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Dick Cheney Had Implanted Defibrillator Altered To Prevent Terrorist Attack
An anonymous reader writes "According to the Washington Post, 'Former Vice President Dick Cheney says he once feared that terrorists could use the electrical device that had been implanted near his heart to kill him and had his doctor disable its wireless function. Cheney has a history of heart trouble, suffering the first of five heart attacks at age 37. ... In an interview with CBS' 60 Minutes, Cheney says doctors replaced an implanted defibrillator near his heart in 2007. The device can detect irregular heartbeats and control them with electrical jolts. Cheney says that he and his doctor, cardiologist Jonathan Reiner, turned off the device's wireless function in case a terrorist tried to send his heart a fatal shock.' More at CBS News."
My sis has an implanted defibrillator. It's a weird experience to be sitting in a doctors office when a technician comes in with a machine to test the installation.
"I just need to turn up your blood pressure and heart rate for a minute" says the tech, as casually as ordering a cup of coffee.
A couple of button presses later, the look of shock on my sister's face as she realized that she was not, in a very literal sense, in control of her own heart is something I'll never forget.
She needs her implanted defibrillator but, holy shit, the power she must cede to Miss Random Device Technician by having it in her body is scary as all hell.
IIRC the pacemakers have to be put in wireless configuration mode with a magnet placed in a specific spot on the pacemaker, so to hack one wirelessly would require physical access to him. It's not WIFI it's just wireless to prevent having to open him up to access the pacemaker, it still requires physical access.