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this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2024
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With neural implants open source is not the main issue. Sure, it's nice, but it's not like I'm gonna do a brain surgery because I did RTFM.
There are pacemakers with bugs shocking hearts incorrectly and companies can't help. They're bust or don't have the copyright to the code or just won't help - buy our new product next year.
It's not difficult to imagine malicious brain implants when the users are not in control. Being open source, or rather "free software", is equally a main issue.
Do you have a source for that? I work with these pacemaker companies fairly frequently, and I'm not aware of this, and a quick search didn't turn up anything.
Karen Sandler of the Software Freedom Conservancy has a "pacemaker defibrillator" for her large heart, and has done a few talks about it. I just read that a defibrillator is not usually included as part of "pacemaker" so I may have misspoke.
Original talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XDTQLa3NjE
Follow-up talk 6 years later: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2FNqXhr4c8
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=5XDTQLa3NjE
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=k2FNqXhr4c8
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
The tldr is some portion of pregnant women get a condition which makes their heart look like it needs to be shocked by the pacemakers defibrillator. This has not been accounted for in part because most women who get pacemakers defibrillator are elderly and so won't get pregnant. Besides that, testing devices on pregnant people isn't a thing (for good reason).
Perhaps not, but it would make it far easier for any sympathetic brain surgeon you managed to find who was willing to try and fix the problem for you.
The key thing is not needing that specific company to help, but needing generic expert assistance is fine