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#28617 - 13/03/08 03:54 PM Hacking fears over wireless pacemakers
Rob1234 Online   content
Scholar


Registered: 21/09/04
Posts: 73
Loc: Manchester
Now here's an interesting story...
_________________________

I laugh in the face of danger. Then I hide 'til it goes away.

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#28619 - 13/03/08 04:24 PM Re: Hacking fears over wireless pacemakers [Re: Rob1234]
Geoff Hannis Online   content
Hero


Registered: 12/02/04
Posts: 3046
Loc: the path less trodden
I don't want to worry people, but that's probably not the main problem! \:\)

Edited by Geoff Hannis (13/03/08 04:25 PM)
Edit Reason: probably

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#28622 - 13/03/08 05:47 PM Re: Hacking fears over wireless pacemakers [Re: Geoff Hannis]
Rob1234 Online   content
Scholar


Registered: 21/09/04
Posts: 73
Loc: Manchester
Yes, I agree, but if I had a pacemaker and it went haywire and it was caused by interference I could just about accept that (if I survived!) - after all, that's the price you have to pay for living in todays society with all the EMI/RFI gunk floating around - basically no one person can be blamed. Of course manufacturers should design their products in such a way as to minimize the effects of accidental interference, but deliberate hacking is something much more malicious.

Interesting article - something I had never considered.
_________________________

I laugh in the face of danger. Then I hide 'til it goes away.

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#28639 - 14/03/08 09:24 AM Re: Hacking fears over wireless pacemakers [Re: Rob1234]
RoJo Offline
Philosopher


Registered: 08/07/02
Posts: 813
Loc: Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust
As part of the original tests for the DoH on the interference of Rf transmitters with medical devices I was given some mobile phones and police and ambulance walkie-talkies with which to upset anything I could lay my hands on.
I got an old APC4164 external pacemaker and put a 50ohm resistor straight across the terminals - no leads (aerials). Every time I pressed the PTT button of a walkie-talkie the needle flicked in to Sense, even from 7meters away.
I demonstrated this to a Home Office person saying that repeated transmissions made the pacemaker think the heart had a steady rhythm so it did not need to pace. He was rather concerned as the new police radio that he was working on was a packet system, transmitting in bursts. He said that if they were guarding a prisoner/patient they were not allowed to turn the radios off in case they needed to call for urgent back up.
Moral of the story - do not commit a crime if you have a dickie ticker... but if the prisoner is in the bed next to you.......or even in the same ward. \:o

Robert

PS Dickie Ticker is a character in the new Carry On film
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An old decaying structure that not many people visit these days.

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