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Hacking Ventilators With DIY Dongles From Poland:
As COVID-19 surges, hospitals and independent biomedical technicians have turned to a global grey-market for hardware and software to circumvent manufacturer repair locks and keep life-saving ventilators running.
The dongle is handmade, little more than a circuit board encased in plastic with two connectors. One side goes to a ventilator’s patient monitor, another goes to the breath delivery unit. A third cable connects to a computer.
This little dongle—shipped to him by a hacker in Poland—has helped William repair at least 70 broken Puritan Bennett 840 ventilators that he’s bought on eBay and from other secondhand websites. He has sold these refurbished ventilators to hospitals and governments throughout the United States, to help them handle an influx of COVID-19 patients. Motherboard agreed to speak to William anonymously because he was not authorized by his company to talk to the media, but Motherboard verified the specifics of his story with photos and other biomedical technicians.
William is essentially Frankensteining together two broken machines to make one functioning machine. Some of the most common repairs he does on the PB840, made by a company called Medtronic, is replacing broken monitors with new ones. The issue is that, like so many other electronics, medical equipment, including ventilators, increasingly has software that prevents “unauthorized” people from repairing or refurbishing broken devices, and Medtronic will not help him fix them.
[...] Delays in getting equipment running put patients at risk. In the meantime, biomedical technicians will continue to try to make-do with what they can. “If someone has a ventilator and the technology to [update the software], more power to them,” Mackeil said. “Some might say you’re violating copyright, but if you own the machine, who’s to say they couldn’t or they shouldn’t?”
I understand that there is an ongoing debate on the "right to repair". However, many manufacturers increasingly find ways to ensure that "unauthorised" people cannot repair their devices. Where do you stand on this issue? During the ongoing pandemic, do medical device manufacturers have the right to prevent repair by third parties?
Previously (Medtronic):
(2020-04-14) Raspberry Pi to Power Ventilators as Demand for Boards Surges
(2020-03-31) Professional Ventilator Design "Open Sourced" Today by Medtronic
(2019-11-18) US-CERT Warns of Remotely Exploitable Bugs in Medical Devices
(2018-10-17) Medtronic Locks Out Vulnerable Pacemaker Programmer Kit
(2018-08-15) Hack Causes Pacemakers to Deliver Life-Threatening Shocks
(2014-10-28) US Security Agencies Look at Medical Device Security
Previously (right to repair):
(2020-07-06) Fixers Know What "Repairable" Means--Now There's a Standard for It
(2020-04-21) 'Right to Repair' Taken Up by the ACCC in Farmers' Fight to Fix Their Own Tractors
(2020-03-13) Europe Wants a 'Right to Repair' Smartphones and Gadgets
(2020-01-09) Popularity of Older Tractors Boosted by Avoidance of DRM
(2019-06-21) Hackers, Farmers, and Doctors Unite! Support for Right to Repair Laws Slowly Grows
(2019-04-30) Reeducating Legislators on the Right to Repair
(2019-02-22) Right to Repair Legislation Is Officially Being Considered In Canada
(2018-10-13) 45 Out of 50 Electronics Companies Illegally Void Warranties After Independent Repair, Sting Reveals
(2018-09-21) John Deere Just Swindled Farmers Out of Their Right to Repair
(2018-04-17) Apple Sued an Independent iPhone Repair Shop Owner and Lost
(2018-03-08) The Right to Repair Battle Has Come to California
(2018-02-02) Tractor Hacking: The Farmers Breaking Big Tech's Repair Monopoly
(2018-01-28) Washington State Bill Would Make Hard-to-Repair Electronics Illegal
(2017-05-25) Apple, Verizon Join Forces to Lobby Against New York's 'Right to Repair' Law
(2017-03-08) Right to Repair
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday July 11 2020, @02:15AM (8 children)
the problem of a botched repair that causes death is valid.
Sure is. The manufacturers have to at least make the effort to lock them down for liability reasons.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Saturday July 11 2020, @02:33AM (6 children)
At the same time the manufacturers should make the effort to lock them down for liability reasons.
Unfortunately, TFA spells the situation clear:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday July 11 2020, @02:59AM (4 children)
The government has power of eminent domain over patents. I guess we have to make more noise than the lobbyists to get them to use it.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 11 2020, @03:09AM
I think when when politicians bellies be full o'th Redrum they cause, it might be enough to give even them pause. But twill they sing another tune? How would I know, simply the court loon...
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday July 11 2020, @03:15AM (2 children)
It's not about the patents, you silly, what I quoted above works well (for manufacturers) even without them.
Actually, it work even better in the "undisclosed methods, trade secret" approach.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Insightful) by deimtee on Saturday July 11 2020, @04:37AM (1 child)
I have a strong disagreement with even the concept of protected trade secrets. The deal is you disclose it in a patent, you get 20 years of protection from competition and then the knowledge is free to everyone.
If you think you can keep it secret, fine go for it, but you don't get the force of law to back it up. The entire concept of patents is that you trade secrecy for legal protection, and having legal protection for "trade secrets" breaks that deal.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 1, Troll) by c0lo on Saturday July 11 2020, @04:52AM
Me too, but unfortunately that's not the reality that we're living.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday July 11 2020, @05:26AM
Oh, Gosh, should have been:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday July 12 2020, @12:58PM
Unless you're in a country where there's proper protection legislation, and the response to any problem isn't to sue everything in sight.