Medtronic is a local company in my town, and I know a LOT of people (including at least one other HN participant) who work there. It will be interesting to see what further follow-up there will be on this story. I wonder what form of authentication of signals to devices will be required by FDA regulation after this issue is explored in depth.<p>Note: one person I know in the medical device industry in this town points out that the whole medical device industry has a completely different orientation to bugs and hardware failures from most other industries. He used to work in civil passenger aviation avionics, where even one failure in millions of flights is unacceptable. The same point of view pervades the medical device industry--although sometimes more as an aspiration than as an actual accomplishment. Software writers for medical devices can expect full code reviews before a regulated device is approved by the FDA. Time to market is MUCH slower for a new medical device than for most new electronic products, because of all the regulated testing each new device must go through.