[Closed] Every gadget with a battery is a bomb?

Don't SRAM mechs explode for no reason, even analogue ones ?

Don’t SRAM mechs explode for no reason, even analogue ones ?

this deserves recognition.  *Highfive*

Every gadget with a battery is a bomb?

Potentially, yes. But I think in this case Mossad infiltrated the supply chain and put bombs in the devices.

Also, every vehicle with a fuel tank is potentially a bomb. There's quite a long list of things you could use to make bombs.

Many unconfirmed reports about what caued this, so speculation is not going to really help explain what happened. Yes, there were reports of a new batch of pagers coming in, but... Yes, there were also reports that the server was compromised then used to send a script that overloaded the pagers, but...

Israel saying nothing, Lebanon just saying they had a lot of people coming in with injuries.

Also, Twitter for news? Really?

Also, Twitter for news? Really?

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/dozens-hezbollah-members-wounded-lebanon-when-pagers-exploded-sources-witnesses-2024-09-17/

its an absolute hellfest, but stuff usually breaks there first

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd7xnelvpepo

also seems that Israeli ambassador to UK also had an explodey hezbollah pager on him

and now on bbc,

I would have never even thought this was possible if true.

It is scary how many innovative ways humans can come up with to maim and kill each other

Someone watched 'Kingsman The Secret Service' and thought , Thats a good idea...

yes I thought of that movie too when I first read about it

That is stunningly scary. Aren't pager messages really short and so the command would have to be something to activate an embedded payload already on the device?

Was on a aircraft yesterday and they announced that if your electronic device starts to get hot or smoke, let a member of staff know.

What are they going to do, open the door and chuck it out?

Oh and just think how many pagers are used in the NHS still ....

Was on a aircraft yesterday and they announced that if your electronic device starts to get hot or smoke, let a member of staff know.

What are they going to do, open the door and chuck it out?

They have a fancy bag to drop it in and a box to drop the bag in. It buys time but doesn't put the fire out.

Oh and just think how many pagers are used in the NHS still ….

The NHS ones probably aren't packed with C4 though

I thought the UK pager network had been shut down about 6 or 7 years ago?

This shouldn't be a big surprise, the Stuxnet attack happened nearly 15 years ago and might have been in play for several years before that.

You can Google it, but it was a small virusy thing which self spread all over the place, which sat and watched to see if it's host was running controls on particular centrifuges used in nuclear material production. If it was, it nudged the speed now and again to spoil the batch and/or wreck the machine. Iran's nuclear arms project the target.

NHS doctors definitely still use them

I wonder if Motorolla were involved at any stage, because I suspect theyve just lost a lot of business!

This shouldn’t be a big surprise, the Stuxnet attack happened nearly 15 years ago and might have been in play for several years before that.

its not the hack thats the surprise, its that they somehow managed to get 100s, 1000s? of pagers with explosives distributed to 1000s ? of hezbollah members

What else have they been messing with? Headsets and earbuds?

I just bought my wife a Motorola phone (its a very good phone tbf)  is there a self-destruct code?

On the radio news just now, Hezbollah were being tracked by their mobiles phone signal, so they got rid of the mobile phones and started using pagers, apparently, Israel was aware of this, and interrupted the pager supply to add some explosive in each of the pagers. It sounds rather far fetched to me.

NHS pagers... Brings back nightmares of the damn thing going off in a communicative way, requiring my presence in wards all over SGH simultaneously, from an old job decades ago!

First thought was Stuxnet as well.

I suspect what's happened is someone has found an exploit to perform an OTA firmware change that allows them to overload a device. As easy as a squib is, it's also really easy to spot if for any reason the pager got opened or passed through any sort of security scanner, ESPECIALLY in that part of the world.

It sounds rather far fetched to me.

doesn't sound at all far-fetched to me tbh, if you've read about or watched films detailing what Israeli secret services have gotten up to in the past! There can't be many suppliers of pagers left these days, and not being high-security items would be trivial to intercept the supply chain at some point.

Really can't think of any other explanation why thousands of the things have been exploding simultaneously (if that is indeed what's been happening).

Someone watched ‘Kingsman The Secret Service’ and thought , Thats a good idea…

Did it involve the Swedish princess lady?

Definitely more than the battery exploding from what I seen on Telegram.

No idea how, but looks to be a nasty explosion from the pagers. Most seem to have been carrying them in the front trousers pockets .. scary

This is incredible - Kingsman came to mind to me as well.

BBC report seems confident the supply chain was infiltrated and explosives put in at source. If anyone has recently bought a pager from Mossadelectronics.com, you might want to think again.

Did it involve the Swedish princess lady?

Only if you save the world.

I suspect what’s happened is someone has found an exploit to perform an OTA firmware change that allows them to overload a device.

this is what's far-fetched! Sounds like a plot from that terrible BBC 1 spy-show Bugs. It's just random buzz-words strung together in a sentence  🙂

What if STW were a conduit for anti UK propaganda and there were spies amongst us, especially in all those political threads?

And, who’s recommended a Chinese EV recently, or a smartphone?

Makes you think, we could all be being influenced in ways cleverer than a 90’s teenagers collection of The Daily Sport.

Sounds like a plot from that terrible BBC 1 spy-show Bugs.

Or that awful one that was on this week, - Night Sleeper. Hackers have taken over a train by planting a Raspberry Pi in the wiring. Also, they have blocked all mobile phone signals on the train. It got to that point when I turned it off.
Oh, one line from the counter-terrorism hacker specialist - ‘Dont remove it as the train could just speed up until it crashes’. Yes,really based on reality that is!

would be trivial to intercept the supply chain at some point.

Yep find someone with access, explain that they and every relative they know will be killed if they don't give you access and hey presto 1000 pagers get C4 swapped out for one of the battery cells and no one is any the wiser...

Only if you save the world.

Both incidents seem to involve an explosion in your pants...

Yep find someone with access, explain that they and every relative they know will be killed…

Or just pay them lots of money, everything is easier when people are happier with a tasking and want to help.

we could all be being influenced in ways cleverer than a 90’s teenagers collection of The Daily Sport to buy Specialized Epic Evo's.

FTFY

Or just pay them lots of money

Agents become less reliable if they are motivated purely by money. All it requires for them to become double-agents is for the other side to also offer them money.

Better to threaten to kill their families which will dramatically reduce the chances of them becoming double-agents.

Israeli intelligence is generally excellent in the Occupied Territories, which is why Oct 7th came as such a shock (although not a complete shock) holding thousands of Palestinian prisoners undoubtedly plays a part in that.

Glad I wasn't sitting next to one on a plane.

Agents become less reliable if they are motivated purely by money. All it requires for them to become double-agents is for the other side to also offer them money

Not really, because they know if exposed they’ll probably get off’ed in the first instance and if handled properly they have little opportunity to blow back/ stitch up their handlers so aren’t of much use if discovered.

Dear god! Just imagine the chaos if Mossad start targeting fax machines?

So it's all apparently acceptable (if true) for a foreign nation to explode devices across various countries?

I have no time for Hezbollah or the IDF but to be frank this is going to cost lives and escalate a war.

I wonder if they intercepted them on a truck and swapped them out for the ones they had put the explosives in. Only need to get to one driver potentially and you'd want to use the option that involved the least possible amount people.

Mr Attenborough is in serious danger if fax machines are targeted...and he is a national treasure!!!

holding thousands of Palestinian prisoners undoubtedly plays a part in that.

It's best they're called what they are - Hostages.

In the use of language, the Israelis will never call them that, and only ever refer to those being held by Hamas as hostages. It is because criminals dont have prisoners, they have hostages.

oldmanmtb2Free Member
So it’s all apparently acceptable (if true) for a foreign nation to explode devices across various countries?

I have no time for Hezbollah or the IDF but to be frank this is going to cost lives and escalate a war.

Thats netanyahu's "master" plan, he'll remove Gallant and replace him with a arse licker warmonger from the far right as gallant has been trying to hold him back from all out escalation.

Shame Netanyahu didn't have a pager planted on him, good riddance to bad rubbish.