A Password Even a Hacker Supervillain Can't Crack

[It goes without saying that any piece of writing that includes a reference to Homeland should begin with a spoiler alert, so spoiler alert.]

Previously on Showtime’s Homeland, viewers watched someone hack into a pacemaker remotely to try to kill its owner. Plenty of the plot points in the addictive and Emmy-winning series strain credulity, but this one, apparently, should not. This summer the FDA warned medical device makers about precisely this possibility. At a hacker conference last year, Barnaby Jack demonstrated how to take over an implantable insulin pump remotely and tell it to deliver a deadly dose. Earlier this year he claimed to have developed software that allowed him to send a fatal electric shock to anyone within 50 feet—though, in a chilling turn of events, he died before he could present the technology. (The San Francisco police have ruled out foul play.)