I’ve been receiving tons of e-mail today from well-meaning friends to tell me about a major story in the news:
“Hacker Found Dead Before Revealing Pacemaker Hacking Secrets”
Actually, the major news outlets just picked up the story. Ethical hacker Barnaby Jack was found dead on July 25, 2013.
In any case, the media is talking about a conspiracy against Jack, who was supposed to spill the beans on how to hack a pacemaker at the Black Hat Briefings hacking conference in Las Vegas.
In my humble opinion however, there are much easier ways to kill someone than to figure out a target’s IPG model, reverse engineer the AIMD’s communications protocol, and then get close enough to the victim to trigger inappropriate therapy delivery.
Needless to say, the dramatization of such an exploit in the December 2012 “Homeland” episode about a terrorist hacking into the vice-president’s ICD, commanding it to induce VF was totally ridiculous. Unfortunately, the general public (and the “news” media) is so ignorant that it believes anything concocted by Hollywood, so it comes to no surprise that Barnaby’s pacemaker hack would cause such sensation.
In reality, if something sinister went on, I would say that criminal minds and powerful players would probably have a lot more interest in Barnaby Jack’s ways of “jackpotting”, or exploiting ATMs in order to make them dispense cash.
The cause of death hasn’t been announced, but no foul play is being suspected by the San Francisco Police Department.
It is obvious that Barnaby Jack was a talented person who was passionate about his work, and it’s unfortunate that the media would exploit his death to sell sensationalistic stories instead of respecting the grief of his loved ones and patiently wait for an official report from the city’s medical examiner’s office.
Start-up company 
Boston Scientific announced that it has launched a clinical trial to determine whether occipital nerve stimulation (ONS) using the Precision™ System can safely and effectively treat chronic migraine when used in conjunction with anti-migraine medications. According to the press release:
This month’s Medical Device and Diagnostic Industry (MD+DI) magazine carried an interesting article by David Schatz – WiTricity’s VP Sales – on their efforts to develop highly resonant wireless power transfer technology for use in AIMDs. The article is available online at 
Greatbatch Medical, which moved its headquarters to the Dallas, TX area last year, announced that it has set a target of at least 5%/yr organic growth. To accomplish this growth, the Company recently 
On June 5, 2013 Greatbatch, Inc. announced that it would combine Greatbatch Medical and Electrochem Solutions – which have been operating independent operations and sales & marketing groups – into singular sales & marketing and operations groups serving the entire Greatbatch organization. According to the 
NeuroTronik, a recent spin-off from Synecor, a Chapel Hill business accelerator, announced that it has raised $13.1M for the development of a neuromodulation system intended for the treatment of acute heart failure syndrome.
