deleted by creator

Your comment hasn’t been peer reviewed, so I’m gonna take your advice and not believe you.

Many of us have already overcome it! All of them are holding us back though.

Cute!

Sadly, they only live about 2.5 to 3 years.

To some this is an advantage, if you are not ready to commit to 15-20 years for a dog or cat.

Gonna need a couple hundred billion more for that :(

Spiritualists think they are some timeless deity puppeteering their bodies like marionettes, afraid that using the transporter will cut the strings. More palatable to imagine the fleshbag collapsing on the floor without your control inputs than knowing you are the fleshbag…

If I make 100 exact molecular copies of you and lock them up in my emerald mine to slave away for the rest of their lives, but then I take the original you and give you $10 and send you on your way, how is that any different? You know you are the original and nothing can change that, so YOU you have nothing to fear, right?

The cute thing about quantum entanglement is that it provably CANNOT create a clone of you. It is conveniently called no-cloning theorem. It can either move your exact quantum state from a collection of particles in one place onto a collection in another, or it can create imperfect clones of you, but in no situation can it create an exact quantum clone of you in addition to the original.

We’ve got several communities dedicated to plants on mander, including:
!houseplants@mander.xyz (https://mander.xyz/c/houseplants)
!botany@mander.xyz (https://mander.xyz/c/botany)

It’s like… I keep imagining what if I were a Manchurian Candidate CEO and tried to destroy the entire value of my company as surely as possible before being found out, what decisions would I make? And I must say, what spez and musk are doing keeps surprising me at every turn, because even in my imagination I have not come up with schemes as effective as theirs.

I disagree with the rest of your thesis too. You are saying that in principle, the state and dynamics of the world could be described by a generator function, such that you input (x,y,z,t) to it and it returns what is happening in that place at that time without needing to reference or calculate the rest of the world. Or it would, IF NOT for the free will. Like how if I asked you “what is the millionth Fibonacci number” you could use the Fibonacci formula to simply calculate the millionth number without needing to do a million intermediate additions.

But what if I asked you “what is the millionth SHA256 hash of ‘’”? The hash function is perfectly deterministic, there is no quantum woo involved, and definitely no free will. And yet you would not be able to answer me without calculating every single hash in between. Or for a physical system example - a double pendulum is extremely simple, yet you could not predict its state at time t, even knowing its starting parameters exactly, without calculating its dynamics for all the time in between.

This is my position. Humans are purely physical systems, there is no need to invoke magical outside supernatural influence. Physics does not behave differently, switching between “particle” and “wave”, depending on whether a human is involved. This is a common misconception in popularized science. To determine what choice a human will make, knowing the starting positions of all the particles in the lightcone is sufficient. However you would not in general be able to predict the final configuration of a system without calculating every single intermediate state in between. Free will does exist, but to you making a decision it is impossible to tell whether your momentary mental state is part of the greater physical universe, or embedded in some calculation about that universe.

One way that google explicitly enables these types of scams is by allowing advertisers to display a fake url in the ad footer. Ostensibly this is so advertisers can link to an intermediary 3rd-party tracking url instead of the target page without scaring the customers, but this is precisely what allows scammers to display usps.com in the link to a fraud site. Google even uses javascript to display the fake url in the browser tooltip when you hover over the link!

Then if you interact with them, it records the difference between what the function would generate normally and the changes. This saves on memory as it only records the interactions.

I WISH that’s how minecraft did it! But minecraft specifically does not do this. Once the chunks are generated, they are stored on disk as full voxels, from bedrock to sky. When minecraft version/generator function changes, you can see the transition line between old and new chunks (used to be abrupt, now smoothed a bit). Large worlds take up gigabytes, or even terabytes of space, even if most of it is wild terrain.

There’s also no addresses on Gedmatch, the police would email you and ask for your details.

You are splitting hairs. Unless you took precautions to use a fake name and an untraceable email address, the police are showing up at your door. It’s what they do.

On the ‘turned on by default’ statement, that’s just untrue.

Here’s the gedmatch page describing their policy, and here’s the screenshot they use to illustrate it:

“Public” is selected by default. Yeah yeah, they added “public opt-in” and “public opt-out” options in 2019 and forgot to update their screenshot, but I bet “public opt-in” is still selected by default. The NYT article says exactly that too. It is just untrue to call that “just untrue”! And can you guess what happened to all the people who uploaded their DNA data before 2019? Were all they automatically upgraded to “public opt-in”? I don’t understand why you are so adamant to protect gedmatch saying “go ahead, upload your DNA freely!” when we know for sure that it was a free-for-all at least until 2019.

And you are still splitting hairs because you haven’t refuted my main claim that police can get your data with a warrant. All that “opt-in/opt-out” is for the gedmatch’s voluntary police information warrantless sharing program. I have seen no indication that gedmatch will not search the entire database for a match upon police request with a warrant. I have reason to believe that they will, because I know the state is sovereign. You cannot shield your information stored at third parties from government search just because you signed a privacy agreement with them.

The law dictates it must have an opt in policy

The law of the state of Maryland, not the other 49 states. And I looked up the actual law, it doesn’t actually say “opt-in” contrary to the news article description of it:
https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Legislation/Details/hb0240?ys=2021RS https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2021RS/Chapters_noln/CH_681_hb0240e.pdf

(D) FGGS MAY ONLY BE CONDUCTED USING A DIRECT–TO–CONSUMER OR PUBLICLY AVAILABLE OPEN–DATA PERSONAL GENOMICS DATABASE THAT: (1) PROVIDES EXPLICIT NOTICE TO ITS SERVICE USERS AND THE PUBLIC THAT LAW ENFORCEMENT MAY USE ITS SERVICE SITES TO INVESTIGATE CRIMES OR TO IDENTIFY UNIDENTIFIED HUMAN REMAINS; AND (2) SEEKS ACKNOWLEDGMENT AND CONSENT FROM ITS SERVICE USERS REGARDING THE SUBSTANCE OF THE NOTICE DESCRIBED IN ITEM (1) OF THIS SUBSECTION.

To me that sounds more like “providing a warning” than providing an “opt-in/opt-out” system. The “acknowledgment and consent” could be as simple as clicking “I agree to terms of service”. Here’s what gedmatch privacy policy says:

some of these possible uses of Raw Data, personal information, and/or Genealogy Data by any registered user of GEDmatch include but are not limited to:
Familial searching by third parties such as law enforcement agencies to identify the perpetrator of a crime, or to identify remains.
…
We may disclose your Raw Data, personal information, and/or Genealogy Data if it is necessary to comply with a legal obligation such as a subpoena or warrant.
…
we may use and disclose personal information for meeting legal requirements and enforcing legal terms, as described in more detail above

I am not a lawyer but to me that sounds like an explicit notice that law enforcement may get my data and satisfies the Maryland law requirement for a warrant. Specifically, gedmatch policy does not say they will ignore a warrant if you opt out. Again, my assertion is that the opt-in/opt-out system is for the voluntary warrantless information sharing system, and the warrants described in Maryland law are separate from that.

You also imply that 23andMe and ancestry.com do NOT share any information with law enforcement because they do not have an opt-in system. This is also false. Here’s ancestry.com policy:

Ancestry will release basic subscriber information as defined in 18 USC § 2703©(2) about Ancestry users to law enforcement only in response to a valid trial, grand jury or administrative subpoena.

Ancestry will release additional account information or transactional information pertaining to an account (such as search terms, but not including the contents of communications) only in response to a court order issued pursuant to 18 USC § 2703(d).

Contents of communications and any data relating to the DNA of an Ancestry user will be released only pursuant to a valid search warrant from a government agency with proper jurisdiction.

They WILL give up your DNA data to a valid warrant. The only question in my mind is whether they will also search the entire database for a given police sample. There is this article that says ancestry.com refused a police warrant in 2019 as improper, and police did not push the matter further. But it is unclear if ancestry.com was refusing to search its database on principle, or whether that one warrant in particular was faulty. Like if the police request “all 15 million DNA records” because they are idiots and don’t know how databases work there is grounds to argue that is too broad of a request. But we don’t have the text of the actual warrant. There are other articles that say police have been using specifically ancestry.com successfully to investigate crimes.

Someone would need to search the actual court cases where police used genealogy data to find suspects to confirm whether every single instance has used GEDMatch voluntary opt-in service, or whether police warrants have successfully retrieved match data from GEDMatch full database and from ancestry.com and 23andMe. I do not have such access.

EVEN IF ancestry.com and GEDmatch refuse warrants to search non-opt-in DNA in databases, such refusals have not yet been tested in court.

EVEN IF the Maryland law is amended/interpreted to mean that police cannot search non-opt-in DNA in databases even with a warrant (a voluntary restriction of the state on its own sovereign power, quite possible!), and EVEN IF the opt-in is made an explicit choice made in consultation with a “trained bioethicist” instead of an “I agree” checkbox below Terms of Service, and EVEN IF all other 49 states pass the same law as Maryland, it would STILL not be perfectly safe to upload your DNA to these services. Just as Maryland law changed in 2019, so it can change again. As we’ve seen with Roe v. Wade even long-established laws are not safe when there is a political interest to change them.

this is unrelated to genetic genealogy

Am I still misunderstanding something?

Beginning on Oct. 1, investigators working on Maryland cases will need a judge’s signoff before using the method, in which a “profile” of thousands of DNA markers from a crime scene is uploaded to genealogy websites to find relatives of the culprit. The new law, sponsored by Democratic lawmakers, also dictates that the technique be used only for serious crimes, such as murder and sexual assault. And it states that investigators may only use websites with strict policies around user consent.

To me that reads that the court order allows the police to use the genealogy database. For example:

• I am curious about my genes
• I submit my DNA for sequencing
• Some years later some cousin rapes and murders someone, dumps the body
• Police find body, find unknown DNA
• Police get court order in murder case
• Police force genealogy database to scan for matching DNA
• Genealogy database gives police my name
• Police show up at my door, start asking if I have any relatives that “kinda like to rape people”
• Police hang out behind my house, steal the pizza crust from my trash bin for further DNA tests

Is that not a plausible scenario? What in the language of the law used by the NYT article makes you think this is disallowed? And remember, this is for Maryland only. The other 49 states can obtain a court order for any reason, be it murder or subway fare dodging.

it’s a program you need to opt in to

Again, not what privacy advocates from the NYT article say:

Currently, customers of GEDmatch and FamilyTreeDNA are given a choice about whether to participate in these searches. But the companies provide little information about what those searches entail, and the opt-in settings are turned on by default.

I.e. more like opt-out than opt-in, and again, irrelevant in case of a court order.

Ok, maybe I’m misremembering. There was some case where detectives simply submitted the DNA as their own, but maybe it was not GSK. Found this New York Times article: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/31/science/dna-police-laws.html

May 31, 2021 New laws in Maryland and Montana are the first in the nation to restrict law enforcement’s use of genetic genealogy, the DNA matching technique that in 2018 identified the Golden State Killer, in an effort to ensure the genetic privacy of the accused and their relatives.

Ah. So at least in 2021 only two states had any laws against trolling genealogy databases at all. Before 2021 none did. How many of remaining 48 have passes any laws about it since?

Beginning on Oct. 1, investigators working on Maryland cases will need a judge’s signoff before using the method, in which a “profile” of thousands of DNA markers from a crime scene is uploaded to genealogy websites to find relatives of the culprit.

As I said, a website cannot “allow” something if the police have a court order. They can only obey. Before 2021 police in Maryland could get genealogy info without court order. Now they can get it with one.

Montana’s new law, sponsored by a Republican, is narrower, requiring that government investigators obtain a search warrant before using a consumer DNA database, unless the consumer has waived the right to privacy.

Ok, so in Montana only:

• with court order, can get all DNA data
• without court order, can get DNA data of consumers who waved their privacy rights

What does waving entail?

Privacy advocates like Ms. Ram have been worried about genetic genealogy since 2018, when it was used to great fanfare to reveal the identity of the Golden State Killer, who murdered 13 people and raped dozens of women in the 1970s and ’80s. After matching the killer’s DNA to entries in two large genealogy databases, GEDmatch and FamilyTreeDNA, investigators in California identified some of the culprit’s cousins, and then spent months building his family tree to deduce his name — Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. — and arrest him.

Ok, so GEDmatch and FamilyTreeDNA were used, without court order…

Another sticky provision: Investigators may use only genealogy companies that have explicitly informed the public and their customers that law enforcement uses their databases, and that have asked for their customers’ consent to participate. Currently, customers of GEDmatch and FamilyTreeDNA are given a choice about whether to participate in these searches. But the companies provide little information about what those searches entail, and the opt-in settings are turned on by default.

Apparently that “need to opt in” you mentioned does exist, but it’s more like an opt out really.

Unlike 23andMe and Ancestry, which have kept their immense genetic databases unavailable to law enforcement without a court order, GEDmatch and FamilyTreeDNA are eager to cooperate.

Aha! So GEDmatch and FamilyTreeDNA did and are giving police DNA info upon request without court order, and 23andMe and Ancestry are giving police DNA info with court order only. We can now construct this matrix:

Can police get your DNA data from genealogy database?

	GEDMatch FamilyTreeDNA	-	23andMe	Ancestry
	with optout	default
Maryland w/o court order	no	no	no	no
Maryland w/ court order	yes	yes	yes	yes
Montana w/o court order	no	yes	no	no
Montana w/ court order	yes	yes	yes	yes
other 48 states w/o court order	no	yes	no	no
other 48 states w/ court order	yes	yes	yes	yes

You see it gets rather complicated… Rather than telling users to play 3SAT with the latest legal rules of their state, it’s easier to simply say “If you submit your DNA for sequencing, police might get it.”

In other cases, detectives might surreptitiously collect the DNA of a suspect’s relative by testing an object that the relative discarded in the trash. Maryland’s new law states that when police officers test the DNA of “third parties” — people other than the suspect — they must get consent in writing first, unless a judge approves deceptive collection.

Oh wow, what a case! Again, all this deception legal at the time, and still legal in 49 states without court order, and legal in Maryland with court order.

Most companies don’t cooperate with law enforcement

All companies are still subject to the jurisdiction of their country. Perhaps you meant they are not voluntarily sending an unsolicited copy of every DNA profile to the nearest law enforcement office, but they still obey court warrants and extrajudicial subpoenas like National Security Letters.

Moreover, law enforcement doesn’t even need to submit an official request. The Golden State Killer was caught after police detectives uploaded his DNA to a personal genomics website in 2017 pretending it was theirs. The website returned a list of relatives, which police used to find the killer. This was all perfectly legal.

For sure, don’t go around killing people, but don’t rely on these companies to protect your genetic privacy either.

This is a diametrically opposite problem from what the parent comment was talking about. They were saying that P2P is bad at sharing new popular content from one user to many, which is patently false. You are worried about old content that hasn’t been accessed in years and decades disappearing. This is a real question to think about.

Right now reddit and twitter bear the burden of maintaining access to entirety of old content. Reddit even has a system to “archive” posts older than 6 months to make storing them on server easier. In a decentralized network, no one user has that responsibility. What can be done about it? Maybe we need to reconsider our idea of “permanence”, tone down our expectations that all content will be accessible forever, even if no one accesses it. Maybe a censorship-free P2P network would need some sort of sunset system anyway, because otherwise it will fill up with useless spam (the same way Usenet was made useless because it became 1% posts and 99% binaries). Maybe data hoarder enthusiasts will run archive nodes with much larger storage dedicated to preserving old post history. Maybe you can add a filecoin-like system to your P2P network, where you pay $0.01 to guarantee that your comment remains online for 10 years, $0.02 for 20 years, etc. Not recommending it, just saying there are options.

Do note that neither reddit nor lemmy are immune to such bitrot. If reddit goes bankrupt and shuts down servers tomorrow, all that content will be gone as well. Maybe archive.org will manage to save a snapshot, maybe pushshift.io will have a backcopy, but what about all the posts made since pushshift API access was revoked? They’d be gone. As lemmy instances go in and out of existence over the years, what happens if this instance and the ones that got a federated copy of this post all go offline? This post will be gone from history as well. Its continued existence can only be guaranteed if users on the new instances years in the future go back and view it here again before it disappears.

BitTorrent didn’t get the memo apparently.

this can get super exhausting so fast

I wish to see a P2P network with moderation “subscriptions”! So you can subscribe to the “anti-spam list” or “!asklemmy moderation list by @mekhos” or “anti-xenophobic list”. The integrity of each filter list is upheld by its reputation. If a spam list flags too many legitimate users, people have the choice to abandon it. If users of a community (which is just a hashtag) don’t like the direction the mods are steering it, they can resubscribe to a different set of mods.