More than 200 people with diabetes have been injured when their insulin pumps shut down unexpectedly due to a problem with a connected mobile app, the US Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday.

  • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
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    7 months ago

    “hello, I would like to inspect the firmware of the insulin pump/pacemaker/artificial heart that keeps me alive, can I have the copy of the source code?”

    “no? it’s proprietary? well golly! guess I’ll trust ya in blind faith then!”

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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      7 months ago

      The problem is their insurance company may not give them another option in the American for-profit healthcare system.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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          7 months ago

          Yes, that is true any time you are given no choice. But also an unhelpful blaming of the victim.

          • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
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            7 months ago

            That’s not even remotely the point I was trying to make.

            Medical software should not be treated the same as any old random proprietary code.

            Right now we just have to trust that “the car has airbags” because no-one is allowed to open it up and check.

            That shouldn’t need to be the person themselves, but that’s the bare minimum of what a sane situation should allow.

        • thedirtyknapkin@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          they mean that the insurance would only approve one model. i don’t think there are any open source pace makers though.