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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

#951

Post by himinlomax »

elteto wrote: post #361

This almost reads like science fiction, what an incredible attack from a technical POV. A couple of thoughts: 1. The beepers were compromised and have been for a long time. I don't know how easy it is to exfiltrate data from them if they are receive-only devices. At any rate it shows that Israel is capable of intercepting and manipulating low-tech comms. What's left for Hezbollah to use? 2. The next step is to hack i…

I heard a story according to which a similar scheme was used in the Algerian war of independence, so these is more retro than scifi. Radio sets were left by the French military for the Algerians to grab. The explosive was hidden in the frame and components, and the trigger was a specific audio frequency. The device looked exactly like a stock military radio set if you disassembled it. So it's not that scifi.

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#952

Post by himinlomax »

flutas wrote: post #158
netsharc wrote: post #39

It must be a combination of hardware (put a bomb in it) and software (trigger an explosion when a particular command is received) hack. Triggering an explosion of all devices is needed because if people started hearing about exploding pagers, they'd place their own far away from anything precious to them. Geez, I thought this kind of hack is the stuff of (bad) action movies. I wonder if there's a pager that was power…

I doubt it has anything to do with the battery, pagers typically use the far more stable (and less energy dense) NiMH composition over a typical lithium one.

It's probably much easier these days to source lithium batteries than NiMH ones.

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#953

Post by onemoresoop »

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…

> If Gold Apollo wants to keep selling pagers, better they start making all the carcasses on their products transparent from now on. With a big photo in the boxes showing how the correct product must look.

I don't think that would make a difference at all, explosives could be disguised in any electronic components, being transparent wouldn't help very much. The Taiwanese company's brand is now irreparably tarnished, I think that is the cost of lending the brand name to an untrustworthy partner.

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#954

Post by refurb »

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…

Can a company sue you because you modified their product? Even if that modification caused harm?

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#955

Post by botanical »

Apartheid Israel really are terrorists. This was representative of that, killing 2 children in the process. There could be 186,000 deaths since October in their current Genocide of the Palestinians. No wonder Hamas and Hezbollah exist, the same way uMkhonto we Sizwe existed in Apartheid South Africa. They need to be sanctioned and their leaders put in a court of the ICC.

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#956

Post by botanical »

RickJWagner wrote: post #720
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…

I see a clear difference. One side still holds hostages, the other does not. One side perpetrated murder, rape and kidnapping, the other did not. Etc.

Israel had 4000 hostages before Oct 7, and more than doubled it since to 10 000.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_prisoners_in_Israe...

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#957

Post by hajile »

kombine wrote: post #860

If it was not a terrorist attack and a war crime but a targeted operation against the militants, why wouldn't Israel claim responsibility for the successful operation?

If a car bomb went off next to an IDF post killing a bunch of IDF soldiers and one 10-year-old kid, it would be declared a terrorist attack immediately.

If this involved China and Taiwan, North and South Korea, or Russia planting bombs on Ukrainian soldiers, nobody would be debating whether it was a terrorist attack.

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#958

Post by hajile »

ebcode wrote: post #880
vander_elst wrote: post #574

From a legal perspective, are there any regulations on these kinds of attacks? Meaning, are they allowed? Are they considered a war crime or maybe this is still a gray area?

If the pagers had been equipped with lasers that caused blindness, there is a Geneva Convention protocol going back to 1995[0]. I would like to think that the spirit behind that protocol is that the intent to cause permanent blindness in your opponent should be considered a crime. And not that it's not a crime so long as you don't use a laser to do it. So you can put me in the camp of "this should be considered a war…

If the pager was sent a message that would encourage the soldier to bring the pager to their face, it would certainly fall under an intentionally blinding attack.

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#959

Post by hajile »

figassis wrote: post #883

Gold Apollo, the company whose brand was on the devices says they did not manufacture them, they only licensed their brand to BAC, a Hungarian company. Well, I'm sure income from licensing fees in their accounting books say differently. You profit from it, you should pay for it. Any other way to see this will allow this type of vulnerability to spread and the buck will stop nowhere.

Why would devices made in Hungary be labelled "made in Taiwan"?

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#960

Post by bbqfog »

Havoc wrote: post #949

That’s a lot of injured and very angry very freshly motivated terrorists…and not a lot of dead ones. Not convinced this is a net win for Israel

It's also going to be devastating to the Israeli economy. Who would possibly use Israeli tech now?
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