Mike is Appalled

[firstfrost]

A conversation at lunch:

mjperson: Let me tell you about the stupidest idea I ever heard. I was watching NCIS, and someone died, and they were investgating it, and he died of tachycardia, which was weird because he had a pacemaker for low heart rate. And it turned out that someone hacked into his pacemaker. How stupid an idea is that, pacemakers being just accessible via your wireless and remote hacking? Bah."
Me: "... well, pacemakers probably don't have IP addresses, but you know that the ones controlled by wireless don't really have any security, right?"
Mike: That can't be right. They have to be encrypted, you can't just let people hack in and control your pacemaker.
Me: (google google google) "Well, here's an ABC News article. Okay, look, they say it's not a problem, because the number of attackers in wireless range of you is pretty small. "Within wireless distance of you, the number of attackers is necessarily pretty small," Kaminsky said. "It's not to say the devices can't be attacked. They can be. ... It is something for the implant device [user] to think about it."
Mike: ARGH! What do they mean, it's something for the user to think about? Why is it not something for the implant device *maker* to think about? How could they not worry about that? Just stick in a private key...!
Me: Welcome to the real future. It's not as smart as the science fiction future.

Comments

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

Clearly Mike is not reading his tech reviews magazines, or he would already know about this problem (I'm pretty sure that's where I read about it.)

[mathhobbit.livejournal.com]

You read those? Want mine? And R's?

What do they mean when they say "the number of attackers in wireless range of you is pretty small"? Because my home town is pretty densely packed! I bet my neighbors could hack into my pacemaker while I sleep...

[ricedog.livejournal.com]

That might be this article (http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/protecting-medical-implants-0613.html).