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I guess where I was going with my line of
reasoning is not to limit information on how to modify a device
but actually do the opposite – make modification be easy and safe. It is the fact that there is
often little documentation on a device that contributes to
accidents. At the same
time, it is important to make there be clear warnings when doing
something may be dangerous and security must be paramount. To use the car analogy, you
need to have a driver's license in order to drive and in order to
do that, you need to know how
to drive. If people who
get medical devices are also trained in how the device works, this
would have the potential to save lives, regardless of whether the
user has the desire to modify it.
Aaron E-J
http://otherrealm.org
http://theotherrealm.org (Blog)
On 2016-08-16 11:27 PM, J.B. Nicholson
wrote:
arthur_torrey@comcast.net
wrote:
There is a very mixed bag situation on
medical device hacking, in that
yes, it is definitely possible to cause potentially life
threatening
situations if one makes modifications the wrong way...
The problem with this argument is that we wouldn't accept this
line of logic for any other device. We've already dealt with this
level of danger and accepted it on a national scale. There's a
strong history in the US (and I imagine other countries) of people
being able to modify their cars. This goes back to well before
computers were in cars. Cars have long been known to be radically
unsafe for both the passengers and the people in the vicinity of
the car (making what we've already accepted objectively more
dangerous than a medical device such as a pacemaker/defibrillator
like what Karen Sandler has) and yet we have no problem with car
owners changing what they like in their cars so long as the end
result doesn't break certain laws. As a result of car hacking we
now enjoy a mix of hobbyists and commercial garages some of which
came up from people learning by experimenting on their own
vehicles.
We never let those potentially life threatening situations hinder
someone's access to fully control their own devices before and we
ought not do so now that computers and software are involved.
I think that what should be done at a
minimum is to allow any
programming parameters to be changed, even if the program itself
is more
thoroughly locked down, or more difficult to modify, while
providing a
good and accessible set of information and warnings on what they
do...
I am far from thrilled by the multiple 'Are you SURE?'
checkboxes that
some proprietary O/S's put you through, but could see some level
of that
on particularly dangerous parameters....
That's not software freedom and there's no reason to set such a
minimum. What you're describing is indistinguishable from
highly-configurable proprietary software.
This fight has to be about software freedom, not half-measures
like open source; open source is a developmental methodology which
is okay with proprietary software and asking proprietors for a
chance to help a commercial developer improve a program. The free
software movement demands software freedom for all computer users
on ethical grounds.
In terms of the medical device area, I
think that it would be VERY good
to do something on the line of an open source hardware group for
medical
devices. I have had a long time interest in trying to make
better
chairs but have been worried about how to handle the regulatory
and
liability concerns. Among other things, a collected knowledge
base of
how to do things without getting into problems with the
government
bodies dedicated to blocking progress...
Perhaps, if this group was interested in software freedom and not
"open source" and if membership isn't about identity politics
(only people with medical backgrounds can be members, for
instance, thus negating any chance free software activists would
represent the group). Otherwise it would become important to
oppose any such group. Greenwashing (or as Brad Kuhn put it,
"openwashing"[1]) is a real problem with groups like this because
they're often corporate shills looking to preserve the status quo
in service to their interests and the interests of their
employers.
[1]
http://mirror.linux.org.au/pub/linux.conf.au/2015/Case_Room_2/Thursday/Considering_the_Future_of_Copyleft_How_Will_The_Next_Generation_Perceive_GPL.webm
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