Zack Whittaker

If anyone's wondering about pagers (or as the news happens today, *exploding* pagers), I wrote about them back in 2019 because various U.K. NHS trusts rely on pagers — even though they are unencrypted and often include sensitive (such as medical) information.

https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/30/nhs-pagers-medical-health-data/

NHS pagers are leaking medical data

Unencrypted pager messages are broadcasting health and medical data across UK cities

TechCrunch
Sep 17, 2024 at 2:33pmWeb
Show threadGareth KloseSep 17, 2024
@zackwhittaker have you seen https://www.npr.org/2023/12/08/1197955913/doctors-pagers-beepers ?
Show threadGary ParkerSep 17, 2024
@zackwhittaker yeah, I bought an rtl-sdr dongle to play with about ten years ago. We lived near both a large hospital and a nature reserve, and the pager traffic was all quite eye opening medical stuff and bird watchers!
Show threadTilde LowengrimmSep 18, 2024
@zackwhittaker @zackwhittaker @hacks4pancakes Counterpoint: pagers/beepers have a cool 90s æsthetic and they're a one-way communication device so there's no way to doomscroll. There are even satellite pagers like the Motorola 9501 which can passively receive texts anywhere in the world without revealing your location to cellphone towers. Or encrypted LoRa Meshtastic "pagers" with little epaper screens and week-long battery life. I lied, I don't really have a counterpoint, I just think that pagers are kinda neat. When they haven't been rigged to explode, that is. Exploding pagers are not great; I would prefer not to use one.