• tabular@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    There are pacemakers with bugs shocking hearts incorrectly and companies can’t help. They’re bust or don’t have the copyright to the code or just won’t help - buy our new product next year.

    It’s not difficult to imagine malicious brain implants when the users are not in control. Being open source, or rather “free software”, is equally a main issue.

    • Kbobabob@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      There are pacemakers with bugs shocking hearts incorrectly, and companies can’t help.

      Do you have a source for that? I work with these pacemaker companies fairly frequently, and I’m not aware of this, and a quick search didn’t turn up anything.

      • tabular@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        The tldr is some portion of pregnant women get a condition which makes their heart look like it needs to be shocked by the pacemakers defibrillator. This has not been accounted for in part because most women who get pacemakers defibrillator are elderly and so won’t get pregnant. Besides that, testing devices on pregnant people isn’t a thing (for good reason).