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$75K Prosthetic Arm Is Bricked When Paired iPod Is Stolen

Posted by timothy on from the what-about-backups dept.

kdataman writes U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Ben Eberle, who lost an arm and both legs in Afghanistan, had his Ipod Touch stolen on Friday. This particular Ipod Touch has an app on it that controls his $75,000 prosthetic arm. The robbery bricked his prosthesis: "That is because Eberle's prosthetic hand is programmed to only work with the stolen iPod, and vice versa. Now that the iPod is gone, he said he has to get a new hand and get it reprogrammed with his prosthesis." I see three possibilities: 1) The article is wrong, possibly to guilt the thief into returning the Ipod. 2) This is an incredibly bad design by Touch Bionics. Why would you make a $70,000 piece of equipment permanently dependent on a specific Ipod Touch? Ipods do fail or go missing. 3) This is an intentionally bad design to generate revenue. Maybe GM should do this with car keys? "Oops, lost the keys to the corvette. Better buy a new one."

17 of 194 comments (clear)

  1. You've gotta hand it to him though. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    He'll be right. He is from the ARMy after all.

    1. Re:You've gotta hand it to him though. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Some people really are willing to pay an arm and a leg for their Apple products.

  2. Hmmm ... by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is an incredibly bad design by Touch Bionics. Why would you make a $70,000 piece of equipment permanently dependent on a specific Ipod Touch?

    You know, given the terrible kind of software we see in embedded software, and the terrible security implemented by most companies ... I'm perfectly willing to believe this is an incredibly bad design, because there's plenty of evidence that these kinds of things tend to have incredibly bad designs.

    Between companies using 10 year old Linux kernels, to having unpatchable systems, or just having really bad understandings of security, I've come to conclude this is the norm.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    1. Re:Hmmm ... by RobinH · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Except the terribly bad design we typically see in embedded design is normally to provide a back-door way to prevent just this kind of problem. "Oh, you lost your password? No problem, hold down these three buttons and cycle power and it'll reset everything to factory defaults, and then you can login with this default password."

      --
      "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
    2. Re:Hmmm ... by nine-times · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm having a bit of a hard time understanding how the entire device could be permanently bricked, even in the case of a poor design. Instead of replacing the entire $70k arm, surely they could swap out a chip or circuit board somewhere...?

    3. Re:Hmmm ... by Richard_at_work · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why is that bad design? It allows access to the system again, but in a way that makes it pretty fecking obvious access has been gained - thats how I would like it to be handled rather than the alternatives of never gaining access or gaining unfettered access with all data in place and no one being aware access was gained.

    4. Re:Hmmm ... by sjames · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Exactly. Especially when the reset to factory requires physical presence. In most cases it is exactly the right thing.

    5. Re:Hmmm ... by Overzeetop · · Score: 5, Funny

      $70k is the standard repair fee for prosthetics not covered under an Applecare agreement.

      --
      Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
    6. Re: Hmmm ... by joeshmoo · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'm a prosthetist and I've worked with the iLimb Ultra (the version I assume is being referenced in this article). The iPod that was stolen is presumably a jailbroken iPod that was set up by Touch Bionics. The original version of the iLimb Ultra required a jailbroken iPod to link up to the hand. However, it's usefulness is in changing the grip patterns that the hand is capable of. Losing the iPod doesn't "brick" the hand so much as it prevents the patient from being able to change the grasp patterns of the hand on the fly. He can still open and close the hand. This iPod touch could be replaced by another jailbroken iPod from Touch Bionics, but I know that they were down to their last few refurbished units when I last got one for a patient. The current version of the iLimb Ultra (and its successor the iLimb Ultra Revolution) both can connect to any iDevice without requiring special modifications to the iDevice. The one that this patient has is presumably about 2 years old as that's when they still had not yet switched to a standard bluetooth connection.

  3. Bad Planning by neoform · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What if the ipod was dropped and breaks? What kind of poor planning is this where that one ipod was the linchpin of this expensive prosthetic?

    --
    MABASPLOOM!
  4. If true, it is no longer the case with new devices by Majestros · · Score: 5, Informative

    I recently sat through a Touch Bionics seminar and, at least for the newer devices, all you need to do is enter the "serial number" of the hand into the app and it can control it. We even joked about how easy it was, so friends with prosthetic hands could prank each other by entering their friend's serial number into their own app and controlling their friend's hand. This may just apply to new devices though, maybe in response to problems like this?

  5. Could Be Worse by Greyfox · · Score: 4, Funny

    The guy who stole it could now be controlling his hand. "Now hand over your wallet! No, wait... I'll do it! Bwahahahahah!" Small favors and all that...

    --

    I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

  6. Re:$75,000 for a prosthetic arm? by Smidge204 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Seriously, they charge an arm and a leg for prosthetic limbs!

    =Smidge=

  7. Re:I see three possibilities by kdataman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I am the submitter and the layout of the original submission was much different with a new paragraph there.

  8. Re:I see three possibilities by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    You should have gone with a more reputable news aggregation service like FARK or 4chan. Their editors are top notch compared to Slashdot.

  9. Re:You've never lost your keys, have you? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Hi, I'm a volunteer for The Math Foundation, the non-profit devoted to helping everyday people do math, because Math Is Hard(tm). After careful calculations, I have concluded that replacing all of your keys via the dealerships costs more than two orders of magnitude less than purchasing a new set of cars, which means you could purchase over 100 cars for the cost of a set of keys, on average. You can now safely take the "new keys" option with the assurance that it is the wiser financial path between the two, and you no longer have to lie awake at night wondering whether or not the "new cars" option would be cheaper.

  10. Re:I see three possibilities by schlachter · · Score: 5, Funny

    the iPod has an ARM processor.

    --
    My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.