A $250 Biohack That’s Revolutionizing Life with Diabetes

Post by cubicthe » Wed, Aug 22, 2018, 4:45 AM UTC

femto wrote: post #21

jimrandomh wrote: post #16

The article, strangely, leaves out the name of the project it's reporting on. It's OpenAPS, http://openaps.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ . I use it and have worked on the code. It's a massive health and quality of life improvement over anything that exists which is FDA approved. The core problem is that the FDA-approved devices are optimized not for getting the best result, but for ensuring the manufacturer can't be blam…

From the docs: "One of the most frequently asked questions is “I have a 723 pump but it has version 2.5B software version. Has anyone figured out a way to make newer model Medronic pumps compatible? Like flash older version of software onto my 723 2.5B pump?” The answer is “No. The ability to downgrade software versions in the pumps does not exist. It has been investigated and nobody has made any successful progress…

(I have 2 723 2.3A pumps, using OpenAPS)

A specific X-and-below is required because the RF protocol was reverse-engineered, presented at DEF CON 19 (2011), and the manufacturer locked it down immediately (PSK, gg). The new protocol has not been reverse engineered (this is for Medtronic Minimed)

A newer style of RF pump from a different manufacturer (Insulet OmniPod) has been de-capped and had its protected-mode firmware scanned, and has been disassembled and picked through - and re-flashed firmware has been sent to that pump and works fine, and we understand the cryptographic protection algorithm (we can talk to them) and a great deal of the protocol. That still leaves a massive "forward engineering" and integration efforts that must be non-commercial by nature (because laws)

edit: there are literally 7 of us that have access to the RE'ed firmware repo (it's a private github repo) - PM me if you're interested (there's a really irrelevant NDA that is involved, which I think is spooking wider sharing)

Pump manufacturers are not technology leaders and have no forcing function to create open systems. There is no reason they could not publish the protocol and also allow me to enroll a key (knowingly voiding affected aspects of the warranty) and interact with a device that is legally part of my person.

Of course, this is mostly a USA problem: for other jurisdictions there are open compatible pumps (http://www.sooil.com/eng/product/) that have this, but they are not available (including for insurance support of the consumables) in the USA

Post by cubicthe » Wed, Aug 22, 2018, 5:07 AM UTC

candiodari wrote: post #78

davidgrenier wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow I can't help but read you've smuggled endorsement for: It's ok if the product is more dangerous when bundled with the benefit that we can blame it on some organization.

And what do you suggest we do when an open-source "biohack" results in something like this ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide Note the mistake made, and just how subtle it was. During testing a somewhat more ad-hoc process was used to produce the drug that did not result in the bad isomere, and then it was sold with multiple isomeres in the actual drug. Regulators at the time thought that isomeres did not ma…

I actually don't care about anyone else's opinion of what I may do to manage my chronic, lifelong, slog of a disease. This is merely my chosen alternative to doing math and jabbing myself with a needle manually, which any reasonable person can conclude is perfectly capable of killing me within minutes. This is already delegated to all T1Ds in the normal state.

Your scary hypothetical is not possible. As if to agree, my pump just beeped at 10PM, announcing that the temporary basal (which can't kill me at maximum setting) expired and a new one was chosen. It's best choice is actually to suspend basal entirely when it knows I've dosed too much, which makes it a very legit safety improvement.

Oh, and a company created the example, which waters down your point - what convinced you that the very capable hands of people affected by the disease directly with a strong desire for data to back every thing up is anything like an accident waiting to happen? There's no profit motive here! (PS: it runs a direct test suite on install, and has cloud CI)

Re: A $250 Biohack That’s Revolutionizing Life with Diabetes

Re: A $250 Biohack That’s Revolutionizing Life with Diabetes