this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2023
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Syringe drivers exist that are on-line devices. I half expect the first IoT murder to be by someone hacking a syringe driver filled with something vital (say insulin) that's plugged into the victim's IV.
I don't know if such devices are capable of being jailbroken and installed with Linux, but why not?
At the level of microcontrollers there is an entire range with the necessary radio HW and enough computing power and memory to have WiFi and a TCP stack but not enough to fit Linux (stuff like the esp8266, which has only 80KB user data memory).
Those things essentially run just the one application on top of some manufacturer provider libraries (no OS, though if you really want to there's an RT OS) and which can be something that gets commands via the network and activates some hardware via GPIO ports.
For example, smart LED lamps that can be controlled from a smartphone are made with this kind of HW.
Mind you, recently somebody managed to get Linux to run of a top range model of the most recent of these things (an ESP32-S3).
So I wouldn't presume that a syringe driver can be made to run Linux, given that it's functionality is simple enough to be implemented by a simple program that can fit in that kind of microcontroller.
Good work, 47. Now get to an exit.