A DWT holiday ghost story featuring the Spirit of Halloween: "Big Dick" Cheney and his unexplodable heart

The former veep reveals how he forced his doctors
to protect his (alleged) heart from remote hackers.

by Ken

Halloween is fine for kids. I don't know what the cutoff age is -- 9 or 10 is fine, 10 or 11 is pushing it, and beyond that, well, you might want to seek professional help. As for adults who indulge, I have to imagine we're dealing with straight people who want to be more like gay people and gay people who . . . okay, I haven't worked this part out, but you're going to have a rough time persuading me it's wired into the schematic of being gay, like doing tasteful floral arrangements or singing show tunes.

Still, if we have to celebrate the, er, holiday, what better governing spirit than our own "World's Biggest Dick" Cheney, whom I like to think of as the Spirit of Halloween?

Now, regular readers know how parismoniously I guard my free NYT clicks, but I ask you, could you resist something like this?



I mean, didn't we all see this actually happen on Homeland? You know, when the crafty Islamic terrorist found a way to insinuate Brody, as a confidant of the vice president, into his study in order to . . . well, you remember. And the scheme worked. They sent the strategic zap and the veep crumpled!

Well, it appears that a certain former vice president saw it too, and it brought back memories.

Of Fact, Fiction and Cheney’s Defibrillator

October 27, 2013

By GINA KOLATA

In a chilling episode of “Homeland” last year, a terrorist killed the vice president with a fiendishly clever weapon: a remote-control device that attacked the computerized defibrillator implanted in his chest.

For former Vice President Dick Cheney, it was all too realistic.

Mr. Cheney, who had heart disease for decades before receiving a transplant last year, had such an implant to regulate his heart rate and shock his heart back into life, if necessary. The defibrillator could be reprogrammed wirelessly from a short distance away. In 2007, he had the wireless feature disabled.

About the “Homeland” scenario, Mr. Cheney said on the Oct. 20 episode of “60 Minutes”: “I found it credible. It was an accurate portrayal of what was possible.”

Now naturally Ms. Kolata, as a science writer, is interested in the science of it. Could this really happen?

Medical experts say the answers are surprisingly complicated.

Mr. Cheney’s cardiologist, Dr. Jonathan Reiner of George Washington University, said in the “60 Minutes” interview that he agreed with his patient.

An assassin “on a rope line or in a hotel room next door” could have instructed the defibrillator to kill Mr. Cheney, he said, adding that a wireless programmable device “seemed to me a bad idea for the vice president of the United States.”

Other experts say the scenario is highly unlikely, though they couch their answers carefully.

The devices, used by millions of Americans, transmit data from a patient’s home to a doctor’s office, alerting the doctor of a malfunction. But the communication goes only one way; the devices being used today cannot be reprogrammed remotely.

Instead, patients must go to a doctor’s office. With some devices, they must be within inches of the reprogramming machine. Others can be reprogrammed from about 30 feet away, but a wand must be held close to patients’ collarbones to identify them to the machine.

“My opinion is it is probably unlikely that a remote attack of this nature could happen today,” said Kevin Fu, a University of Michigan expert on computer security.

But he emphasized the word “probably,” adding that he would never say something is impossible. “There can always be a flaw we are unaware of,” he said.

And on and on. If you really care about the science, you can read on for yourself -- you've got the link above. (We might as well get some return on my expended click.)

What interests me is that then-Vice President "Big Dick" had exactly the same concern, and apparently believed there were people out there who might want to blow up his heart. I'm not saying he was wrong, just that it's interesting that he thought so. Now that I think of it, the Homeland veep had distinctly Cheney-esque qualities. And in the case of the genuine article, the real "Big Dick," I don't think it would have been necessary to resort to fanatical Islamists for potential suspects.

For the record, Dr. Fu, the University of Michigan computer-security maven, who you'll recall is skeptical that the Homeland scenario could really play out, has serious concerns about the idea deactivating the wireless connection.

[H]e noted that the wireless feature of a defibrillator serves an important purpose. Without it, a device cannot be fixed wirelessly in a doctor’s office if something goes wrong. Nor can it employ its early warning system to alert a doctor that something is amiss, like a broken wire.

“He must have decided that he was willing to sacrifice that because of the security risk,” Dr. Fu said. “I think the average person would make the opposite decision.”

Well, nobody ever accused "Big Dick" of being "the average person" -- or even of knowing any average people.

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