When machines can kill

by billso on Saturday, 5 July 2008

It’s pos­si­ble to build a “kill switch” into elec­tron­ics, so that the device can be stopped or destroyed by remote control. I men­tioned this in my 3 July arti­cle called The kill switch is a bad idea.

But what hap­pens when the device itself can harm or kill a per­son? Nathan Adams, a master’s stu­dent at the Uni­ver­sity of Can­ter­bury, has writ­ten a good post called When bugs really do mat­ter: 22 years after the Therac 25. He also addresses prob­lems with Alaris SE infu­sion pumps back in 2006. This FDA page called Safety Infor­ma­tion about the Alaris Sig­na­ture Edi­tion Gold Infu­sion Pump Seizure has more information.

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