Speaker 1: It's time for tech Talk.
Speaker 2: The machines are getting smarter.
Speaker 3: This is tech Talk, brought to you by sky net.
Speaker 1: Mark Salzman is our friend from the Great White North,
Speaker 1: the Rock of the North.
Speaker 3: Sorry, I happen to be in your fair country right now.
Speaker 3: Are you yeah?
Speaker 4: Are you on the East Coast?
Speaker 2: I am. I'm leaving New Jersey.
Speaker 3: I I was in New York for an event with
Speaker 3: a company called High Sense, a big TV company primarily
Speaker 3: I've probably heard of them. They do my television, Yeah,
Speaker 3: they do. They have a lot of bang for the buck,
Speaker 3: you know, like and and big, like eighty five and
Speaker 3: ten inch TVs Wow without breaking the bank.
Speaker 2: Pretty good stuff.
Speaker 3: And my one of my twins, Jacob, who's turning twenty
Speaker 3: three in July, he's never been to New York. So
Speaker 3: I took him and so we're at in the lounge
Speaker 3: at Newark and uh yeah, we had a We had
Speaker 3: a really packed forty eight hours. We did everything from
Speaker 3: a Knixt game and the MoMA Museum to Central Park
Speaker 3: in Times Square to Trump Tower and the financial districts.
Speaker 2: We had a lot of fun. It was really great.
Speaker 4: Did you do the smart hack where you stayed in
Speaker 4: Hoboken and you had the view of Manhattan.
Speaker 3: That's a good hack, but no, we did not, was
Speaker 3: taken care of by high sense.
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: We did turn to Google and say we were going
Speaker 3: to do Empire State Building. But it was really cloudy
Speaker 3: and rainy yesterday. So I didn't want to really spend
Speaker 3: the mifty box each to go if the view is bad.
Speaker 3: And it's not that I'm cheap, but I just you know,
Speaker 3: if the view is bad, and then what's why spend
Speaker 3: the money? So I googled best free view of best
Speaker 3: view of New York skyline for free, like best balcony view,
Speaker 3: and it took me to a library that had the
Speaker 3: most awful view. It was like a brick wall, Like
Speaker 3: I have to get in there and like yelp that stuff,
Speaker 3: because that was not.
Speaker 1: What a cruel trick ex New York tourists. You accidentally
Speaker 1: went to sart has them dot Google dot com?
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, I must have yeah or Snopes you know
Speaker 3: the anyhow. Yeah it was but it was a really
Speaker 3: great trip. So yeah, so I was here seeing some
Speaker 3: new TVs. But you know what's dominating a lot of
Speaker 3: the tech headlines, Uh are the is this twenty three?
Speaker 3: And me bankruptcy, as you know, so I thought we
Speaker 3: might chat about it to help KFI listeners and iHeart
Speaker 3: listeners manage their info if they've uploaded their DNA to
Speaker 3: twenty three and meters probably heard on on Sunday they
Speaker 3: announced that they're going bankrupt They're filing for Chapter eleven protection,
Speaker 3: and that they are likely to sell all of their assets,
Speaker 3: which includes your personal DNA info and health markers unless
Speaker 3: you delete the information. So, uh, this is It's obviously
Speaker 3: an upsetting situation for many. Both twenty three and Me
Speaker 3: and ancestry dot com are very similar in the sense
Speaker 3: that it'll help you unlock your family history and find
Speaker 3: potential relatives, but twenty three and me goes above and
Speaker 3: beyond that by providing netic health reports and trait reports.
Speaker 3: So this is even more concerning understandably for many.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: I happened to have used twenty three and meters to
Speaker 1: find DNA relatives, and I noticed that the site itself
Speaker 1: went down on Monday. I mean because our Attorney general
Speaker 1: here in California had suggested people request that their information
Speaker 1: be deleted, that their saliva sample be destroyed so that
Speaker 1: it doesn't get lost. What is the concern that what
Speaker 1: could somebody do with my genetic information?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So first of all, you're right that so many
Speaker 3: people went to the website to delete their information that
Speaker 3: the servers got overloaded on Tuesday twenty three, and me said,
Speaker 3: everything's fine, and it's a pretty simple process to download
Speaker 3: your info and then delete it. So the issue, I
Speaker 3: think is just that you have no control when a
Speaker 3: company says we are going we are forced to sell
Speaker 3: our assets that includes your personal information. We don't know
Speaker 3: what's going to be done with it. Disgui's a limit,
Speaker 3: it's your DNA, you know. I mean, once upon a time,
Speaker 3: the biggest concern was that, you know, there's going to
Speaker 3: be a forensics investigation and you're going to have to,
Speaker 3: you know, inadvertently like tell like that, you know, give
Speaker 3: information to the police that your cousin is a serial
Speaker 3: murderer or something. You know, like all this stuff that
Speaker 3: we gave away that we didn't really realize when we
Speaker 3: didn't read the t's and c's. But now it seems that,
Speaker 3: you know, like we don't know who the buyer will
Speaker 3: be and what's being done with your personal data. I
Speaker 3: just think it's disconcerting to not know what's going to happen,
Speaker 3: you know with it it's your personal DNA markers, right,
Speaker 3: I mean it can go either way, and without even
Speaker 3: getting too sci fi, it could be things like cloning,
Speaker 3: and you know, you never know it's you, it's your sample.
Speaker 2: So I don't know why anybody would want that out there.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but I mean your point. I think people
Speaker 1: have a hard time wrapping their head around what could. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we don't know what the future holds in terms of
Speaker 1: that kind of TI technology and what it would be
Speaker 1: used for. And you're saying it's better to be safe
Speaker 1: than sorry down the road.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'm not trying to be like purposely vague.
Speaker 3: It's we just don't know. It's one thing right now,
Speaker 3: it's our you know, identity theft is very real, and
Speaker 3: that's without any bio information Like this is just from
Speaker 3: financial information that you're volunteering. Imagine having your genetic makeup
Speaker 3: out there.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: It might sound like science fiction, but I think it's
Speaker 3: just it's just smarter to download and delete the data
Speaker 3: and you don't have to download it first, by the way,
Speaker 3: So yeah, if you just want to Google twenty three
Speaker 3: and meters delete data or just if you've got a
Speaker 3: good memory, just go to and maybe that's part of
Speaker 3: your genetics. Bestive memory is just go to the twenty
Speaker 3: three and me website, go to settings, click on data,
Speaker 3: and then view and then you have an option to
Speaker 3: delete data, and then you're going to be asked to
Speaker 3: double check it. It'll say permanently delete data, and you'll
Speaker 3: confirm your requests and then the process is similar for
Speaker 3: that sample that you mentioned, your saliva sample, you also
Speaker 3: have to go to settings and then preferences and then.
Speaker 2: Delete all that.
Speaker 3: It's up to you if you if you don't care,
Speaker 3: if you're like whatever, you know, let them do what
Speaker 3: they want with my then you don't have to panic.
Speaker 3: And I'm not suggesting you panic, but I believe that
Speaker 3: we should be in control of our information. And yes,
Speaker 3: we opted for these services like you did, Gary, And
Speaker 3: I used ancestry dot com and I've found relatives, so
Speaker 3: I didn't know. I you know, I think there's a
Speaker 3: lot of good to these services. But when you hear
Speaker 3: of a company that goes under that has fifteen million
Speaker 3: people in its database, that's a little scary.
Speaker 1: Well, and I know that there's an option, isn't there
Speaker 1: to download the information so that I can keep it myself,
Speaker 1: and then I guess it's similar to what I said was,
Speaker 1: you know, what would the threat be? What would then
Speaker 1: I what would I then use my genetic information for.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to show it at parties or anything.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, if you're not using it to find relatives,
Speaker 3: and if you've already gotten the answers that you wanted
Speaker 3: about your any health marks that you may be predispositioned
Speaker 3: for that you may want to act on, then it's
Speaker 3: just a matter of having it like within your you know,
Speaker 3: on you and with with within your what's the expression,
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, uh lock bomb here? Basically, yeah, you can
Speaker 3: upload it to a secure cloud. You can password protect
Speaker 3: it and keep it offline. It's basically, you've got it,
Speaker 3: you own it. It is not for everyone. If you
Speaker 3: I mean, I would download it if I had an option,
Speaker 3: rather than just delete it blindly, just in case you
Speaker 3: ever need it in the future.
Speaker 2: You may have a medical professional that asks.
Speaker 3: To see it that could help unlock something that can
Speaker 3: help you live longer, lives healthier, and they ask for that, Hey,
Speaker 3: did you ever do any of those DNA taks? Can
Speaker 3: I see it? And you have a you know, a
Speaker 3: vetted physician who's able to uh to tell you, you know,
Speaker 3: to use it responsibly, then you've got it. If you
Speaker 3: delete it without downloading it, then you don't have anything, right,
Speaker 3: So I mean, you do it again. If you have
Speaker 3: to do it again, it's you know, but you already
Speaker 3: have it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And there's nothing on their website currently, by the way,
Speaker 1: that says anything about the bankruptcy. It doesn't say anything
Speaker 1: about what their plan is. You can still buy the packages,
Speaker 1: at least at least they're still advertising.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, exactly exactly. They did just confirmed that they
Speaker 3: have to. The quote is that they are going to
Speaker 3: be quote substantially selling all of our assets through a
Speaker 3: quarter tru of reorganization plan.
Speaker 2: That's all they've said that.
Speaker 3: It sounds like they're still selling their kits, you know.
Speaker 3: But yeah, good old Sunnyvale, California company. So we'll see
Speaker 3: what's going to happen, and we'll see what's going to
Speaker 3: happen ancestry dot com. But you know, don't panic. But
Speaker 3: just I would just be responsible and download your info.
Speaker 3: It's pretty easy to do so at the website.
Speaker 1: Hey, and also, don't panic if you missed the flight.
Speaker 1: Because you stay in the United States long enough, we'll
Speaker 1: escort you out, just so you know exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, ice is breathing down my neck.
Speaker 4: Right, Mark Saltzman, thank you so much, safe travels, I
Speaker 4: hope time.
Speaker 2: Than keep for having me. Well chat next Thursday as well.
Speaker 3: You bet.
Speaker 1: Follow Mark on X of course, m A r C
Speaker 1: Underscore Saltzman. He's got great tech tips and he's also
Speaker 1: the host of the tech it Out podcasting