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Would-Be Suicide Bomber Killed by Unexpected SMS From Mobile Carrier
- niyazpk 16y agoCan they sue the Mobile Carrier for this? Will the terrorists form an anti-spam team? Will the TSA ban mobile phones in airports and flights?
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- Misha_B 16y agoReminds me of this one here: LIVING ON ZIONIST TIME http://www.darwinawards.com/newsletter/199911.txt http://www.darwinawards.com/newsletter/199911.txt
- mfukar 16y agoI suppose a Darwin award is in order..
- dhughes 16y agoI've read conflicting accounts from different news articles. Some articles state the bomber's handler sends a text message to the bomber to say when to detonate the bomb, to maximize terror, but this situation seems like the text message actually triggers the device which seems very precarious and conflicts with the handler theory.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- tzs 16y agoNice story, but it makes no sense. Why would a suicide bomber use a bomb that is triggered by SMS?
- paulgb 16y agoPresumably whoever is triggering the bomb has a better vantage point to inflict the most damage. From the linked article: Islamist terrorists in Russia often use mobile phones as detonators. The bomber's handler, who is usually watching their charge, sends the bomber a text message in order to set off his or her explosive belt at the moment when it is thought they can inflict maximum casualties.
- prawn 16y ago'watching their charge' - clever.
- adamhowell 16y agoI may be wrong, but I believe it's so the suicide bomber can't back out at the last minute. They have a spotter that makes sure they're in position then blows them up.
- code_devil 16y agoOr maybe they were not suicide bombers. They were just terrorists trying to leave the cell phone at the target location and then send a SMS to it.
- ams6110 16y agoThey also sometimes use people who don't know what's going on as the carrier (e.g. children).
- alanfalcon 16y agoThen you just set the phone to not vibrate when you chicken out, right?
- cryptoz 16y agoI might be missing something, but if that's the case then you can't call them suicide bombers! If they are not actually the ones in control of their own death, it's not suicide.
- maukdaddy 16y agoComing soon to America: Wireless carriers SMS all their customers 5 hours before any major event that might be a terrorist target!
- borism 16y agoterrorists disable vibrate, enable auto-answer and start using voltage going into speaker as detonators... ...now automated periodic calls are mandatory in America.
- karanr 16y agoterrorists give up on cellphones, go back to pagers... police now randomly searches doctors for bombs.
- alexqgb 16y agoFirst they came for the cell phones, and I did nothing. Then they came for the pagers. Still I did nothing. At last they came for the walkie-talkies, yet I continued doing nothing. All I thought was "What's any of this got to do with me? I'm just a pigeon!"
- myth_drannon 16y agoSome background on the story : http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2044838-1,00.html http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2044838-1,00.h...
- bretthopper 16y agoAm I crazy or was this story already on HN? I can't find it for the life of me though.
- DanielN 16y agoIt was on Reddit earlier. That may be where the confusion is coming from.
- jacquesm 16y agoNo, you're absolutely right: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2147409 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2147409 Good thing too, finding out you're going crazy can't be fun ;) Sanity restored?
- bretthopper 16y agoThank you. The sad thing is neither Google nor Search HN found that.
- blahedo 16y agoToo bad we can't connect dup'ed stories in some way (except deep in the comments). Further thoughts about that: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1975950 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1975950
- jacquesm 16y agoThis is a re-run from yesterday: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2147409 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2147409
- charlief 16y agoAny theories as to why the popularity is orders of magnitude higher today? The title, the source? people's mood? Egypt? It is Friday so more people slacking? Time it was posted yesterday vs today (prime time)?
- jacquesm 16y agoI think the Egypt situation is really big news and since HN is a news site of sorts it brings a lot of people out to comment and vote.
- Alex3917 16y agoThe more times a story gets submitted, the more upvotes it generally gets because more people have already read it. No matter how good a story is the odds are that it won't get past the new page simply because there aren't many people willing to triage stories. And by the time those who see a story in the new queue finish reading it and vote on it, it's often already too late for it to make the front page. Whereas lots of people are happy to vote for a story they've already seen. Since stories usually hit the front page when their score is around 6, I think it would make sense to give the first five upvoters a share of the karma from the submission. (With the submitter getting the most, and the first upvoter getting more than the fifth.)
- charlief 16y agoIt is a good idea, but I feel that your first-five-upvoter share is too strong of an incentive. It will encourage upvoting for the sake of karma rather than to reflect the overall quality of the article. There could be up-vote spam. It could also come in the form of vote herding on the new page because once an article has 2-3 points, there will be a rush for the remaining 4-5 slots. The result is a more cycled-through front page with worse quality articles.
- leechisung 16y agoThis is like what people see in the movies!!
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- jwcacces 16y agoWhy does a suicide bomber need a remote control?
- brk 16y agoFrom my understanding it's for the handlers to activate the bomb if they get cold feet for any reason.
- burgerbrain 16y agoThe bomber needs a remote control so that they can detonate the bomb that they strapped to someone else. In many (most?) cases, the 'suicide bomber' is being coerced into participating, and can't actually be trusted to fully follow through. The real bomber, the person making and orchestrating the bombings, needs the remote control so that they have control over the detonation.
- shortlived 16y agowhat's stopping the 'bomber' from just ditching the bomb?
- burgerbrain 16y agoThey are likely being watched by whoever has the detonator, and (reportedly) the bombers often coerce the bomb carriers into participating by threatening their family. Alternatively, the thought of directly disobeying authority figures never occurs to them. Remember that most of these 'bombers' are women (in societies where women are oppressed) or children.
- rdl 16y agoSometimes they are told that they are just transporting and delivering the device to the actual suicide bomber. Then, a spotter sets them up the bomb instead. Don't accept packages from AQ!
- 16y ago
- meadhikari 16y agoIf true, the SMS might be the only time that a wireless carrier’s SMS message has ever been useful.
- whoeverest 16y agoSuicide bummer.
- zmn 16y agoI honestly believed for a split second that this was an Onion article
- twidlit 16y agoThere's a Twilio idea here somewhere...
- stcredzero 16y agoRemember this lesson when you design your protocols -- use challenge/response! Ensure that you're immune from replay attacks and counterfeit signals.
- VBprogrammer 16y agoThere is probably an app for that.
- stcredzero 16y agoActually, I'm working on a library that takes care of that for you and more.
- knieveltech 16y agoIn Mother Russia, SMS bombs YOU!