Hackers Want To Give You A Heart Attack -- Literally?

from the talk-about-malicious! dept

Thu, Feb 24th 2005 10:13am — Mike Masnick

It seems to be based on no actually information other than a "well, in some certain cases, maybe, it could sorta happen," but here's an article saying that hackers may try to reprogram your pacemaker. A few years back, pacemakers were approved to transmit data wirelessly -- which seems like a good thing. A doctor can more closely monitor how a patient is doing. More recently, studies showed that WiFi doesn't appear to interfere with pacemakers. However, this article still wants you to be very, very afraid. They admit that the data is encrypted, but say there's still some possibility that they could hack into your heart. This might be a situation where someone should step back and ask what's the real likelihood of this happening?

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

8 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Anonymous Coward, 24 Feb 2005 @ 10:32am

What's the likelyhood of this happening?
I suppose it depends on whether the pacemaker's embedded in my grandfather or Dick Cheney...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
dorpus, 24 Feb 2005 @ 4:30pm

Jesus Christ
I just almost had a heart attack right now, because I was in the bathroom for 10 minutes, then when I turned on the shower, the cat suddenly jumped out of the cabinet. How many Americans are killed by their cats every year?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Oliver Wendell Jones, 25 Feb 2005 @ 6:21am
  
  Re: Jesus Christ
  How many Americans are killed by their cats every year?
  
  Until one kills you, Dorpus? Not enough...
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 25 Feb 2005 @ 9:22am
    
    Re: Jesus Christ
    AMEN !
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 4 Jan 2006 @ 12:46am
  
  Re: Jesus Christ
  some ppl say curiosity killed the cat. i think the curious cat killed the person.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Weird Guy, 15 Mar 2006 @ 11:44pm

I jumped out of the cabinet when my cat was in the room and killed it
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 16 Mar 2006 @ 8:06pm

My Cabinet jumped out of my cat when the shower turned me on...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
zainab, 11 Jul 2006 @ 10:47am

murder in a park
i want to give a story about murder in a park
[ link to this | view in chronology ]