Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon • Hacker News Board

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#731

Post by jrochkind1 » Wed, Sep 18, 2024, 12:05 AM UTC

einszwei wrote: post #196

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…

Their strategy seems to consciously be showing everyone that they are craziest mf'ers who don't care about any consequences or collateral damage ever.

I agree with you that there some pretty serious global consequences that will come back to bite them too, but, then, they pretty intentionally don't care, that seems to be the whole deal.

I have heard Trump supporters actually suggest that a similar thing is a winning strategy for Trump too. Of course he seems to be an irrational unpredictable guy who doesn't care about the consequences in foreign policy, that's great for the USA, everyone will be scared to cross him because he's so unpredictable!

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#732

Post by _DeadFred_ » Wed, Sep 18, 2024, 12:09 AM UTC

respondo2134 wrote: post #691

einszwei wrote: post #196

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 don't see this as a smart move (let alone strategy) in any time frame. As a third-party observer greatly removed from the conflict I used to view Israel as an island under attack from terrorists. Now I'm struggling to see the differences between their activities and blowing up airplanes or launching rockets from schools and hospitals. You can say I'm naive, and why would Israel care about how I feel, but as a count…

There are 100,000+ northern Israeli's who are refugees inside Israel because Hezbollah is firing hundred of rockets indiscriminately daily at civilian targets, but Israel doing something specifically targeted at higher level Hezbollah operatives makes you feel like Israel is doing exactly the same thing? All while you don't even yet know the reason for the Israeli op (was it to stop an imminent Hezbollah action? Seems odd that this also impacted so many operative in Syria, doesn't it? Why aren't people mentioning that this was larger than Lebanon?)

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#733

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd » Wed, Sep 18, 2024, 12:10 AM UTC

captainkrtek wrote: post #488

mmastrac wrote: post #365

That's an impressive supply-chain hack. Spend years showing how insecure modern telecom devices are and scare your enemy into going old-school, receive-only. Set up a shell company to sell pagers to your enemy's shell company. Give them devices implanted with a small explosive charge pointed inward, knowing they will be worn around the waist most of the time. Hack the backend server, send a coordinated page to all th…

> You have to hand it to them -- it's a clever strategy with minimal casualties outside of your enemy I agree it’s clever, but there are reports now of thousands wounded. Feels like a lot of collateral risk, if these people who were targeted were out and about (grocery shopping, bank, etc.)

I wonder if people are unaware that Hezbollah and Israel have been shooting rockets at each other for months. There are roughly 1000 deaths in the conflict and hundreds of thousands of civilians evacuated. If we’re talking about harms to civilians, this incident is probably small compared to the war overall.

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#734

Post by BjoernKW » Wed, Sep 18, 2024, 12:11 AM UTC

respondo2134 wrote: post #691

einszwei wrote: post #196

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 don't see this as a smart move (let alone strategy) in any time frame. As a third-party observer greatly removed from the conflict I used to view Israel as an island under attack from terrorists. Now I'm struggling to see the differences between their activities and blowing up airplanes or launching rockets from schools and hospitals. You can say I'm naive, and why would Israel care about how I feel, but as a count…

> Now I'm struggling to see the differences between their activities and blowing up airplanes or launching rockets from schools and hospitals.

Well, the obvious difference is that blowing up airplanes or launching rockets at residential areas intentionally targets civilians in order to spread a maximum amount of terror among the civilian population while blowing up pagers that were used for coordinating attacks against Israel very specifically targets operatives involved in such activities.

Some of the initial footage shows such a device going off while innocent bystanders remain unharmed. You can't get any more targeted than that.

Yes, such a pager might have ended up in the hands of a non-involved person, but given the facts known so far that's very unlikely, because there's a reason those people were carrying these devices on them: They were afraid of being tracked down by Mossad in the first place.

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#735

Post by FridayoLeary » Wed, Sep 18, 2024, 12:12 AM UTC

mcoliver wrote: post #730

"The New York Times reported that Israel hid explosive material in the Taiwan-made Gold Apollo pagers before they were imported to Lebanon, citing American and other officials briefed on the operation. The material was implanted next to the battery with a switch that could be triggered remotely to detonate." Wild

That is pretty similar to what has been guessed so far. The posters here speculated that the charge was concealed inside the battery. Also some reports said that the batteries themselves heated up triggering the explosives. does the report mention if this was a physical switch or just some sort of control circuit?

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#736

Post by yodsanklai » Wed, Sep 18, 2024, 12:19 AM UTC

jrochkind1 wrote: post #731

einszwei wrote: post #196

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…

Their strategy seems to consciously be showing everyone that they are craziest mf'ers who don't care about any consequences or collateral damage ever. I agree with you that there some pretty serious global consequences that will come back to bite them too, but, then, they pretty intentionally don't care, that seems to be the whole deal. I have heard Trump supporters actually suggest that a similar thing is a winning…

Same in Gaza, it seems they are willing to kill pretty much anybody (children, journalists, humanitarians, hostages) close to a potential target, regardless of whatever their allies may be thinking. Kind of a "godfather" strategy.

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#737

Post by morkalork » Wed, Sep 18, 2024, 12:20 AM UTC

mcoliver wrote: post #730

"The New York Times reported that Israel hid explosive material in the Taiwan-made Gold Apollo pagers before they were imported to Lebanon, citing American and other officials briefed on the operation. The material was implanted next to the battery with a switch that could be triggered remotely to detonate." Wild

They tampered with thousands of devices. Created a whole production run of them and kept it under wraps. Wild indeed.

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#738

Post by ok123456 » Wed, Sep 18, 2024, 12:23 AM UTC

saintradon wrote: post #699

This is why Chinese made electric cars are a bad idea in America. But Kudos to Israel for pulling off a surgical strike the likes of which we've never seen before.

Kudos to pulling off state-sponsored terrorism that killed many innocent civilians, including doctors and nurses who relied on the same pagers?

This is like celebrating the 9/11 hijackers for the "creative hack" of using a box cutter.

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#739

Post by dannyfreeman » Wed, Sep 18, 2024, 12:25 AM UTC

fsckboy wrote: post #714

aussieguy1234 wrote: post #711

Honestly, at this point, I see absolutely zero difference, from a moral perspective, between the Israeli government and their enemies. Both are as bad as each other and have been implicated in many war crimes and human rights abuses, however Israel has more firepower and can inflict much more damage (E.g. demolish an entire apartment block, killing hundreds of innocent people from the air). The last thing any country…

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Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#740

Post by poisonarena » Wed, Sep 18, 2024, 12:28 AM UTC

respondo2134 wrote: post #691

einszwei wrote: post #196

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 don't see this as a smart move (let alone strategy) in any time frame. As a third-party observer greatly removed from the conflict I used to view Israel as an island under attack from terrorists. Now I'm struggling to see the differences between their activities and blowing up airplanes or launching rockets from schools and hospitals. You can say I'm naive, and why would Israel care about how I feel, but as a count…

>as a country and a people they only exist as long as we're their benefactor

Why do so many people think this? If the US stopped "giving" them "military aid" which is actually just disney dollars to spend in the US military industrial complex they would be out a small percentage of their defense budget.