>Techirt has long discussed how in the modern era, the things you buy aren’t actually *the things you buy*. And the things you own aren’t actually *the things you own*. Things you thought you owned can be downgraded, bricked, or killed off entirely without much notice.
>That game console with backward compatibility? It no longer has backward compatibility. That smart home hub or smart speaker at the heart of your living room setup you’ve enjoyed for years? It no longer works. The movies and books you thought were permanently in your personal catalog? Sorry, they aren’t anymore. That perfectly good two-year-old phone? It no longer gets security updates, putting you and your data at risk.
>**This is all bad enough when talking about smart home hubs or smart refrigerators, but it’s another thing entirely when it comes to life-saving or pain-reducing medical implants**. Like in 2020, when a company named Argus shut down, leaving customers losing the gift of sight thanks to their medical implants no longer being supported.
>[Nature Magazine last week took a deeper look at the problem of medical implant customers suddenly being left high and dry by either incompetence, policy changes, or bankruptcies.](https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-022-03810-5/index.html) It’s very much worth a read.
>[Italics in original, bolding added]
Wanted to link the Nature Magazine piece directly, but they’re not as good with snappy attention grabbing headlines, but please give the original reporting a click
e; added my sentence at the bottom and an introductory paragraph to the quote
RoninSpectre
This actually reminds me how certain insulin pump were hacked in such a way to provide better doses via a custom android app that took your blood sugar stats directly and determining the exact dosage. Once this trend caught on newer models of pumps made it nearly impossible to make such mods. That said there is a strong community out there that works hard to find ways to hack units
2 Comments
>Techirt has long discussed how in the modern era, the things you buy aren’t actually *the things you buy*. And the things you own aren’t actually *the things you own*. Things you thought you owned can be downgraded, bricked, or killed off entirely without much notice.
>That game console with backward compatibility? It no longer has backward compatibility. That smart home hub or smart speaker at the heart of your living room setup you’ve enjoyed for years? It no longer works. The movies and books you thought were permanently in your personal catalog? Sorry, they aren’t anymore. That perfectly good two-year-old phone? It no longer gets security updates, putting you and your data at risk.
>**This is all bad enough when talking about smart home hubs or smart refrigerators, but it’s another thing entirely when it comes to life-saving or pain-reducing medical implants**. Like in 2020, when a company named Argus shut down, leaving customers losing the gift of sight thanks to their medical implants no longer being supported.
>[Nature Magazine last week took a deeper look at the problem of medical implant customers suddenly being left high and dry by either incompetence, policy changes, or bankruptcies.](https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-022-03810-5/index.html) It’s very much worth a read.
>[Italics in original, bolding added]
Wanted to link the Nature Magazine piece directly, but they’re not as good with snappy attention grabbing headlines, but please give the original reporting a click
e; added my sentence at the bottom and an introductory paragraph to the quote
This actually reminds me how certain insulin pump were hacked in such a way to provide better doses via a custom android app that took your blood sugar stats directly and determining the exact dosage. Once this trend caught on newer models of pumps made it nearly impossible to make such mods. That said there is a strong community out there that works hard to find ways to hack units