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A little economic comment on this mind-blowing hack with DNA.
I've always been uneasy about the price tag associated with these tests being so low. $50 US to sequence your DNA is uncorfartably cheap. They must be making money elsewhere.
As it turns out, they are. And this is the one we know about for sure, it's likely all are doing similar or worse things.
technologyreview.com/the-download/6…
technologyreview.com/the-download/6…
The value of your data is almost universally discounted. People are unaware of the value of key personal information to regimes, enabling them to extrapolate to whole population.
Access to a few people's personal data decreases everyone's privacy and anonymity set.
Access to a few people's personal data decreases everyone's privacy and anonymity set.
In other words, buy selling data, these companies have very high marginal revenues. Even though they are able to offer their product very cheaply to the public, the data gathered from voluntary customers has a much higher 'hidden' value.
It's a familiar story.
It's a familiar story.
Today, however, is a unique time in human history, the dawn of the sovereign individual. One person can command unthinkable power through the internet, with one bug, one hack, one malware.
The unwillingly now have a defense.
The unwillingly now have a defense.
I'm not saying this particular DNA hack was for this reason, but it demonstrates to me that we are squarely in this new era, and radical new forms of self-defense are possible.
A single person was able to imposed a new explicit cost on these companies, changing their profitability maybe forever. The economic ramifications of that are fascinating.
