In-valid user
July 22, 2015 8:35 PM Subscribe
In 2012 the genetics company 23andme gave web app developers the ability to create app mashups with DNA information. Most apps help users add genetics to their electronic health record, or connect with relatives, or explore risk factors for diseases. Two days ago a new webapp did something different: it showed how to only let white people in.
The "Genetic Access Control" web app is a proof of concept that demonstrates how a social network, dating site, or message board could limit its users based on their sex, ethnicity, or predisposition to disease. The demonstration (non-functional as of late) required a user to authenticate with 23andme's site, then granted access if the user was "white enough".
23andme quickly pulled the API key that allowed "Genetic Access Control" to interact with 23andme servers. The app was created by the "Offensive Application Programming Initiative", about which nothing is known.
The "Genetic Access Control" web app is a proof of concept that demonstrates how a social network, dating site, or message board could limit its users based on their sex, ethnicity, or predisposition to disease. The demonstration (non-functional as of late) required a user to authenticate with 23andme's site, then granted access if the user was "white enough".
23andme quickly pulled the API key that allowed "Genetic Access Control" to interact with 23andme servers. The app was created by the "Offensive Application Programming Initiative", about which nothing is known.
An excellent reason to never let genetic shibboleths exist, by never giving away your genetic data in the first place. (Step 1: rethink routine DNA sampling of arrestees.)
posted by Rangi at 8:50 PM on July 22, 2015 [13 favorites]
posted by Rangi at 8:50 PM on July 22, 2015 [13 favorites]
Tell me again about how algorithms can't be racist?
Also: The app was created by the "Offensive Application Programming Initiative", about which nothing is known.
I do know that they are "sharing" an acronym with the Online Abuse Prevention Initiative, founded (at least in part) by Randi Harper, creator of the goobergobble autoblocker, which casts a little bit of light on the mentality of these folks.
posted by sparklemotion at 8:51 PM on July 22, 2015 [16 favorites]
Also: The app was created by the "Offensive Application Programming Initiative", about which nothing is known.
I do know that they are "sharing" an acronym with the Online Abuse Prevention Initiative, founded (at least in part) by Randi Harper, creator of the goobergobble autoblocker, which casts a little bit of light on the mentality of these folks.
posted by sparklemotion at 8:51 PM on July 22, 2015 [16 favorites]
I do know that they are "sharing" an acronym with the Online Abuse Prevention Initiative, founded (at least in part) by Randi Harper, creator of the goobergobble autoblocker, which casts a little bit of light on the mentality of these folks.
In fairness, there are oodles of things with the initials OAPI. But that's only a token, because I'm pretty much positive that this was intended as a dig at them. I mean, one of the examples on the github page mentioned blocking based on gender, and I can imagine GGers claiming that these things are completely identical.
posted by Going To Maine at 8:54 PM on July 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
In fairness, there are oodles of things with the initials OAPI. But that's only a token, because I'm pretty much positive that this was intended as a dig at them. I mean, one of the examples on the github page mentioned blocking based on gender, and I can imagine GGers claiming that these things are completely identical.
posted by Going To Maine at 8:54 PM on July 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
Definitely came up with nerds I talk to a couple of times today. As trolling goes, this is some seriously high-test stuff. I tried to articulate on here, a few weeks back, how I feel like even really mundane databases perfectly distill the law of unintended consequences. Even if 23andme is not precisely a mundane db, this gets you to kind of a next-level version of that point in a hurry.
posted by brennen at 8:57 PM on July 22, 2015 [10 favorites]
posted by brennen at 8:57 PM on July 22, 2015 [10 favorites]
I think the trolling is going over my head a little bit. What point exactly are they trying to make?
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 9:00 PM on July 22, 2015
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 9:00 PM on July 22, 2015
OAPI. Opie? He was real white.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:01 PM on July 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:01 PM on July 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
I think the trolling is going over my head a little bit. What point exactly are they trying to make?
Imagine a Stormfront you can only read if you can prove that you're white based on your DNA.
posted by Going To Maine at 9:05 PM on July 22, 2015 [10 favorites]
Imagine a Stormfront you can only read if you can prove that you're white based on your DNA.
posted by Going To Maine at 9:05 PM on July 22, 2015 [10 favorites]
I think the trolling is going over my head a little bit. What point exactly are they trying to make?
What I take this to reinforce is that collected data is likely to be used in ways other than intended by its owners or the (entirely non-malicious, even) providers of services which collect it. Some of these uses will tend towards the pathological.
Maybe that's not the point they're trying to make, but it seems like a pretty good point.
posted by brennen at 9:08 PM on July 22, 2015 [30 favorites]
What I take this to reinforce is that collected data is likely to be used in ways other than intended by its owners or the (entirely non-malicious, even) providers of services which collect it. Some of these uses will tend towards the pathological.
Maybe that's not the point they're trying to make, but it seems like a pretty good point.
posted by brennen at 9:08 PM on July 22, 2015 [30 favorites]
Imagine a Stormfront you can only read if you can prove that you're white based on your DNA.
Do the people behind Stormfront not want non-white people to know about it? I mean, I would think the point of building a website is exactly the opposite, especially in that case. And it's not as if all white people (or any other genetically-identifiable group) think Stormfront (or insert other theoretically genetically-identifiable group here) is OK. How long would it take before a white "race traitor" (ugh) would copy-paste the secret racist screeds onto a publicly-facing site? I mean, this kind of access control makes sense if you don't think about it for more than a few seconds.
posted by axiom at 9:22 PM on July 22, 2015
Do the people behind Stormfront not want non-white people to know about it? I mean, I would think the point of building a website is exactly the opposite, especially in that case. And it's not as if all white people (or any other genetically-identifiable group) think Stormfront (or insert other theoretically genetically-identifiable group here) is OK. How long would it take before a white "race traitor" (ugh) would copy-paste the secret racist screeds onto a publicly-facing site? I mean, this kind of access control makes sense if you don't think about it for more than a few seconds.
posted by axiom at 9:22 PM on July 22, 2015
Fuck it. The thread is gonna get completely Godwinned in mere seconds no matter what I say, and this is a domain where I don't think there's a sane reading of that as inappropriate, so I'll link this piece that a friend of mine passed along earlier.
posted by brennen at 9:23 PM on July 22, 2015 [28 favorites]
posted by brennen at 9:23 PM on July 22, 2015 [28 favorites]
The only thing that surprises me about this is that it took this long, although, maybe it's happened in the past without all of the attention this has gotten. I seem to recall reading some speculation about something like this when the API went online, but that might just be me remembering my own qualms.
I notice that only the API key used by the app creators has been disabled, not the API itself. Copycats will be incoming and perhaps some hard questions are being asked about what 23andme is going to do about the potential for abuse. The answers, I suspect, will not please many people, as this activity (filtering for specific genetic traits) is exactly what's meant to be implemented with databases of genetic information.
posted by Revvy at 9:26 PM on July 22, 2015 [3 favorites]
I notice that only the API key used by the app creators has been disabled, not the API itself. Copycats will be incoming and perhaps some hard questions are being asked about what 23andme is going to do about the potential for abuse. The answers, I suspect, will not please many people, as this activity (filtering for specific genetic traits) is exactly what's meant to be implemented with databases of genetic information.
posted by Revvy at 9:26 PM on July 22, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Monochrome
fry_squinting_face.jpg
posted by kagredon at 9:34 PM on July 22, 2015 [13 favorites]
fry_squinting_face.jpg
posted by kagredon at 9:34 PM on July 22, 2015 [13 favorites]
I am grateful for my dad's cynicism in hindsight that grounded me in a bone deep awareness that the people in power of a state infrastructure - any position of power really - can and will kill you without justice. Capital punishment is the ultimate control a state has over citizens, but there are plenty of steps before that. You survive and you work on getting good people into the system and criticising not the system and working with and against it to keep it healthy , but to ever believe it was inherently neutral or even good was laughable. Tiny eight year old me asking him earnestly about Martin Luther King and Apartheid and getting a vivid and soul crushing talk about state torture and oil company profits that he'd seen firsthand in Nigeria was upset but now I'm weirdly grateful because I didn't go through the adolescent disillusionment - it was clear the powerful could and did kill, even protected wealthy brats like me.
This database exclusion is not going to be a surprise to anyone who's struggled with immigration, welfare or a thousand other official hurdles that demand privacy and data to classify you. It's just amusing to see a private company colliding in.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 9:35 PM on July 22, 2015 [12 favorites]
This database exclusion is not going to be a surprise to anyone who's struggled with immigration, welfare or a thousand other official hurdles that demand privacy and data to classify you. It's just amusing to see a private company colliding in.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 9:35 PM on July 22, 2015 [12 favorites]
Weirdly enough I hand over all my data to my government. I assume they can see it all anyway so why bother.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 9:35 PM on July 22, 2015
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 9:35 PM on July 22, 2015
The average user is going to find out what the intelligence community has known for a long time: data aggregation can raise classification. This is the second time I've heard of some jacked up api-mashup like this (a dating/stalking app, i think) and I hardly pay attention to consumer security stuff.
We should all be careful to only release our personal information after careful consideration and only in specific aggregations that minimize risk.
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha...
I don't really see how closing the barn door after the mashup is already published is a viable methodology. to paraphrase bruce, it's like trying to make APIs not wet.
posted by j_curiouser at 9:38 PM on July 22, 2015 [4 favorites]
We should all be careful to only release our personal information after careful consideration and only in specific aggregations that minimize risk.
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha...
I don't really see how closing the barn door after the mashup is already published is a viable methodology. to paraphrase bruce, it's like trying to make APIs not wet.
posted by j_curiouser at 9:38 PM on July 22, 2015 [4 favorites]
The 23andme API lets you directly request "ancestry". What exactly did 23andme think it was going to be used for? Because I can think of a dozen deeply questionable applications and maybe two benign ones.
posted by Pyry at 9:49 PM on July 22, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by Pyry at 9:49 PM on July 22, 2015 [7 favorites]
further, consider the vast filtering and collections against aggregations of your personal data - that are likely already occurring - unbeknownst to anyone. no high-profile, no public trolling, arstechnica, or anything.
posted by j_curiouser at 9:52 PM on July 22, 2015
posted by j_curiouser at 9:52 PM on July 22, 2015
> Imagine a Stormfront you can only read if you can prove that you're white based on your DNA.
Imagine the face of a zealous Stormfronter who finds himself on the outside of the whitewall because of some unknown, or maybe just unacknowledged non-white ancestry.
posted by Sunburnt at 10:04 PM on July 22, 2015 [27 favorites]
Imagine the face of a zealous Stormfronter who finds himself on the outside of the whitewall because of some unknown, or maybe just unacknowledged non-white ancestry.
posted by Sunburnt at 10:04 PM on July 22, 2015 [27 favorites]
What exactly did 23andme think it was going to be used for?
Really seems like the salient question here. I'll grant that 23andme has never for a minute appeared to be a prudent, responsible, thoughtfully-planned organization, but the idea that even the most slipshod gene-testing company could actually be surprised that someone applied their technology this way beggars belief.
posted by RogerB at 10:05 PM on July 22, 2015 [4 favorites]
Really seems like the salient question here. I'll grant that 23andme has never for a minute appeared to be a prudent, responsible, thoughtfully-planned organization, but the idea that even the most slipshod gene-testing company could actually be surprised that someone applied their technology this way beggars belief.
posted by RogerB at 10:05 PM on July 22, 2015 [4 favorites]
Possibly-legal way to monetise this: do a deal with health insurers to let you market their policies. Offer people a free 23andMe DNA test if they let you use their results. Some of the people you test will be statistically more likely to be healthy, and you target those people for insurance, forfeiting some of your commission to reduce the cost of their premium.
The insurer isn't discriminating against people based on their DNA. They're offering insurance at exactly the same price to everyone. You're marketing the heck out of your policies to some people, but you're not refusing coverage to anyone. It's just that most people won't receive your offer. The insurer happens to be paying you a generous commission based on their statistical assessment that you sell profitable policies, but the commission isn't based on any particular policy and it's therefore not linked to DNA.
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:16 PM on July 22, 2015 [7 favorites]
The insurer isn't discriminating against people based on their DNA. They're offering insurance at exactly the same price to everyone. You're marketing the heck out of your policies to some people, but you're not refusing coverage to anyone. It's just that most people won't receive your offer. The insurer happens to be paying you a generous commission based on their statistical assessment that you sell profitable policies, but the commission isn't based on any particular policy and it's therefore not linked to DNA.
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:16 PM on July 22, 2015 [7 favorites]
i don't really fault 23andme (though i loathe their business model and don't think they offer much real utility to their customers).
what if 23andme didn't expose 'ancestry', but some other combination of properties that let a client derive/calculate race? would that be as bad?
what if the oapi client didn't even go to 23andme, but instead got hold of your zip code, census block, search terms, grocery shopping, car model, and music buys and statistically calculated it?
what if the oapi client got hold of your facebook photos?
i'm pretty sure there's 99 ways to gatekeep web content based on race that aren't the 23andme getAncestry(...) call.
i don't see any solution except a partial one: users quit cross-authorizing apps. even that only addresses the coarsest data exploitation. the data (our personal info) is generally in the wild. mostly, any company that wants it can buy it and do what they want - including aggregate it. it disturbs me to think so, but it's certainly possible that any site or service could filter content by derived race - wapo, ebay, even metafilter. i mean, how would we even know?
posted by j_curiouser at 10:26 PM on July 22, 2015 [4 favorites]
what if 23andme didn't expose 'ancestry', but some other combination of properties that let a client derive/calculate race? would that be as bad?
what if the oapi client didn't even go to 23andme, but instead got hold of your zip code, census block, search terms, grocery shopping, car model, and music buys and statistically calculated it?
what if the oapi client got hold of your facebook photos?
i'm pretty sure there's 99 ways to gatekeep web content based on race that aren't the 23andme getAncestry(...) call.
i don't see any solution except a partial one: users quit cross-authorizing apps. even that only addresses the coarsest data exploitation. the data (our personal info) is generally in the wild. mostly, any company that wants it can buy it and do what they want - including aggregate it. it disturbs me to think so, but it's certainly possible that any site or service could filter content by derived race - wapo, ebay, even metafilter. i mean, how would we even know?
posted by j_curiouser at 10:26 PM on July 22, 2015 [4 favorites]
While certainly a coincidence, Facebook recently announced demographic controls for video playback.
In addition, Page owners now have access to enhanced control and customization features:posted by Revvy at 10:31 PM on July 22, 2015 [5 favorites]
Control:
Restrict the audience of a video by age and gender (in addition to location and language, which are already available).
Does this actually work as described? What are they keying on?
Race is a social construct, which is true in the US as much as anywhere else. I can only assume 23andme has tests which correlate with ancestry from certain ancient European populations and certain ancient African populations. I have no idea how that could possibly correspond to groups your average American white supremacist is interested in beyond a specific level of melanin. The actual genes aren't very useful. You're going to get lots of people with some African ancestry (all of them, hah!) if you look back far enough.
posted by figurant at 10:32 PM on July 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
Race is a social construct, which is true in the US as much as anywhere else. I can only assume 23andme has tests which correlate with ancestry from certain ancient European populations and certain ancient African populations. I have no idea how that could possibly correspond to groups your average American white supremacist is interested in beyond a specific level of melanin. The actual genes aren't very useful. You're going to get lots of people with some African ancestry (all of them, hah!) if you look back far enough.
posted by figurant at 10:32 PM on July 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
Maybe I'm dense here but speaking as a brown person, people don't need my dna to know I'm not white. They can tell by... looking at me.
Advertisers on the web can already deduce my ethnicity just as they know my income, marital status, interests, amount of debt I carry...
Those horses are gone man. The route to privacy is building protections into the law, not by trying to control what data is already out there.
posted by danny the boy at 10:58 PM on July 22, 2015 [12 favorites]
Advertisers on the web can already deduce my ethnicity just as they know my income, marital status, interests, amount of debt I carry...
Those horses are gone man. The route to privacy is building protections into the law, not by trying to control what data is already out there.
posted by danny the boy at 10:58 PM on July 22, 2015 [12 favorites]
I can only assume 23andme has tests which correlate with ancestry from certain ancient European populations and certain ancient African populations.
No need to assume. The project page has a lot of information and then there's this bit, from the rbac.py file:
No need to assume. The project page has a lot of information and then there's this bit, from the rbac.py file:
allowed_population_threshold = 0.51 # minimum allowed match %posted by Revvy at 11:06 PM on July 22, 2015 [4 favorites]
ancestry_speculation_threshold = 0.75 # standard ancestry speculation
ancestry_allowed_populations = [ 'French & German', 'British & Irish', 'Finnish',
'Scandinavian', 'Northern European', 'Eastern European', 'Balkan', 'Iberian',
'Italian', 'Sardinian', 'Southern European' ]
# note: does not include "Ashkenazi" or "European"
This article seems very excitable.
23andme's kit costs $99. Doesn't seem like a realistic thing to expect web users to buy.
Plus, genes really don't match people's ideas of clean, clear ethnic boundaries. Or gender boundaries.
posted by zompist at 11:13 PM on July 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
23andme's kit costs $99. Doesn't seem like a realistic thing to expect web users to buy.
Plus, genes really don't match people's ideas of clean, clear ethnic boundaries. Or gender boundaries.
posted by zompist at 11:13 PM on July 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
You can use genomic population data to split a given population into however many arbitrary groups you like. Generally these groups map to "races", as they tend to match historical migration patterns, which themselves inform the construction of race. But you can do it on smaller populations too - I read a paper recently that looked at the British Isles, the first line of division was between the Orkneys and everyone else - probably due to folks from the Orkneys having relatively pure Norwegian ancestry.
posted by nicolas léonard sadi carnot at 11:14 PM on July 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by nicolas léonard sadi carnot at 11:14 PM on July 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
Going To Maine: "I think the trolling is going over my head a little bit. What point exactly are they trying to make?
Imagine a Stormfront you can only read if you can prove that you're white based on your DNA."
Crap, any chance of retroactively getting some non-white ancestors?
posted by Samizdata at 11:26 PM on July 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
Imagine a Stormfront you can only read if you can prove that you're white based on your DNA."
Crap, any chance of retroactively getting some non-white ancestors?
posted by Samizdata at 11:26 PM on July 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
Joe in Australia: "Possibly-legal way to monetise this: do a deal with health insurers to let you market their policies. Offer people a free 23andMe DNA test if they let you use their results. Some of the people you test will be statistically more likely to be healthy, and you target those people for insurance, forfeiting some of your commission to reduce the cost of their premium.
The insurer isn't discriminating against people based on their DNA. They're offering insurance at exactly the same price to everyone. You're marketing the heck out of your policies to some people, but you're not refusing coverage to anyone. It's just that most people won't receive your offer. The insurer happens to be paying you a generous commission based on their statistical assessment that you sell profitable policies, but the commission isn't based on any particular policy and it's therefore not linked to DNA."
Ummmmm, no. In my family, we don't have a gene pool, we have a cess pool. Happier being ignorant.
posted by Samizdata at 11:29 PM on July 22, 2015
The insurer isn't discriminating against people based on their DNA. They're offering insurance at exactly the same price to everyone. You're marketing the heck out of your policies to some people, but you're not refusing coverage to anyone. It's just that most people won't receive your offer. The insurer happens to be paying you a generous commission based on their statistical assessment that you sell profitable policies, but the commission isn't based on any particular policy and it's therefore not linked to DNA."
Ummmmm, no. In my family, we don't have a gene pool, we have a cess pool. Happier being ignorant.
posted by Samizdata at 11:29 PM on July 22, 2015
lol at credulous article thinking gender is discernible from handful of random markers
posted by klangklangston at 1:16 AM on July 23, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by klangklangston at 1:16 AM on July 23, 2015 [2 favorites]
Imagine the face of a zealous Stormfronter who finds himself on the outside of the whitewall because of some unknown, or maybe just unacknowledged non-white ancestry.
Is a boot stomping on it forever? It is, isn't it?
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 2:16 AM on July 23, 2015 [3 favorites]
Is a boot stomping on it forever? It is, isn't it?
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 2:16 AM on July 23, 2015 [3 favorites]
My first assumption on hearing about this was that whoever was doing it was trying to do it to get this API shut down because it's possible to use it for all kinds of horrible things. And then I read the README, where the very first line under the possible uses isn't "this could be used for some Stormfront kind of shit" but "you could totally use this for female-only safe spaces", with bonus transphobia and built-in racism. (The NAACP could use this to keep white people out! Because that's totally what they do, and they haven't possibly had white members ever since their founders or anything.) Oh, and the charming treatment of "transgender" and "transethnic" as equivalent.
It's definitely deliberately trolling by... well, not necessarily GamerGate, but quite possibly, given the naming. At the very least by internet reactionaries of some stripe. 23andme should really think a bit about what it's giving access to when it lets any random pick up an API key, but I feel gross just having given this project as much attention as this.
posted by Sequence at 4:45 AM on July 23, 2015 [5 favorites]
It's definitely deliberately trolling by... well, not necessarily GamerGate, but quite possibly, given the naming. At the very least by internet reactionaries of some stripe. 23andme should really think a bit about what it's giving access to when it lets any random pick up an API key, but I feel gross just having given this project as much attention as this.
posted by Sequence at 4:45 AM on July 23, 2015 [5 favorites]
The API looks like a clever bit of trolling to me. Apart from the fact that they openly call it offensive, there are references in the GitHub readme to the NAACP being an all-black organization, "transethnic users", and the explicit exclusion of Ashkenazi in the definition of European. Someone is playing the part of an antisemitic programmer using transmisogynist dogwistles and feigning support for racial minorities while somehow ignorant of the fact that white people can join the NAACP. I'm incredulous, at least.
That's all really unfortunate anyway, because some people will take it seriously, won't they? Of course they will. They always do.
The thing is, apart from the fact that the satire is dangerously close to looping back around, I actually support the demonstration. I mean, demonstrations of Very Bad Things are pretty much the way you start a conversion in the privacy and security community. I'm not sure why this is any different. You can wag your finger, but I'm going to start off with a golf clap.
On preview, exactly what Sequence said, but the opposite.
posted by WCWedin at 5:01 AM on July 23, 2015 [9 favorites]
That's all really unfortunate anyway, because some people will take it seriously, won't they? Of course they will. They always do.
The thing is, apart from the fact that the satire is dangerously close to looping back around, I actually support the demonstration. I mean, demonstrations of Very Bad Things are pretty much the way you start a conversion in the privacy and security community. I'm not sure why this is any different. You can wag your finger, but I'm going to start off with a golf clap.
On preview, exactly what Sequence said, but the opposite.
posted by WCWedin at 5:01 AM on July 23, 2015 [9 favorites]
Brings a whole new meaning to 'boys club'.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:06 AM on July 23, 2015
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:06 AM on July 23, 2015
Brings a whole new meaning to 'boys club'.
And to "I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member."
posted by WCWedin at 5:10 AM on July 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
And to "I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member."
posted by WCWedin at 5:10 AM on July 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
Those horses are gone man
Yeah, this is what I was thinking too.
Building safeties into laws is one angle, but it seems like there'll always be a 'better mousetrap' that obviates those.
Even more pressing is do "we" even want privacy? It seems like the short history of networked data siphons (FBook, Waze, those sexting things, etc) to say nothing of stuff like the Census, have all been responded to in large numbers with a "yeah, whatever, just give me the goods").
It seems we'd need something akin to the Great Depression<>frugality in order to change that mindset.
Never mind the issue of the actual positive value these things produce.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 5:28 AM on July 23, 2015
Yeah, this is what I was thinking too.
Building safeties into laws is one angle, but it seems like there'll always be a 'better mousetrap' that obviates those.
Even more pressing is do "we" even want privacy? It seems like the short history of networked data siphons (FBook, Waze, those sexting things, etc) to say nothing of stuff like the Census, have all been responded to in large numbers with a "yeah, whatever, just give me the goods").
It seems we'd need something akin to the Great Depression<>frugality in order to change that mindset.
Never mind the issue of the actual positive value these things produce.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 5:28 AM on July 23, 2015
Those who are saying "the 23andMe API isn't needed, you can just look at to do the same filtering" are missing (or not quite reaching) the point. It's not that, oh no, 23andMe has invented some new way of being horrible and must be stopped. This is ALREADY HAPPENING EVERY DAY. Maybe Stormfront hasn't gotten around to it yet, but that's just because they have few resources and even less imagination. You can target Facebook ads to specific individuals, by name. You can restrict who views your facebook videos by "gender" and age. The list goes on and on.
The environment in which we live affects how this process works. For example, in states that collect partisanship data from voters and distribute that data to campaigns, campaigns focus more on mobilizing partisan supporters and less on persuading undecided voters than in states that don’t collect the data. If we don't like this, we can try to stop it. I can only think of this program as an attempted wake-up call, in which case I say to the authors thank you. But after Snowden's revelations and the massive non-reaction to them, this can only be a drop in the ocean.
posted by dendrochronologizer at 5:33 AM on July 23, 2015 [4 favorites]
The environment in which we live affects how this process works. For example, in states that collect partisanship data from voters and distribute that data to campaigns, campaigns focus more on mobilizing partisan supporters and less on persuading undecided voters than in states that don’t collect the data. If we don't like this, we can try to stop it. I can only think of this program as an attempted wake-up call, in which case I say to the authors thank you. But after Snowden's revelations and the massive non-reaction to them, this can only be a drop in the ocean.
posted by dendrochronologizer at 5:33 AM on July 23, 2015 [4 favorites]
Applying the single drop rule racists use would keep everyone from stormfront access!
posted by nofundy at 6:10 AM on July 23, 2015
posted by nofundy at 6:10 AM on July 23, 2015
Someone is playing the part of an antisemitic programmer using transmisogynist dogwistles and feigning support for racial minorities while somehow ignorant of the fact that white people can join the NAACP.
I don't think that's it, though. I think what it is is someone who IS a programmer who is a part of a neo-reactionary online movement that thinks ironic antisemitism is funny, that women talking about wanting safe spaces are weak because rape jokes are hilarious, and that liberals are inherently hypocrites because we're okay with minority identities. It's 4chan attitudes in a nutshell: It's not that it's inherently bad to be black or female, but if you're black or female and you publicly identify as such and you want to deal with issues specific to that group, then you're a crybaby, because the true ideal is for all of us to be the same. Where "the same" is "exactly identical to young white males on the internet".
So, their picture of feminists and trans people and ethnic minorities is that members of those groups are just in it for attention, basically, and therefore this constitutes mockery. It's not particularly clever, but I doubt it's designed to be funny for anybody but their 4chan/Reddit friends.
posted by Sequence at 6:18 AM on July 23, 2015 [3 favorites]
I don't think that's it, though. I think what it is is someone who IS a programmer who is a part of a neo-reactionary online movement that thinks ironic antisemitism is funny, that women talking about wanting safe spaces are weak because rape jokes are hilarious, and that liberals are inherently hypocrites because we're okay with minority identities. It's 4chan attitudes in a nutshell: It's not that it's inherently bad to be black or female, but if you're black or female and you publicly identify as such and you want to deal with issues specific to that group, then you're a crybaby, because the true ideal is for all of us to be the same. Where "the same" is "exactly identical to young white males on the internet".
So, their picture of feminists and trans people and ethnic minorities is that members of those groups are just in it for attention, basically, and therefore this constitutes mockery. It's not particularly clever, but I doubt it's designed to be funny for anybody but their 4chan/Reddit friends.
posted by Sequence at 6:18 AM on July 23, 2015 [3 favorites]
For my part, I just don't see a through-line from the place you think they're starting to the place they ended up. Why would an actual 4channer put on ironic airs about social justice and then subvert the entire endeavor by showing that in actual use the tool would serve racist ends? It seems so self-defeating toward the goal you're conceptualizing that it just doesn't add up for me. The punchline doesn't follow from the joke.
I don't think it's worth it to take a deep dive into this, since there really isn't that much to go on; whatever the intent, the execution is at least a little confused. In any case, I'm out of things to say about it.
posted by WCWedin at 6:53 AM on July 23, 2015
I don't think it's worth it to take a deep dive into this, since there really isn't that much to go on; whatever the intent, the execution is at least a little confused. In any case, I'm out of things to say about it.
posted by WCWedin at 6:53 AM on July 23, 2015
Why would an actual 4channer put on ironic airs about social justice and then subvert the entire endeavor by showing that in actual use the tool would serve racist ends?
Have you ever heard the phrase: "the blacks are the real racists" or any of its analogues? Because this is that, in code form.
posted by sparklemotion at 7:13 AM on July 23, 2015 [3 favorites]
Have you ever heard the phrase: "the blacks are the real racists" or any of its analogues? Because this is that, in code form.
posted by sparklemotion at 7:13 AM on July 23, 2015 [3 favorites]
klangklangston: lol at credulous article thinking gender is discernible from handful of random markers
Wouldn't it only take one marker on either the X or Y chromosome? I mean, it's not going to work perfectly on people with nonstandard chromosome arrangements, and it only gets you biological gender, but still.
posted by Mitrovarr at 7:28 AM on July 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
Wouldn't it only take one marker on either the X or Y chromosome? I mean, it's not going to work perfectly on people with nonstandard chromosome arrangements, and it only gets you biological gender, but still.
posted by Mitrovarr at 7:28 AM on July 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
> Wouldn't it only take one marker on either the X or Y chromosome?
Presumably klangklangston is referring to social gender, not physical/medical/genetic sex. Also, X wouldn't do it, since all people have at least one (excepting rare anomalies resulting in Y-only, if that's a thing). You'd have to look for the presence or absence of Y and be prepared for the occasional error with the people with nonstandard chromosomal arrangements like XXY and such.
posted by Sunburnt at 7:34 AM on July 23, 2015
Presumably klangklangston is referring to social gender, not physical/medical/genetic sex. Also, X wouldn't do it, since all people have at least one (excepting rare anomalies resulting in Y-only, if that's a thing). You'd have to look for the presence or absence of Y and be prepared for the occasional error with the people with nonstandard chromosomal arrangements like XXY and such.
posted by Sunburnt at 7:34 AM on July 23, 2015
Sunburnt : Imagine the face of a zealous Stormfronter who finds himself on the outside of the whitewall because of some unknown, or maybe just unacknowledged non-white ancestry.
Cue the Sousaphones!
posted by wenestvedt at 7:36 AM on July 23, 2015 [2 favorites]
Cue the Sousaphones!
posted by wenestvedt at 7:36 AM on July 23, 2015 [2 favorites]
Sunburnt : Imagine the face of a zealous Stormfronter who finds himself on the outside of the whitewall because of some unknown, or maybe just unacknowledged non-white ancestry.
Cue the Sousaphones!
Or just a sad trombone.
posted by Going To Maine at 8:01 AM on July 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
Cue the Sousaphones!
Or just a sad trombone.
posted by Going To Maine at 8:01 AM on July 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
The 23andme API lets you directly request "ancestry". What exactly did 23andme think it was going to be used for?
You have to remember, a lot of people buy this service specifically to find things out about their ethnicity. I haven't actually used their service, but I have knowledge of a similar service. Ethnic composition was their most popular feature. People love to see that pie chart of their "admixture". Is it healthy that so many people care so much about their ethnic makeup? ....maybe? But is it evil or scary that this information is exposed through their API? Not at all, when you consider that information is often the main reason somebody uses one of those services.
(also, those ethnicity calculations can be laughably inexact, but that's another story for another time)
I agree with the sentiment that our emphasis should be on creating safeguards against the unethical use of this information. Someone upthread mentioned that anybody who looks at them can tell they're not white. But I'll do you one better : just think about your DNA. You leave skin cells and hairs everywhere! It's not hard to get someone's DNA. So yeah, the information is out there. We need legal safeguards to stop people from using this information against you.
Interestingly enough, while it's illegal for health insurance companies to use your genetic information against you, it's apparently legal for life insurance companies to use this information against you. I wonder if that's something that's going to change in the future.
posted by panama joe at 9:05 AM on July 23, 2015 [2 favorites]
You have to remember, a lot of people buy this service specifically to find things out about their ethnicity. I haven't actually used their service, but I have knowledge of a similar service. Ethnic composition was their most popular feature. People love to see that pie chart of their "admixture". Is it healthy that so many people care so much about their ethnic makeup? ....maybe? But is it evil or scary that this information is exposed through their API? Not at all, when you consider that information is often the main reason somebody uses one of those services.
(also, those ethnicity calculations can be laughably inexact, but that's another story for another time)
I agree with the sentiment that our emphasis should be on creating safeguards against the unethical use of this information. Someone upthread mentioned that anybody who looks at them can tell they're not white. But I'll do you one better : just think about your DNA. You leave skin cells and hairs everywhere! It's not hard to get someone's DNA. So yeah, the information is out there. We need legal safeguards to stop people from using this information against you.
Interestingly enough, while it's illegal for health insurance companies to use your genetic information against you, it's apparently legal for life insurance companies to use this information against you. I wonder if that's something that's going to change in the future.
posted by panama joe at 9:05 AM on July 23, 2015 [2 favorites]
Y-only, if that's a thing
Not a thing. The Y Chromosome is a runty little thing whose job is to basically say "don't be a girl!" People can live with only one X Chromosome (Turner Syndrome), since it by itself can be functional, albeit with some physical/sexual abnormalities. This is also why males are more often affected by sex-linked chromosomal disorders like color-blindness or hemophilia. In females, the second X can pick up the slack, while the Y simply does not have that capability.
Applying the single drop rule racists use would keep everyone from stormfront access!
Sounds like a win-win! Though honestly, this would either have to be the case or racist gatekeepers would need to start having to make exceptions and cut-off lines. I spit in a tube for 23andMe a couple years ago and, according to them I am "speculatively" 99.3% European, with 0.5% Sub-Saharan ancestry. Now, is that statistical noise or imperfections in how 23andMe determines ancestry? Or did I have an African great-great-etc. grandparent? At what point do they start thinking, "nope, not white enough!"
The way 23andMe assigns ancestry is a bit screwy as well. The do use outside databases for reference, but only in very small numbers; their entire Central & Southern African reference group comes from two Pygmy groups and a handful of San. Unlike these other projects though, they categorize these results according to national origin, rather than by ethnic group. As they put it:
posted by Panjandrum at 9:08 AM on July 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
Not a thing. The Y Chromosome is a runty little thing whose job is to basically say "don't be a girl!" People can live with only one X Chromosome (Turner Syndrome), since it by itself can be functional, albeit with some physical/sexual abnormalities. This is also why males are more often affected by sex-linked chromosomal disorders like color-blindness or hemophilia. In females, the second X can pick up the slack, while the Y simply does not have that capability.
Applying the single drop rule racists use would keep everyone from stormfront access!
Sounds like a win-win! Though honestly, this would either have to be the case or racist gatekeepers would need to start having to make exceptions and cut-off lines. I spit in a tube for 23andMe a couple years ago and, according to them I am "speculatively" 99.3% European, with 0.5% Sub-Saharan ancestry. Now, is that statistical noise or imperfections in how 23andMe determines ancestry? Or did I have an African great-great-etc. grandparent? At what point do they start thinking, "nope, not white enough!"
The way 23andMe assigns ancestry is a bit screwy as well. The do use outside databases for reference, but only in very small numbers; their entire Central & Southern African reference group comes from two Pygmy groups and a handful of San. Unlike these other projects though, they categorize these results according to national origin, rather than by ethnic group. As they put it:
Most of the reference dataset comes from 23andMe members just like you. When someone tells us that they have four grandparents all born in the same country, and the country isn't a colonial nation like the US, Canada or Australia, they become candidates for inclusion in the reference dataset. We filter out all but one of any set of closely-related people, since they can distort the results. And we remove "outliers," people whose genetic ancestry doesn't seem to match up with their survey answers. To ensure a clean dataset, we filter fairly aggressively — nearly ten percent of reference populations candidates are removed.The problem is that national origin =! ethnicity. If we look at their Middle Eastern reference database, this problem becomes apparent. The two largest groups, making up almost 60% of the entire sample, are from Iran and Turkey. Iran, though it does have a dominant Persian majority, it also has substantial numbers of Turkic peoples, as well as Arabs and other distinctly non-Iranian groups. The inclusion of Turkey as a metonym for Turkic is even more problematic, since they are more anthropologically seen as Central Asian, and not autochthonous to the Middle East. Although apparently "Central Asian" does not even exist as a category in 23andMe.
posted by Panjandrum at 9:08 AM on July 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
won't this be incredibly easy to work around?
Iris scanners are being added to some cell phones released this year.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 9:25 AM on July 23, 2015
Iris scanners are being added to some cell phones released this year.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 9:25 AM on July 23, 2015
won't this be incredibly easy to work around?
There are workarounds for everything that involves biometrics. The question is the amount of effort you have to go to to do it (do you know someone of the appropriate ethnicity who'll let you get a swab?) and what the political act of asking for the biometric reading.
posted by Going To Maine at 9:51 AM on July 23, 2015
There are workarounds for everything that involves biometrics. The question is the amount of effort you have to go to to do it (do you know someone of the appropriate ethnicity who'll let you get a swab?) and what the political act of asking for the biometric reading.
posted by Going To Maine at 9:51 AM on July 23, 2015
"Wouldn't it only take one marker on either the X or Y chromosome? I mean, it's not going to work perfectly on people with nonstandard chromosome arrangements, and it only gets you biological gender, but still."
It gets nominally at your biological sex, but "biological gender" is a myth. As with race, it's a fallacy of scientism — especially glaring because basically every news story on 23andme that interviews a serious geneticist, the geneticist is like, "LOL WUT" at the 23andme claims (the analogy is taking the first letter off of 100 random pages and attempting to infer the book). 23andme can gain some statistical robustness as more people use it, but it's wishful thinking and scientific illiteracy at this point.
posted by klangklangston at 10:39 AM on July 23, 2015 [2 favorites]
It gets nominally at your biological sex, but "biological gender" is a myth. As with race, it's a fallacy of scientism — especially glaring because basically every news story on 23andme that interviews a serious geneticist, the geneticist is like, "LOL WUT" at the 23andme claims (the analogy is taking the first letter off of 100 random pages and attempting to infer the book). 23andme can gain some statistical robustness as more people use it, but it's wishful thinking and scientific illiteracy at this point.
posted by klangklangston at 10:39 AM on July 23, 2015 [2 favorites]
For my part, I just don't see a through-line from the place you think they're starting to the place they ended up. Why would an actual 4channer put on ironic airs about social justice and then subvert the entire endeavor by showing that in actual use the tool would serve racist ends?
Because the point isn't what you and I think about this. The point is that they and their friends spend awhile going "lol feminists" over the project itself, and then hopefully bonus they get a little time to go "lol feminists" when the feminists and such find it, and then they move on. Taking things seriously is culturally antithetical to them. Nobody's intended to ever actually use this code, I'm guessing. It's not any deeper than the C-plus-equality (warning for that being an archive of a thread containing of awfulness) thing and could have easily been the same person/people.
If anything the channers ever attempted was actually thought through for five straight minutes, GamerGate might have actually achieved something, but then again, it probably wouldn't have happened at all.
posted by Sequence at 11:40 AM on July 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
Because the point isn't what you and I think about this. The point is that they and their friends spend awhile going "lol feminists" over the project itself, and then hopefully bonus they get a little time to go "lol feminists" when the feminists and such find it, and then they move on. Taking things seriously is culturally antithetical to them. Nobody's intended to ever actually use this code, I'm guessing. It's not any deeper than the C-plus-equality (warning for that being an archive of a thread containing of awfulness) thing and could have easily been the same person/people.
If anything the channers ever attempted was actually thought through for five straight minutes, GamerGate might have actually achieved something, but then again, it probably wouldn't have happened at all.
posted by Sequence at 11:40 AM on July 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
I've thought about using 23andMe in the past to learn about my father, at least as much as my genetics could tell me. I'd love to know a whole hell lot more than his ethnicity.
The name on my birth certificate leads to dead ends everywhere I've looked. I've hired private investigators and they have found nothing. I've been left to conclude my mother lied on the certificate, which is a strong possibility. The name has a historical bent to it.
I realize this is not the subject matter of the thread, I just find it sad that there feels to be no safe alternatives to explore your genetics in the manner that 23andMe offers. And of course, the moment that information is digitized, it can be exploited, in exactly the manner that the OP link shows, which further discourages me from trying.
posted by kmartino at 1:53 PM on July 23, 2015 [2 favorites]
The name on my birth certificate leads to dead ends everywhere I've looked. I've hired private investigators and they have found nothing. I've been left to conclude my mother lied on the certificate, which is a strong possibility. The name has a historical bent to it.
I realize this is not the subject matter of the thread, I just find it sad that there feels to be no safe alternatives to explore your genetics in the manner that 23andMe offers. And of course, the moment that information is digitized, it can be exploited, in exactly the manner that the OP link shows, which further discourages me from trying.
posted by kmartino at 1:53 PM on July 23, 2015 [2 favorites]
"you could totally use this for female-only safe spaces"
I mean, demonstrations of Very Bad Things are pretty much the way you start a conversion in the privacy and security community.
I think this is the better reading of this prank. The authors are probably privacy geeks who have a poor understanding of social justice language and norms. This is meant to be a dystopian example of how we could implement "safe" communities for minorities and other disadvantaged groups.
Like all good scifi, it's supposed to get us talking about the consequences of the perfect worlds we imagine. How they could be realized, and what would happen if they were realized. What else could the technology be used for?
posted by formless at 5:47 PM on July 23, 2015
I mean, demonstrations of Very Bad Things are pretty much the way you start a conversion in the privacy and security community.
I think this is the better reading of this prank. The authors are probably privacy geeks who have a poor understanding of social justice language and norms. This is meant to be a dystopian example of how we could implement "safe" communities for minorities and other disadvantaged groups.
Like all good scifi, it's supposed to get us talking about the consequences of the perfect worlds we imagine. How they could be realized, and what would happen if they were realized. What else could the technology be used for?
posted by formless at 5:47 PM on July 23, 2015
I am grateful for my dad's cynicism in hindsight that grounded me in a bone deep awareness that the people in power of a state infrastructure - any position of power really - can and will kill you without justice. ... Capital punishment is the ultimate control a state has over citizens, but there are plenty of steps before that.
Not to digress too much from the discussion, but there may be some things worse than capital punishment. Forcing somebody to stay alive in some conditions may be less preferable than the person choosing their own path. The Guantanamo Bay forced feedings are a good example of this gray area. Self-immolation is another example. These are extreme examples. And it doesn't need to be protest-oriented. Some individuals may decide that physician-assisted suicide is their choice for humane death. I still remember the prosecution of Dr. Kevorkian and the state attempting to remove that humane option from people.
posted by formless at 5:55 PM on July 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
Not to digress too much from the discussion, but there may be some things worse than capital punishment. Forcing somebody to stay alive in some conditions may be less preferable than the person choosing their own path. The Guantanamo Bay forced feedings are a good example of this gray area. Self-immolation is another example. These are extreme examples. And it doesn't need to be protest-oriented. Some individuals may decide that physician-assisted suicide is their choice for humane death. I still remember the prosecution of Dr. Kevorkian and the state attempting to remove that humane option from people.
posted by formless at 5:55 PM on July 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
Sunburnt: Also, X wouldn't do it, since all people have at least one (excepting rare anomalies resulting in Y-only, if that's a thing).
Depends on the marker and testing system. Some systems can distinguish haploid/diploid status, usually by examining marker heterozygosity (can't be heterozygous for a gene you only have one copy of) and, secondarily, intensity (if you are diploid but homozygous, the intensity of the marker is doubled).
In particular, you can do this (at least informally) with microsats and SNPs, two of the most common testing systems.
posted by Mitrovarr at 11:05 PM on July 23, 2015
Depends on the marker and testing system. Some systems can distinguish haploid/diploid status, usually by examining marker heterozygosity (can't be heterozygous for a gene you only have one copy of) and, secondarily, intensity (if you are diploid but homozygous, the intensity of the marker is doubled).
In particular, you can do this (at least informally) with microsats and SNPs, two of the most common testing systems.
posted by Mitrovarr at 11:05 PM on July 23, 2015
(formless - interesting point to the aside - and the state I live in criminalises suicide and has capital punishment, which is bleakly funny.)
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 11:19 PM on July 23, 2015
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 11:19 PM on July 23, 2015
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posted by uraniumwilly at 8:41 PM on July 22, 2015 [6 favorites]