Digital Trends has an article about the rights of people with software and hardware emedded in their bodies in devices often upon which their lives depend. It's a hot topic as more people depend on medical devices while manufacturers dodge and weave to avoid providing answers about software engineering and their products. Silence is common as is presenting false dilemmas.
Karen Sandler has a complicated relationship with her pacemaker. On the one hand, the device has the power to save her life. On the other, it sometimes suddenly and unnecessarily shocks her, mistaking a slight aberration in her heartbeat as a call for help.
Sandler was pregnant during two of those occasions, when the pacemaker detected her heart palpitations (which aren't abnormal in expecting mothers) and delivered an unwarranted jolt. Worried that the device would misfire again, Sandler asked the manufacturer for access to its source code, hoping to reconfigure the implant to suit her condition. The manufacturer denied her request.
[...] "Right now we basically have the worst of both worlds," Sandler says. "We have no real security on these devices, which means that anyone with over-the-counter equipment can take control and deliver even fatal shocks ... And we have code that is not available for us to review. So we have no transparency and no security."
Earlier on SN: Hey, Did You Ever Get the Source Code to that Thing Attached to Your Heart?
Related Stories
Karen Sandler of the Software Freedom Conservancy delivered a keynote presentation last week at linux.conf.au 2018 (LCA) in Sydney, Australia. Specifically she spoke about her multi-year odyssey to try to gain access to the source code for the pacemaker attached to her heart and upon which her life currently depends. Non-free software is having an increasingly (negative) impact on society as people entrust more of their lives to it. That software is found in an increasing number of places, both high and low, as all kinds of devices start to run fully networked microcomputers.
In her first LCA keynote 6 years ago, Karen first told the people of LCA about her heart condition and the defibrillator that she needed to have implanted. This year she described her continued quest to receive the source code for the software running in her defibrillator, and how far she has been able to get in obtaining the source code that she's been requesting for over a decade now.
Source : Karen Sandler Delivered Keynote at Linux.conf.au
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 08 2018, @07:41AM (1 child)
We, as a civilization, know the organizational methods to produce these devices to the highest standards.
We know the hardware engineering methods to maximize fail-safe-ty.
We know the software engineering methods to minimize bugs, and minimize the severity of the remaining ones.
We know the testing methods needed to provide adequate safety assurances.
We know the quality management methods to iron out even the few, lesser bugs that remain and are found later.
Now the only thing, really, that remains to be done, is to find a producer who reliably does at least one of those things of their free will, and according to the methods's spirit, instead of grudgingly with a regulatory gun held to their heads.
Until then: bring out those guns! The more the better! Loaded, cocked, and aimed.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday July 09 2018, @01:55PM
We, as a civilization, know the organizational methods to maximize profitability, shareholder value, and executive bonuses.
Everyone else has voted these conditions into existence of their own free* will.
*free will, still subject to fees and taxes.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 08 2018, @07:44AM (1 child)
We have gone way too far out of whack preventing people from doing things they should be perfectly within their rights to do.
Worried about a lawsuit? Waiver.
Worried about someone stealing your source code? Don't get into the game of providing crucial services with your gadgets.
Humanity would MASSIVELY benefit by sharing knowledge, but our economic system incentivizes greed and prevents innovation. I'm not sure how we move from the millennia of "money" to a more sane system that promotes human well being and advancement, but that is THE problem of the 21st century.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday July 09 2018, @01:52PM
If you have a device implanted inside you, then do you have any rights? Or if you do, aren't they subject to a nondisclosure agreement?
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday July 08 2018, @01:42PM (1 child)
You want to control the tech inside you but you don't even control your CPU! Sad!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Monday July 09 2018, @01:55AM
YUUGE problem!
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Thursday July 12 2018, @03:09PM
Not much will happen until people take action. Either by their own in Reverse Engineering or by succeeding with bribed politicians.
I'll suspect that closed source will be forbidden in some areas because it will be more and more unsustainable in the feature until it reaches some breaking event.