem is with Truist and this seems to show that:
And:
Months after Channel 2 investigation, Truist Bank customers still experiencing fraud problems
The issues first started after the merger of Sun Trust and BB&T banks were finalized.
Wow. OK I will admit I put too much into your statement about no idea how it happened! You are just seeing this now as well? They never told you obviously. Total hassle, but you should change
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