3 ms·

Ohh this has already started. Happened to me the other day: machine for rectal air insufflation under x-ray guidance to allow reduction of an intussusception (a

Ohh this has already started. Happened to me the other day: machine for rectal air insufflation under x-ray guidance to allow reduction of an intussusception (a condition where the bowel folds in on itself). It primarily affects young children and if the procedure fails they require an open operation. Failure to treat the intussusception eventually results in bowel perforation, peritonitis and potentially death. Went to start the procedure, machine reports it’s ready to work, all set up, assistant presses start, cryptic error messages. No way to fix. Turns out our license has improperly expired for reasons unknown. No way to override. It’s past 5 pm Friday of the New Year’s weekend. No one on call for the company has any idea how to fix. Took three hours repeatedly phoning the company to finally get put through to an engineer who gave us magic series of button presses and codes to get the machine working. We used to have a purely mechanical machine, maintained in house by an on site engineer. Now we have to deal with this. There is only one company making these machines, so no competition. Progress.

userbinator 3y ago
It was (and probably still is) quite common to hire a cracker to remove the DRM from industrial equipment software to prevent any downtime it causes; of course that's not a life-support application, and the motive was that downtime for such machinery is often very costly. Of course with the recent Polish train debacle (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38788360 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38788360) stories of DRM schemes where incomplete defeat causes subtly worse behaviour (rather common in games), and the ability to engineer a system with plausible deniability in mind, like some of Apple's hardware-locking attempts, one does wonder whether medical devices may have such logic bombs too.
- waiwai933 3y ago
  Can you share/link to any stories of the first? I've never heard of it before and would be keen to read more on it.
  - userbinator 3y ago
    It is not surprisingly difficult to find this stuff now, but there are some stories here: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/fpga/altera-software-dongle-teardown/ https://www.eevblog.com/forum/fpga/altera-software-dongle-te...
GenerWork 3y ago
The user experience of machines in the healthcare field is abysmal. You'd think that someone would have thought about your use case, but they either didn't, or they did and said "Well, that'll never happen because <reasons>".
- 93po 3y ago
  The reality is someone in management said "we need the machine to lock out under X condition for Y reason" and an engineer said "that's a bad idea because Z also someone could die" and management said "do it anyway" and the engineer chose to implement it versus undergo significant financial hardship of quitting their job and finding another one

userbinator 3y ago

It was (and probably still is) quite common to hire a cracker to remove the DRM from industrial equipment software to prevent any downtime it causes; of course that's not a life-support application, and the motive was that downtime for such machinery is often very costly. Of course with the recent Polish train debacle (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38788360 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38788360) stories of DRM schemes where incomplete defeat causes subtly worse behaviour (rather common in games), and the ability to engineer a system with plausible deniability in mind, like some of Apple's hardware-locking attempts, one does wonder whether medical devices may have such logic bombs too.

waiwai933 3y ago
Can you share/link to any stories of the first? I've never heard of it before and would be keen to read more on it.
- userbinator 3y ago
  It is not surprisingly difficult to find this stuff now, but there are some stories here: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/fpga/altera-software-dongle-teardown/ https://www.eevblog.com/forum/fpga/altera-software-dongle-te...

GenerWork 3y ago

The user experience of machines in the healthcare field is abysmal. You'd think that someone would have thought about your use case, but they either didn't, or they did and said "Well, that'll never happen because <reasons>".

93po 3y ago
The reality is someone in management said "we need the machine to lock out under X condition for Y reason" and an engineer said "that's a bad idea because Z also someone could die" and management said "do it anyway" and the engineer chose to implement it versus undergo significant financial hardship of quitting their job and finding another one