“I Want to Know What Code Is Running Inside My Body”
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“I Want to Know What Code Is Running Inside My Body”
1–10 of 217 posts
Re: “I Want to Know What Code Is Running Inside My Body”
#2Very soon we would have FBI and NSA requiring these pacemakers to have a kill switch to kill whoever they don't like.
Re: “I Want to Know What Code Is Running Inside My Body”
#3Very soon we would have FBI and NSA requiring these pacemakers to have a kill switch to kill whoever they don't like.
They don't need to. Private industry has shown time and again that the device will remain insecure until consumers care (that is, indefinitely).
Re: “I Want to Know What Code Is Running Inside My Body”
#4Reasons to NOT open up the code:
1> Loss of competitive advantage
2> Open source is not necessarily any safer (heartbleed bug ... )
3> If software for the pacemaker is allowed to be updated like that on a computer, someone will update it with buggy software that can cause adverse side effects. Who owns the liability in that case?
Re: “I Want to Know What Code Is Running Inside My Body”
#5Sure this is about pacemakers, but cant we say something similar about the rest of our body?
Re: “I Want to Know What Code Is Running Inside My Body”
#6Reasons to NOT open up the code: 1> Loss of competitive advantage 2> Open source is not necessarily any safer (heartbleed bug ... ) 3> If software for the pacemaker is allowed to be updated like that on a computer, someone will update it with buggy software that can cause adverse side effects. Who owns the liability in that case?
Loss of competitive advantage
There's a competitive advantage in keeping pacemakers' source code proprietary?
Open source is not necessarily any safer (heartbleed bug ... )
It's a hell lot more amendable to inspection than proprietary software.
Re: “I Want to Know What Code Is Running Inside My Body”
#7I agree, I want to contribute to FOSS medical devices.
Re: “I Want to Know What Code Is Running Inside My Body”
#8Sure this is about pacemakers, but cant we say something similar about the rest of our body?
Unfortunately, it's a black box made from nature that we have to reverse engineer.
Re: “I Want to Know What Code Is Running Inside My Body”
#9Reasons to NOT open up the code: 1> Loss of competitive advantage 2> Open source is not necessarily any safer (heartbleed bug ... ) 3> If software for the pacemaker is allowed to be updated like that on a computer, someone will update it with buggy software that can cause adverse side effects. Who owns the liability in that case?
3> has nothing to do with the code being OS, wherether or not a device is locked down is independent of that.
Re: “I Want to Know What Code Is Running Inside My Body”
#10Reasons to NOT open up the code: 1> Loss of competitive advantage 2> Open source is not necessarily any safer (heartbleed bug ... ) 3> If software for the pacemaker is allowed to be updated like that on a computer, someone will update it with buggy software that can cause adverse side effects. Who owns the liability in that case?
Loss of competitive advantage There's a competitive advantage in keeping pacemakers' source code proprietary? Open source is not necessarily any safer (heartbleed bug ... ) It's a hell lot more amendable to inspection than proprietary software.
> There's a competitive advantage in keeping pacemakers' source code proprietary?
There definitely is. If your company takes ~2 years to develop a pacemaker's software, it's not to your advantage to let your competitors catch up. I'm not saying it's a good thing that it's closed source, but there is definitely incentive to keep your research to yourself.