IMHO the DNA study is sort of a red herring. The real story here is that ZIP code, birthdate and gender have enough bits of entropy between them that they can uniquely identify people 40% of the time.
I personally usually fill out my birthdate as January 1 of the nearest year that is evenly divisible by 10 [1].
[1] Mainly when registering a new account with some random website that makes you type in your date of birth to register an account. If it's connected to my finances, employment, or medicine, of course I give them the real deal. Of course, thanks to my wonderful government, even this may be a felony [2].
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 18.9 ms ] threadI personally usually fill out my birthdate as January 1 of the nearest year that is evenly divisible by 10 [1].
[1] Mainly when registering a new account with some random website that makes you type in your date of birth to register an account. If it's connected to my finances, employment, or medicine, of course I give them the real deal. Of course, thanks to my wonderful government, even this may be a felony [2].
[2] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/04/are-you-teenager-who-r...