Fascinating read, thank you. I can't help but wonder what is available to big companies and governments these days in terms of technology and algorithms that we laypeople don't have access to or even dream about.

Ah, wow, finally found the exact article I was looking for. This thing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22492671

And then there was the genomics or DNA database or something that a couple of people were running out of their garage (well, a bit more than that) but then had to shut down after law enforcement discovered it, found it incredibly useful, and everything rapidly went sideways as "things aren't supposed to work that way"... but I'm having the hardest time finding the link for this one sadly ._.

EDIT (just within the 1hr window :): I think the second one was GEDmatch. A quick search of https://hn.algolia.com/?query=gedmatch didn't relocate what I remember reading, but I think this was it.