Eh? Say What?

I was flipping through Flipboard articles today and a headline grabbed my attention.  It mentioned that there is a current trend for hackers to hack hearing aids.  Gulp!  My first thought was, "Who in the world would want to hack into someone's hearing aid to hear what they are saying?"

Luckily I'm a few years away yet from needing a hearing aid (although my family might tell you differently) so I wasn't too worried about it personally.  No one in my family wears a hearing aid, although my dad should have worn one.  He was pretty deaf from working all those years in an auto factory but we just got used to having to repeat ourselves around him.

As I was thinking about the headline, I had to laugh as I remembered one memorable rehearsal with a community band.  I was in the French Horn section and the fellow sitting next to me had a hearing aid battery that had gone bad.  It was whining like crazy.  Without missing a note, the first chair in our section yelled out to the poor fellow, "Fred, your hearing aid is buzzing" and then picked up right where he had left off.

Fred looked over at me and said, "What?"

"Your hearing aid is making noise," I whispered.

"Huh?" Fred said.

"Fix your hearing aid," yelled someone in the trumpet section.

"Dang thing," grumbled Fred, as he pulled it out of his ear and switched it off.

I think if someone was ever convicted of hacking into hearing aids, as punishment they should be made to listen in to the hearing aids of folks in nursing homes.  My mom's roommate, Betty, could give them quite an earful.

When I actually read the article though, it turned out that it was the owners of the hearing aids who were hacking into their own devices and trying to fine-tune them.  Ah, this put a whole new light on the subject.  If you'd like to read the full scoop, here's a link to the BBC article.