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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 wa
by einszwei 2y ago
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 beyond.
In the short term, it's a smart strategy for Israel, but they've likely opened Pandora's box in the process.
- flyinglizard 2y agoIt's said those devices were Iranian made. What makes you think Israel has any overt involvement in the supply chain to begin with?
- ceejayoz 2y ago> It's said those devices were Iranian made. Made, or provided by?
- tptacek 2y agoProbably because of Israel's demonstrated infiltration of IRGC operations inside of Iran? Just a guess.
- mannyv 2y ago[flagged]
- AnotherGoodName 2y agoThat’s very very unlikely since the nuclear agreement fell through. As in they tried cooperation and got nothing in return last time. I assume everyone’s aware of what happened there right and why Iran probably won’t be cooperating any time soon?
- minkles 2y agoThis is a one shot attack. They will never be able to do it again. And I don't think most of the world has pissed off Mossad quite as much as Hezbollah. Assuming they even did it!
- brookst 2y agoAs someone else posted, it's not entirely novel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahya_Ayyash#Assassination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahya_Ayyash#Assassination
- ds 2y ago> "One shot attack" >> This is the second time israel has done this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahya_Ayyash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahya_Ayyash
- donohoe 2y agoThat is not a supply-chain based attack, so don't think that counts in this context
- sangnoir 2y agoOP was most likely concerned about Israeli businesses that supply (or ship) non-explosive components/products no longer being trusted.
- rlpb 2y ago> They will never be able to do it again. Only if Hezbollah take steps to avoid it. Presumably they will, but presumably there is a cost, and so Israel will continue to benefit from them having to divert resources to doing that.
- lawlessone 2y agoYeah every company that has a part of their supply chain via Israel must be wondering now if this could be done to their devices.
- alistairSH 2y agoIsn't that true of any supply chain that involves foreign states? Usually it's just surveillance, not destructive stuff, but expecting state actors to stay out of things is... naive?
- ineedasername 2y agoThe difference is between theoretical capability & Israel's demonstrated willingness & successful execution of it. It's pretty reasonable now to think a little harder about "huh, I wonder if our Israeli supplier..." but yesterday it would have been a bit paranoid, not naive, to spend more than a passing moment on the thought if you weren't in a member of the March 8th club, or Iran.
- ajmurmann 2y agoIt's naive to think that every country that supplies you with goods and you are at war with would go down a route like this. Is there really a single country you'd expect not to sabotage goods you buy from them if you continuously rain rockets onto their population?
- ineedasername 2y agoI think the point is that, whatever probability a potential target would have placed on this sort of thing yesterday, those calculations have shifted now. Previously it was more abstract and something of this scale and physical attack would have been little more than a thought experiment. If a news pundit on Fox or CNN last night had been claiming China was doing this with Huawei phones then many people would have looked at it as fear mongering while of course knowing China has in all likelihood setup other supply chain attacks. Today it would sound a lot more likely.
- pkphilip 2y agoDo you really think this supply chain bringing pagers to the Hezbollah actually went through Israel?! Israel has ways of intercepting packages in other ports outside of Israel.
- some_random 2y agoI'm not at all convinced that's the case, unless it comes out that the targeting was extremely broad (like if Israel was just putting bombs in every pager going into Lebanon rather than targeting a specific shipment going to Hezbollah) I don't think there's really any new risk for other countries.
- Izikiel43 2y agoFrom the amount of injured it seems more like a broad attack than a targeted one. Most likely they knew some of them would go to hezbollah, and that was enough, collateral damage be damned.
- rabidonrails 2y agoI'd disagree - this seems highly targeted. There aren't that many people with pagers but pagers were a specific way for Hezbollah to speak to operatives.
- desert_rue 2y agoYeah, this is likely government backed, so targeting is most likely.
- occamsrazorwit 2y agoThe news reports are saying a lot of explosions happened at hospitals. Considering that pagers are still in common use by Western doctors, I'm wondering if they considered hospital staff to be acceptable casualties.
- LegitShady 2y agothese weren't random pagers. They intercepted a shipment of thousands of pagers for hezbollah and rigged them with explosives, and set them off likely using hezbollah's own command and control network. Random doctors in the hospital won't have these. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/pagers-drones-how-hezbollah-aims-counter-israels-high-tech-surveillance-2024-07-09/ https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/pagers-drones-how-... In July reuters was telling us how hezbollah was using pagers to defeat israel. Israel was smarter than them.
- tomp 2y agoDo you think Hezbollah was buying stuff from Israel, or otherwise using Israeli supply chains? I think it's far more likely that Mossad has infiltrated whatever foreign (non-Israeli) supply chain they were using. So this can happen regardless of whether you're using Israeli supply chains or not.
- tivert 2y ago> I think it's far more likely that Mossad has infiltrated whatever foreign (non-Israeli) supply chain they were using. Yeah. Wasn't there something in the Snowden leaks about the CIA intercepting servers in-transit to install implants on them? I'm sure Israel is doing something similar.
- willvarfar 2y agoDuring the cold war, Russia intercepted typewriters and teleprinters going to the US and other embassies and inserted implants in them. https://www.cryptomuseum.com/covert/bugs/selectric/ https://www.cryptomuseum.com/covert/bugs/selectric/
- dredmorbius 2y agoAnd the US CIA ran the "Swiss" firm Crypto AG, which sold cable-encryption (as in telegraphic / telex coms) equipment with pre-installed back-doors: <https://www.npr.org/2020/03/05/812499752/uncovering-the-cias-audacious-operation-that-gave-them-access-to-state-secrets https://www.npr.org/2020/03/05/812499752/uncovering-the-cias...> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG>
- grubbs 2y agoIt was Cisco routers that made the headlines. Not sure of other gear: https://www.engadget.com/2014-05-16-nsa-bugged-cisco-routers.html https://www.engadget.com/2014-05-16-nsa-bugged-cisco-routers...
- craftkiller 2y agoYes there was. @48:48 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NFrjHmI35w&t=48m48s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NFrjHmI35w&t=48m48s
- ds 2y ago[flagged]
- mschuster91 2y ago> In the short term, it's a smart strategy for Israel, but they've likely opened Pandora's box in the process. Did they? Supply chain attacks, intercepted parcels, none of this is new - the US, going by the Snowden leaks, has a long history of tampering with parcels in transit, which is why a few of the "libre phone" vendors offer to seal the parcel, the device and all screws in random glitter glue and take photos prior to shipping so that any attempt at tampering in transit is not hideable (there is no known way to recreate a glitter pattern).
- barbazoo 2y ago> From Israel's perspective, this supply chain attack was undoubtedly a clever move From The Guardian [1]: > Eight killed and 2,750 wounded Was that a clever move if you're killing "only" 8 potential adversaries? [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/sep/17/middle-east-crisis-live-netanyahu-expands-gaza-war-aims-blinken-heads-to-egypt https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/sep/17/middle-ea...
- walthamstow 2y agoIf their comms are severely disrupted, yes. Even if it wasn't militarily effective, it's still quite a clever attack.
- John23832 2y agoKilling isn't always the goal. The effect of this "action" is the same as a bouncing betty. (I assume) The goal is to incapacitate and use resources.
- _DeadFred_ 2y agoI'm guessing it was to stop some tentative action on Hezbollahs and the huge number of Syrians that this attack got as wells parts that was about to occur.
- AustinDev 2y agoThe death toll isn't the goal. They're after the 2nd order effects, now there are ~3,000 operatives that are marked by a scar that is relatively distinctive. They also have substantially disrupted their communication protocols and caused psychological damage.
- Agingcoder 2y agoHezbollah members in Lebanon are not necessarily perceived as bad people - why would the scar be a problem ? Hezbollah claims it’s a resistance movement to Israel, they’re now wearing a scar caused by Israel in a mass coordinated attack, which will further legitimize Hezbollah. I agree with the disruption of communication protocols and psychological damage though.
- hello_computer 2y agoBDS looks better and better with each passing day.
- dredmorbius 2y agoBDS?
- ruthie_cohen 2y agoBoycott, Divestment and Sanctions. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boycott,_Divestment_and_Sanctions https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boycott,_Divestment_and_Sanc...
- dredmorbius 2y agoAh, thanks.
- SushiHippie 2y agoProbably https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boycott,_Divestment_and_Sanctions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boycott,_Divestment_and_Sancti... ?
- mynameishere 2y agoIsrael used letter bombs for a long time to assassinate and terrorize. People didn't stop using the mail because of that, but upgraded their opsec.
- markus_zhang 2y agoIMO, this gives IL's enemies more excuses to execute more horrible attacks. Considering pagers are civilian products and some of them might actually be delivered to non-Hez civilians, the consequence is pretty dire. it basically says: we can do whatever we want because we can. Now imagine what the other side is going to reply.
- kranke155 2y agoThe other side was already doing everything it could.
- markus_zhang 2y agoDefinitely not. Hez has showed footages of UAVs inside of IL so potentially they could do some damage. They can also up their missile attacks. And there are other players such as the Houthis. Maybe they just don't want to do it because they figured it's of no good to them at the moment, but maybe the climate changes in the future and they decide to do it anyway.
- rabidonrails 2y agoThis is true of both sides. Also important to remember is that Israel evacuated the civilian population in the north of the country due to Hezbollah currently indiscriminately shelling/bombing that area for the past months.
- LegitShady 2y agothey launch those UAVs all the time. multiple times a week, sometimes daily. So they're already trying it, they're just not successful.
- astrange 2y agoIran/Hezbollah are more known for constantly announcing they're about to do everything they can, and then not doing it. Safer that way.
- underdeserver 2y ago
- DevX101 2y agoRight now one of the fastest growing companies is the Israel cybersecurity company Wiz, founded by founders and investors from Israel's Unit 8200, their secretive cyber hacking group. Seems to me a massive security risk for any US company to be relying on critical security to a non American founded companies.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- a_cloudberry 2y agoI created a throwaway account just for this. I actually hired, and we later fired, a couple of 'engineers' from Unit 8200. They were technically quite weak, and when Oct. 7 happened, I wasn't surprised at all. If this was the cream of the crop, the defense community should seriously re-evaluate the efficacy of the IDF.
- csomar 2y agoWiz is the WeWork of cybersecurity. The Israeli tech sector is not that powerful but has lots of investments from the West (US mainly). My experience relates to yours. I think most people have high and unrealistic expectations of people coming from Israel but this usually comes out short.
- deepfriedbits 2y agoThis might be my ignorance showing, but how do you, as a hiring entity, even verify a candidate has experience in Unit 8200?
- HelloNurse 2y agoOr that these Unit 8200 alumni aren't dismissed "C-players", not good enough for them?
- golergka 2y agoAbout half of all Israeli tech workers are from 8200. It's nothing remarkable at all.
- carapace 2y ago> I can't help but wonder about its long-term consequences. War is over. The long-term consequences are that we use our words instead of exothermic reactions to reach livable compromises.
- carapace 2y agoWhat? You guys like war? Seriously though. Dynamite didn't do it, nuclear bombs didn't do it, but tiny precision bombs are going to work: just kill all the people who like to fight. QED
- shmatt 2y agoisrael wasn't identified as israel, and hizbolla weren't identified of hizbolla much of the work of a CIA or Mossad agent isn't breaking in to this house or murdering that person. It's working as an executive in a shell company No one is going to sell a terrorist organization thousands of new beepers. The hizbolla probably also created shell companies. Israel knew their cover and approached them as a foreign seller. Everyone is lying to everyone In reality the supply chain space is probably full of shell companies from all different terrorist organizations and western countries
- riazrizvi 2y agoIsn’t political isolation a strategy in extremism movements? It encourages some people in the middle to move into your camp, while others who move away can become convenient enemies. So from my understanding, the consequences are possibly considered another benefit for the country’s current government.
- random9749832 2y agoEverytime you say Israel you must insert US, just as you must insert Iran every time you mention Palestine. These are who the war is between. Hamas or Hezbollah by itself is nothing and so is a <10 million population fighting several adversaries. And the US will always win in escalation which is exactly what they have aimed to achieve and why Iran never gave a 'proper' response to the assassination of Haniyeh.
- rolux 2y ago> In the short term, it's a smart strategy for Israel, but they've likely opened Pandora's box in the process. Absolutely. From today on, this type of attack will have to be considered part of the arsenal. While building thousands of explosive communication devices and swapping a large shipment requires substantial resources and intelligence, the actual "sophistication" of today's attack seems to lie in the fact that the perpetrator managed to specifically target a clandestine adversarial organization. If you don't care about that last part, I don't think it's completely out of reach for a hypothetical "state sponsored terrorist organization" to have a thousand smart phone explosives shipped into a target market, say the European Union or the United States. Such an attack, if successful, would be devastating.
- cromka 2y ago> Absolutely. From today on, this type of attack will have to be considered part of the arsenal. I doubt that. It’s way more likely that from today on, every batch of devices used by VIPs will be tested for explosives, thus rendering such attacks moot. Finding such devices would also enable figuring out who your enemy’s operatives are. This was a one-off.
- respondo2134 2y agoI 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 country and a people they only exist as long as we're their benefactor, and I don't think I'm alone in how I feel.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- dmead 2y agoThey were never different. They just speak English better than the arabs.
- AnarchismIsCool 2y agoThere are old stories of the Russians planting mines inside children's toys during some of the later cold war conflicts. This is starting to feel a bit like that. Nobody had any way of knowing who was holding those pagers when they sent that packet but they still distributed thousands of munitions throughout the populace and pressed the red button. Now there are probably at least a hundred or so still out there that haven't exploded and are just live UXO sitting in people's desk drawers. I'd say it's pretty fucked.
- EGreg 2y ago[flagged]
- Aeolun 2y agoIt's a bit silly to think the Ukrainians would do something like this, because any such thing would instantly lose them the war as all western support is withdrawn. Russia meanwhile... they just seem like they want to see the world burn. Given the fact they're fighting using convicted criminals, it doesn't seem all that far fetched.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- jmyeet 2y agoLet's be clear here: it was a terrorist attack. Replace "IsraeL" and "Lebanon" with "iran" and "Israel" and Iran would already have bombed by the US. Netanyahu is trying to ignite a regional war. It's the only way he stays out of prison. If the genocide in Gaza ends, his government falls and he goes to jail. He wants to drag the US into this regional war. Do you think that's smart from Israel's perspective? Will that improve that safety of Israeli citizens? Or will it subject them to counterattacks? Is that smart?
- dralley 2y agoIt's not a terrorist attack unless the primary goal is causing terror. The primary goal here was clearly causing damage to Hamas' command structure by putting a few thousand militants in the hospital, and also literally blowing up their communications network.
- sethammons 2y agoI think that they are inspiring terror, but terror against operatives. That's a good goal. Terror against civilians is the problem (according to our modern moral code)
- jmyeet 2y agoWhat would you killing 8+ peole and wounding 2800+? Were it any other actor, there would be absolutely no hesitation in calling it a terrorist attack. You know who uses pagers? Doctors and nurses. Are they legitimate military targets? Let's just say that a Hezbollah or Hamas commander was killed. What's an acceptable civilian dead or wounded count that takes it out of the realm of a terrorist attack? How many is too many?
- _DeadFred_ 2y agoI'd call it the lowest number of civilians casualties ever for this large scale of an attack on ones military adversaries embedded within an urban environment.
- deleted 2y ago
- IG_Semmelweiss 2y agoIsraelis are not the 1st ones at this. The CIA did something similar for the better part of 4 decades https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/national-security/cia-crypto-encryption-machines-espionage/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/national-... It was just another Opsec failure (or success, depending on your perspective). I dont see israeli hardware devices being any more suspect. Same as china. They were suspect before and they continue to be. 1 is our ally and 1 ins not
- sgregnt 2y agoThe combatant to civilian casulties in this paper explosion is probably unparalleled in the warfare history. I wish all conflicts would strive to have such a great record.
- jrochkind1 2y agoTheir 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!
- _DeadFred_ 2y agoThis is probably the historical lowest civilian casualty count ever for taking out this large a number of adversaries in an urban environment.
- Sawamara 2y agoBoy you have some reading to do. Look up the program called 'Daddy's Home'.
- yodsanklai 2y agoSame 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.
- raxxorraxor 2y agoThey 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.
- GordonS 2y agoAs much as Israel likes to spread that narrative, religious fundamentalism had nothing to do with October 7th. And the number of innocents murdered, the amount of destruction wrought, the land stolen by Israel in Gaza since then has completely eclipsed the relative few killed by Hamas. Or are Israeli lives worth more?
- Taniwha 2y agoIsrael's economy is already in the toilet due to them becoming an International pariah because of the ongoing genocide - this will just make it worse
- hersko 2y agoIsrael has the second highest GDP in the middle east[1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Middle_Eastern_countries_by_GDP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Middle_Eastern_countri...
- neuroelectron 2y agoHow big is that compared to the amount of financial support they get?
- bushbaba 2y agoActually quite large. Aid is in the single digit billion/year. GDP is 525 billion. So aid is roughly a percentage point or two. That’s it.
- shmatt 2y agoIn the toilet? They practically run the world tech industry. Practically every GPU, laptop, and phone have a chip or sensor designed in Israel. FAANG companies keep growing their offices. Startup exits are at an all time high even as the war goes on (NVidia recently bought 2 more Israeli startups IIRC) And good luck finding a Fortune 1000 company that isn’t using Monday or Akeyless or Zscaler or jfrog and I can keep going Oh and remember Ilya sutskevers new AI company SSI? In their initial announcement they talked about opening with 2 offices, SFBA and Tel Aviv . You really can’t succeed without Israeli talent You can like or dislike the government, but Israeli techs income and importance constantly grows YoY
- Taniwha 2y agoAnd yet Intel just cancelled a multi-billon dollar fab upgrade ... https://www.timesofisrael.com/intel-suspends-planned-15-billion-expansion-of-southern-israel-chip-plant/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/intel-suspends-planned-15-bill... Israeli ports are going bankrupt .... https://www.seatrade-maritime.com/ports-logistics/attacks-on-red-sea-shipping-bankrupt-israeli-port https://www.seatrade-maritime.com/ports-logistics/attacks-on...
- Vicinity9635 2y agoA 10 year old girl died too. They took no precautions to limit damage bystanders even assuming every person with one was a BadGuy™ which makes it terrorism and reprehensible.
- _DeadFred_ 2y agoI applaud your empathy but I don't think this number of active military adversaries have been taken out in cities with so little civilian casualties ever in history. We should probably be applauding this action over say the standard targeted bombing of the Hezbollah militants homes which is pretty much the previous 'least casualties' method used.
- djohnston 2y agoNot even close. Thousands of pocket bombs. Some dead civilians, and a lot of dead terrorists. Not reprehensible but a well-executed op.
- masswerk 2y agoBy definition a blind weapon.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- djohnston 2y agoLet’s say for each one of these Hezbollah casualties, you replaced the pager with 4 infantry attacking them. Civilian casualties would be far higher. The fact that they couldn’t “see” the target at the time of detonation is irrelevant. The videos I’ve seen are of the pagers exploding and someone standing less than a foot away being unscathed. Incredibly sophisticated and precise.
- masswerk 2y agoBut you will be always riding some unproven assumptions. E.g., even if those pagers had been initially issued to maybe-combatants, they may have diffused to other audiences and uses, since. It may be well that you're just blowing up some teenagers getting messages for where the rave is. (Also, even if you hit the intended target, it's a summary execution of people you may suspect, but who haven't done anything, yet, and may or may not have become active in any hypothetical future.)
- King-Aaron 2y agoMy concern now is another nation-state actor who manages certain large international supply chains doing this on a broader scale against widespread western targets. Your comment on it being a pandoras box is quite profound.
- easyThrowaway 2y agoSomebody in Russia is probably thinking right now "you know, that was quite a clever idea".
- atkailash 2y ago[dead]
- jrochkind1 2y agoit makes me think the Israeli decision-makers are trying to leave Hezbollah no choice but to escalate into a larger war. I think Hezbollah has been trying to avoid escalation into all out war, responding in limited proportionate ways despite Israel continuing to escalate. (Can you imagine if Hezbollah had detonated thousands of such devices in Israel? I'd be scared of a nuclear response). But Israeli leaders maybe decided Hezbollah's hesitation to escalate into all out war must mean that such a war must be good for us and bad for them? Let's try to really make em do it, so we can invade Lebanon again? Why Israeli government thinks it wants an invasion of Lebanon right now, I don't know, but it looks like that's where this goes to me and they must know it?
- Luminae 2y ago[flagged]
- bushbaba 2y agoOr you know, 100,000+ Israelis had to leave their homes in north Israel for nearly 1 year. You also had Druze Arab children slaughtered by Hezbollah. So what options would Israel have here?
- mr_toad 2y agoI wonder why they did it now of all times. This is a card you can only play once.
- BurningFrog 2y agoHezbollah started this war on October 8, and they can stop it by ceasing their attacks. Israel have no reason to want a war. It's Hezbollah who want to conquer Israeli land. Israel wants nothing from Lebanon.
- _factor 2y agoYou’re confusing your terrorist groups.
- 2y ago
- photochemsyn 2y agoThere's also the hit to the reputation of the manufacturers of these devices to consider (even though they were almost certainly intercepted some time after manufacture and modified in transit, or replaced with a different batch that had been ordered by the perpetrator and modified ahead of time for a quick swap). The perpetrator may have been spying on the pager network for some time, and if so then their cover is blown and their information source is gone. The larger issue is that if shipments of pagers can be intercepted and modified in this manner, then any electronic device can be subjected to other hardware-based attacks - eavesdropping devices, keystroke loggers, etc. What if large numbers of countries with developing tech markets start looking at the suppliers involved the way the USA looks at China's Huawei? In general this boosts the open-soure model for both software and hardware, so the expected hardware configuration that can be checked visually and with other user-available tools. If any phone, pager, tablet or laptop can be physically hijacked and modified, the user should be allowed access to all the information and tools needed to detect it. This assumes the factory itself is not the bad actor. Hardware security consultant firms probably have a bright future. Also robots for assistance with inspection.
- Nemo_bis 2y ago> What if large numbers of countries with developing tech markets start looking at the suppliers involved the way the USA looks at China's Huawei? It's well known that the NSA performs supply chain attacks by planting spyware on hardware which goes through the USA. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/may/12/glenn-greenwald-nsa-tampers-us-internet-routers-snowden https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/may/12/glenn-greenwal... Whenever the USA complain about something China is allegedly doing, it's a good bet that they know someone in the USA camp is doing that very thing.
- Animats 2y agoThat's a real issue. Especially if this escalates to smartphones. Technical questions: - Was the explosive in the pager detectable by the normal tests used at airports? - Who gets to skip those tests? Are all devices carried by airline pilots examined with explosive tests? - This is selective. Only the addressed devices blow up. That has implications for devices which know too much about their owners.
- totetsu 2y agoFor me this whole things, including the previous use of AI backed social graph modelling build from digital surveillance of Palestinians, being use for as targeting intelligence, for drone strikes on people homes and families.. this whole thing chills me to the bone about ever wanting to use a social network, or a always connected mobile device ever again. Israel has taken the Dark Mirror SF speculations about the shifts in power and capability as the instruction manual and we're mostly ignoring the warnings. There nothing stopping this happening to any of us.
- phirgate 2y agoCorrections: 1. It's not supply chain attack, it's terrorist attack. 2. It's not a clever move, it's a prevocation move
- blueflow 2y agoI think this is an actual "supply chain attack", while the downloading-malware-from-github-automated isn't.
- jmward01 2y ago> In the short term, it's a smart strategy for Israel, but they've likely opened Pandora's box in the process. Is the short term here a few days or maybe just hours? For the reasons you pointed out and more this is likely a strategic failure for a very short term military gain. The economics you pointed out. Politically this will not help them with any but their most extreme allies while enraging their enemies and giving them the moral high-ground with their peoples and the international community. Militarily this likely did little to actual readiness since the people wearing the pagers were probably mid to upper level people so they will heal and go back to desk jobs they were doing before. So an economic, political and military strategic fail. It would have been far better for Israel had this fizzled out or been found out before it triggered. Plausible deniability would have been easier and international outrage would have been minimal all while the C&C of their enemies would have gotten the intended message that they had deep capabilities that could cause disruption. Instead they actually pulled it off and now they get all the bad consequences with very few good ones. This was a bad idea executed, unfortunately, well.
- csomar 2y agoThis is not the first time Israel has pulled stuff like this. It blew back for a while in their face, but eventually people move on. If Israel recognize this event as existential for them, then anything is allowed including nuclear weapons.
- erezsh 2y agoThat's a ridiculous take. No one involved Israel in this supply chain. Also, there is no country in the world that would refrain from doing the same thing to their enemies, if they could pull it off. (big if) Meanwhile, you can be sure the U.S. and China are putting back-doors in every device they can manage, and have been doing so for decades.
- ileonichwiesz 2y agoI’d prefer a device with a Chinese backdoor to a device with Israeli remote explosives any day.
- mupuff1234 2y agoIt could also act as an ad - Israel is capable of James Bond level stuff, their tech must be great.
- red_admiral 2y agoEveryone should be keeping an eye on all their supply chains all the time, Israel-connected or not. Especially for military (or paramilitary) applications. It reminds me a bit of when after 9/11, some of the reaction in Israel (as well as shock and sympathy) was "Of course we have locked cockpit doors, marshals on planes and other security features on ElAl. We're not barbarians!" Also, (Hagelin) Crypto AG. Just because it's in Switzerland doesn't mean you shouldn't be paranoid.
- maxglute 2y ago>replicate this tactic Permissible behavior normalized in this conflict is going to make future wars pretty ugly.
- bamboozled 2y ago[flagged]
- EdwardDiego 2y agoThe fact that they attacked them via their communication network that was intended to avoid Israeli surveillance, is irregular warfare at its finest. The main injury inflicted on individuals was psychological - we got into your supply chain this far. Also, your attempts to avoid us failed. But at an org level? They just disabled the entire comms system, whether through explosions, or by making people scared of explosions. What's the contingency plan for this in Hezbollah? And will it have credence, given their last grand idea of "let's use pagers to avoid the Israelis" ended with a large number of simultaneous explosions? It's a very clever attack from a psychological POV.
- petertodd 2y ago> The main injury inflicted on individuals was psychological Have you seen the footage(0) from hospitals? It's likely that hundreds of Hezbollah members lost hands, eyes, etc. That will degrade their military effectiveness significantly, especially the people who were blinded. And remember that Hezbollah is trying(1) to prevent more footage of the attack from getting out, so what we've seen publicly quite likely underplays the full extent of it. Sure, maybe you could argue that the "main" effect in terms of total numbers was psychological. But we shouldn't understate how many Hezbollah members were directly given life-long injuries that will make them ineffective forever. That's a huge win for Israel. 0) https://x.com/Osint613/status/1836040863195029530 https://x.com/Osint613/status/1836040863195029530 1) https://x.com/Saul_Sadka/status/1836039347210002899 https://x.com/Saul_Sadka/status/1836039347210002899
- rasz 2y ago>communication network that was intended to avoid Israeli surveillance Reuters even covered conversion to pagers two months ago https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/pagers-drones-how-hezbollah-aims-counter-israels-high-tech-surveillance-2024-07-09/ https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/pagers-drones-how-...
- chii 2y ago> other major producers could replicate this tactic it's an inefficient tactic that actual terrorists won't employ tbh. Infiltrating manufacturers just to place small explosives isn't terror inducing - and you want the recipient of the explosion to know who it came from for a terrorist attack to be effective. Israel did it to limit the amount of collateral (instead of shooting a missile or bomb, which would require a much larger radius of damage).
- Shocka1 2y agoI may have missed key facts about this operation, but who said Israel is part of the supply chain? Why not just intercept the truck/plane on it's way to delivery and insert the explosives on the fly? This seems much more practical IMO.
- EasyMark 2y agoI don’t think they were thinking long term. Most of this, I believe, has been Netanyahu keeping his coalition together longer to stay out of court and potentially prison.