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Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

reuters.com

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Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#911

Post by stef25 »

repelsteeltje wrote: post #876
achow wrote: post #835

Israel's Mossad spy agency planted a small amount (3 gm) of explosives inside 5,000 pagers made by Gold Apollo (a Taiwanese company). "The Mossad injected a board inside of the device that has explosive material that receives a code." 3,000 of the pagers exploded when a coded message was sent to them. Gold Apollo founder Hsu Ching-Kuang said the pagers used in the explosion were made by a company in Europe that had t…

Gold Apollo claims the devices were assembled in Hungary by a company named BAC.

My guess that entire company was just a Mossad front.

* They seem to have little or no actual presence at their Hungarian address * CEO has a profile that seems to have very little to do with the manufacturing of telecom devices * Gold owner says their payments were strange and came through the middle east. * Orban is very pro Israel

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#912

Post by light_hue_1 »

b112 wrote: post #862
achow wrote: post #835

Israel's Mossad spy agency planted a small amount (3 gm) of explosives inside 5,000 pagers made by Gold Apollo (a Taiwanese company). "The Mossad injected a board inside of the device that has explosive material that receives a code." 3,000 of the pagers exploded when a coded message was sent to them. Gold Apollo founder Hsu Ching-Kuang said the pagers used in the explosion were made by a company in Europe that had t…

You know, as this is a tech forum, I'll reply via a tech business, re: branding angle. Yes Gold Apollo, they were yours. That's because you licensed your name, and your name is your business. (EG your mark(name) of trade) I've seen this in everything from hotels to frying pans. License that name! We made 1% more this quarter. Yeehaw! Holiday in has corporate owned hotels, franchised hotels, and of course licensed hot…

Oh wow!

I never understood why I felt that t-fal was garbage in Canada but mediocre in the US. Now it makes sense: they're totally different products.

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#913

Post by TiredOfLife »

esjeon wrote: post #827
phirgate wrote: post #761

This is terrorism. Israel is not an island defending from terrorist, they are the ones spreading terror. What they did to their neighbouring countries could be happen to others. Can we stop praising this as clever and impressive attack and start holding Israel accountable!?

I hope people discuss using more precise terms. UN Security Council Resolution 1566 outlines what is generally considered as terrorism: "criminal acts, including against civilians, committed with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury, or taking of hostages, with the purpose to provoke a state of terror in the general public or in a group of persons or particular persons, intimidate a population or compel…

>No government, especially those of developed countries, should be allowed to inflict harms on individuals, living in peace, in any form, whether physical or mental.

That's why they targeted members of Hezbollah (a terrorist organization) and not children playing football like Hezbollah does.

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#915

Post by _ugfj »

pvaldes wrote: post #895
achow wrote: post #835

Israel's Mossad spy agency planted a small amount (3 gm) of explosives inside 5,000 pagers made by Gold Apollo (a Taiwanese company). "The Mossad injected a board inside of the device that has explosive material that receives a code." 3,000 of the pagers exploded when a coded message was sent to them. Gold Apollo founder Hsu Ching-Kuang said the pagers used in the explosion were made by a company in Europe that had t…

I wouldn't wish to be in the PR damage control team of Gold Apollo right now. This was a direct attack to their survival as company. Will they sue Israeli government for turning their product into a bomb used to mutilate and kill people? Seems not probable. Will they sue the Hungarian company making the bombs? That would be a more realistic target. Now Hezbollah has an excuse to attack Hungary interests in the EU and…

As it can be expected the situation is extremely murky. Hungarian press is abuzz with this, I will translate a few hard facts and leave speculation to others. I will also use English sources as appropriate. Hungarian sources are below the list, you can run them through automated translation to fact check me.

* There's a small consulting company called BAC after the initials of the founder Bársony-Arcidiacono Cristiana. One of their services is https://archive.fo/kwTKA "We develop international technology cooperation among countries for the sale of telecommunication products. This cooperation entails scaling up a business from Asia to new markets e.g. developing countries". Their home page https://archive.fo/dXtMx lists these: Strategic Advisor for major International Organizations including Financial companies (Venture Capitals, IAEA, UNESCO, CNRS, EC, etc.). Business Developer and Savvy Analyst for Innovative/ Solutions in diverse fields (Sustainable Development (SDGs), Water, Energy, Resilience-Mitigation-Adaptation, Capacity Building, Complex Emergencies, Digitalization (AI, Blockchain, ICT) within Humanistic Economy.

* The official place of business is just a business "placeholder". The woman who answered the doorbell for journalists said no one ever from BAC is there, maybe once a month a mail comes which she receives.

* This house is also the registered address for a number of companies. Two companies have Russian owners. One of them is an oil wholesaler.

* BAC revenue in 2023 was 210 million forints and 13 million profit. What's remarkable is how person-related expenses (payroll etc) was a mere 0.5 million forints for the entire year. Hungarian monthly minimum wage was a bit over 0.25M HUF. One million HUF is about 2820 USD.

* NBC talked to the founder. According to her "I don’t make the pagers. I am just the intermediate. I think you got it wrong". https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/taiwan-firm-denies-making...

* The founder's linkedin is still up https://www.linkedin.com/in/cristiana-b%C3%A0rsony-arcidiaco... Her PhD from 2006 is at https://ucl.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?do... so it seems real.

https://hvg.hu/kkv/20240918_hezbollah-bac-consulting

https://archive.is/QWlXw

https://telex.hu/belfold/2024/09/18/mit-lehet-tudni-a-magyar...

In conclusion, if I needed to speculate based on the LinkedIn page and the archived consulting page, what gives me pause: if this woman indeed exists she is one of the most talented people in all of Hungary. Seven languages, degrees in diverse fields and a PhD in physics. At the same time, I have indeed found a PhD from 2006 and her grants and scholarships from even earlier are probably not hard to verify either. I do not know what to think.

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#916

Post by raxxorraxor »

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…

They did show that religious fundamentalism, which attacked their country and abducted their people, has to pay a very high price for their terrorism.

This terrorism will hurt innocents and the winning strategy would have been to just not attack Israel.

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#918

Post by cryptonector »

b112 wrote: post #862
achow wrote: post #835

Israel's Mossad spy agency planted a small amount (3 gm) of explosives inside 5,000 pagers made by Gold Apollo (a Taiwanese company). "The Mossad injected a board inside of the device that has explosive material that receives a code." 3,000 of the pagers exploded when a coded message was sent to them. Gold Apollo founder Hsu Ching-Kuang said the pagers used in the explosion were made by a company in Europe that had t…

You know, as this is a tech forum, I'll reply via a tech business, re: branding angle. Yes Gold Apollo, they were yours. That's because you licensed your name, and your name is your business. (EG your mark(name) of trade) I've seen this in everything from hotels to frying pans. License that name! We made 1% more this quarter. Yeehaw! Holiday in has corporate owned hotels, franchised hotels, and of course licensed hot…

It's difficult enough to secure the supply chain towards the OEM as it is. It's nigh impossible for a vendor/OEM to secure the supply chain towards retail and distribution, not relative to nation-state attackers of great sophistication and with huge budgets. This sort of thing could happen with any smartphone, any feature phone, laptops, etc. Though it was a lot easier to mount this attack given an order for thousands of units from one company.

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#919

Post by [deleted] »

dredmorbius wrote: post #705
JSDevOps wrote: post #634

I find it hard to believe that people are seriously considering the cybersecurity angle in this situation. Yes, there may be some extremely rare and unlikely scenarios where you could hack into a device and cause the attached lithium-ion battery to overheat and combust. However, it’s important to understand that lithium-ion batteries don’t actually explode—they combust gradually over the span of a few seconds to minu…

[flagged]

[deleted]

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#920

Post by lm28469 »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #891
achow wrote: post #835

Israel's Mossad spy agency planted a small amount (3 gm) of explosives inside 5,000 pagers made by Gold Apollo (a Taiwanese company). "The Mossad injected a board inside of the device that has explosive material that receives a code." 3,000 of the pagers exploded when a coded message was sent to them. Gold Apollo founder Hsu Ching-Kuang said the pagers used in the explosion were made by a company in Europe that had t…

Where is the line between war and terrorism ? This attack is quite indiscriminate. There are already videos circulating of random people being collateral damage. Israel is losing the support of people more and more, and all that due to the crusade of Netanyahu to stay in power and to not be imprisoned for his former crimes. Despicable. So much human suffering and for what ?

It's so weird that this super mild take is downvoted on HN... I got the same yesterday.

Everything has to be binary, good vs evil, once you pick your side you have to ignore everything that compromises your idyllic vision.

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