Researcher Turns Pacemakers Into Mass Murder Machines

[Lyri]

...I want the iPhone app for this.

This... is.... awesome. People with pacemakers are just living on borrowed time anyway. Just imagine, now you get to be told that the device in charge of making your heart beat correctly could be hacked and you'd have to become someone's slave or DIE.

Why would you even announce that this is actually possible and not just quietly get into contact with the developers of the brand and discuss your findings?

Because information needs to be shared. How would you feel, really, if someone found a big giant death button for your heart and the makers of that death button quietly sweeped it under the rug for you to never ever know about?

I'm not sure which part of your post is the biggest joke.

 

[Kargathia]

Why would you even announce that this is actually possible and not just quietly get into contact with the developers of the brand and discuss your findings?

Oh c'mon, if you managed to reverse-engineer pace-makers to enable a cartoony super-villain mass-murder spree, you'd also want the whole world to know you did it. I'm just surprised he didn't present his discovery cackling maniacally while broadcasting from his secret volcano lair.

And come to think of it... I always wanted to see whether I could reverse-engineer pacemakers to follow the bass-line of the user's mp3 player...

Do excuse me, I have some evil plans to hatch.

 

[Lyri]

Oh c'mon, if you managed to reverse-engineer pace-makers to enable a cartoony super-villain mass-murder spree, you'd also want the whole world to know you did it.

No, no I don't think I would.

I don't believe I eluded to such in my post, it seems criminally stupid to actually announce that one brand of pacemaker has a weakness and leaves people vulnerable.
It would be better if all involved were actually contacted and quietly without a public display of knowledge and the company looked into a fix for their customers.

 

[Daaaah Whoosh]

At first, I thought that 'any compatible devices' meant any electronic devices. If a pacemaker could make all of them in a nearby radius emit 850 volts, then this would be a serious problem. As such, though, I'm not too worried, as I don't know anyone who has a pacemaker.

 

[DugMachine]

This is actually really scary. If this ever gets picked up by terrorists I foresee many assassinations in the near future.

 

[AdamG3691]

*picks up small black cube*
I wonder what this does?

eh, I guess it's nothing, it'll make a nice paperweight though...

 

[vallorn]

(well, no I don't, I'm British and thus anti-gun...

Nice to meet you I am British and pro gun. therefore according to your grammar I cannot exist. (Sorry couldn't pass up an opportunity to snark like that)

On another note: Crap we dont even have good robot arms yet and we are already being hacked... At least wait till we get kickass cyborg eyes!

*picks up small black cube*
I wonder what this does?

eh, I guess it's nothing, it'll make a nice paperweight though...

Holy shit I thought of that episode too... Have a pear.

 

[kaygirl101]

My mother has a pacemaker. I would be devastated if someone was heartless enough to do this when she was in range...

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

Dear America:

Why don't you use this as an excuse to fight heart disease and obesity? That should make your lives safer from me some evil genius killing millions of people within range of a wifi hotspot.

Sincerely,

Not an Evil Genius, I Assure You...

 

[Gilhelmi]

In this day of age, we must lock our doors and have our gun in our bed stands.

This demonstration is proof of that sad, sad fact.

Guns and locked doors won't do anything to save you from someone remotely hacking your heart!

That is true. I was using it as an example.

 

[Roxas1359]

My god...we have a super villain in the making here. Good thing I don't have a pacemaker, but still the idea that some random person could just go "I want to turn of some random schmuck's heart today" is really disturbing.

I misread this as "peace-maker"... that story would have been at least 50% more awesome.

I honestly started thinking of the Peacemaker from Jak II and Jak III...my god if he were to develop that then the chaos would be much worse! >.<

 

[Gilhelmi]

In this day of age, we must lock our doors and have our gun in our bed stands.

This demonstration is proof of that sad, sad fact.

I agree (well, no I don't, I'm British and thus anti-gun...) but on the note of locking doors: why the heck does a pacemaker need a wifi connection?! Implants should not be hackable. Period. This seems to be on the same level as Deus Ex having remote kill-switches for ANYONE...

(I get that a doctor may need to remotely reconfigure a Pacemaker's settings, but there ought to be a... I don't know... more secure way of doing it! Like, needing to put a device up against the skin level of secure...)

Just basic encryption would be enough. I guess, a direct connection could work, but then you have an open wound situation, those require much care and attention.

On the g-u-n topic. I chatted with some British gun enthusiasts who told me to never trust my government when they want to "regulate" guns, regulate means confiscate. The Australian said, "if the government wants you to register your firearms, don't. They will then ban guns and use the lists too track you down." I have heard there is a growing sentiment too allow 'lawful defense' again in Britain, something crazy about a burglar tripping over an Ottoman and suing the homeowner because the homeowner "startled" the thief? Also, the stupid one of a man defending himself with a gun going too prison while his attacker is free, and suing the man who's house he broke into. I will take America any-day, because I can shoot the home invader, sue the home invader for damaging my property and cost of the ammo, and then my town would throw me a parade.

 

[Aircross]

I have a Medtronic ICD...

...and the only thing I could think of upon seeing this when I heard this was (at 1:36):


...except the crazy insane part will be replaced by people collapsing with an extra crispy heart.

 

[Doom972]

No encryption? No failsafe? I'm sure this guy isn't the first one to discover this. Probably the first to talk about it publicly though.

If we're going to reference Deus Ex, why not the original:

 

[unacomn]

*rolls up newspaper*
No, bad researcher, bad, bad researcher. No, no!

 

[Tiger Sora]

Well, looks like I'll never be able to get any electronic device or appendage put on or into me.
I so wanted super strong hands or rocket legs/feet.
Hope I'll never need a pace-maker.

 

[Skeleon]

As a person who works in the medical field, I have to ask... why is medical software almost always incredibly shitty? The stuff crashes, has errors, is bad in terms of user-friendliness, layout and functions... and here it apparently lacks even basic security measures...

 

[Cid Silverwing]

I thought the first thing no one would do was to make pacemakers link-up to the Internet.

Now people with heart conditions are fucked.

Assuming any of this garbage is true, obviously.

 

[Jmp_man]

No encryption? No failsafe? I'm sure this guy isn't the first one to discover this. Probably the first to talk about it publicly though.

If we're going to reference Deus Ex, why not the original:
-vidasnip-

What if people have been taking advantage of this hole for days/months/years and not telling anyone? This guy could be a hero for being the first one to find out and scream "THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG HERE!". I could say that it would be nice if these things weren't public, but hopefully when this REALLY gets out there this could put some pressure on the pacemaker-makers(?) to fix and avoid this problem in the future, or possibly just scare the public shitless. (either one)