Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

Post by pts_ » Tue, Sep 17, 2024, 4:49 PM UTC

sbeam wrote: 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…

Post by lm28469 » Tue, Sep 17, 2024, 4:51 PM UTC

busterarm wrote: post #217

lm28469 wrote: post #86

It wouldn't be a first https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahya_Ayyash > Shin Bet agents gave him a cell phone and told him it was bugged so they could listen in on his conversations.[17] They did not tell him that it also contained 15 grams of RDX explosive

Cell phones were much bigger in 1996. You would have a hard time with that with phones today, but pagers are still viable.

Post by loeg » Tue, Sep 17, 2024, 4:51 PM UTC

smoothjazz wrote: post #309

[flagged]

Post by jjk166 » Tue, Sep 17, 2024, 4:51 PM UTC

harimau777 wrote: post #167

This seems like it would have the potential for a lot of collateral damage due to the possibility that modified pagers might enter general distribution. That is to say, how do they insure that a given shipment of pagers are only going to Hezbollah as opposed to some of them going to people like aid workers?

Post by clydethefrog » Tue, Sep 17, 2024, 4:51 PM UTC

some_random wrote: post #185

sbeam wrote: 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