Live data from Hacker News

Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

reuters.com

241–250 of 1001 posts

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#241
post #14

Not sure why this was flagged, it's certainly a novel way of striking the enemy, regardless of the political undertones. Reuters seems to have a bit more details, and is probably a bit less biased than current URL (timesofisrael.com): https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/dozens-hezbollah-m...

[deleted]

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#243

From Israel's perspective, this supply chain attack was undoubtedly a clever move, but I can't help but wonder about its long-term consequences. Although it was aimed at harming Israel's adversaries, third-party countries may now hesitate to involve Israel in their supply chains. There's also the risk that other major producers could replicate this tactic, potentially leading to further escalation in the region or be…

Do you really think this supply chain bringing pagers to the Hezbollah actually went through Israel?! Israel has ways of intercepting packages in other ports outside of Israel.

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#244

From Israel's perspective, this supply chain attack was undoubtedly a clever move, but I can't help but wonder about its long-term consequences. Although it was aimed at harming Israel's adversaries, third-party countries may now hesitate to involve Israel in their supply chains. There's also the risk that other major producers could replicate this tactic, potentially leading to further escalation in the region or be…

I'm not at all convinced that's the case, unless it comes out that the targeting was extremely broad (like if Israel was just putting bombs in every pager going into Lebanon rather than targeting a specific shipment going to Hezbollah) I don't think there's really any new risk for other countries.

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#245
post #234
post #179

If we try to do what we are best at here at HN, let’s focus the discussion on the technical aspects of it. It immediately reminded me of Stuxnet, which also from a technical perspective was quite interesting. I already wonder if this was anything that was planted in the devices perviously, or if the ones responsible had similar devices, and managed reverse engineer them and craft a payload to them, that could be sent…

Haaretz reports that the devices were purchased only recently - and heated up before detonating. [1] So, that sounds like indicators for both, either a supply-chain attack or malware targeting the battery. [1] https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-09-17/ty-article-li...

How much stuff is there to fuck with in a standard, untampered-with pager? Seems unlikely this was pure cyber (and some novel battery hack). And if you need supply chain interception to carry out the attack in the first place, why wouldn't you insert explosives? There's a history of these kinds of attacks.

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#246
post #179

If we try to do what we are best at here at HN, let’s focus the discussion on the technical aspects of it. It immediately reminded me of Stuxnet, which also from a technical perspective was quite interesting. I already wonder if this was anything that was planted in the devices perviously, or if the ones responsible had similar devices, and managed reverse engineer them and craft a payload to them, that could be sent…

[flagged]

Seems much more precisely targeted than rocket attacks.

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#247

From Israel's perspective, this supply chain attack was undoubtedly a clever move, but I can't help but wonder about its long-term consequences. Although it was aimed at harming Israel's adversaries, third-party countries may now hesitate to involve Israel in their supply chains. There's also the risk that other major producers could replicate this tactic, potentially leading to further escalation in the region or be…

This is a one shot attack. They will never be able to do it again. And I don't think most of the world has pissed off Mossad quite as much as Hezbollah. Assuming they even did it!

> "One shot attack"

>> This is the second time israel has done this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahya_Ayyash

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#249
post #179

If we try to do what we are best at here at HN, let’s focus the discussion on the technical aspects of it. It immediately reminded me of Stuxnet, which also from a technical perspective was quite interesting. I already wonder if this was anything that was planted in the devices perviously, or if the ones responsible had similar devices, and managed reverse engineer them and craft a payload to them, that could be sent…

We can't really do much more than speculate right now, but it seems like the most likely answer is that a shipment of pagers was intercepted and implanted with explosives. Israel has done this before to assassinate a prominent bomb maker. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahya_Ayyash#Assassination

> Kamil Hamad disappeared and it is rumored that he received US$1 million, a fake passport and a visa to the US.

Given the chain of events detailed already sounds like it was ripped from a spy novel, I'm pretty skeptical of this claim.

Post reply on HN