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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 boa

• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• dotancohen 2y ago
  Thank you. Where do you have this information from?
  • figassis 2y ago
    Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-planted-explosives-hezbollahs-taiwan-made-pagers-say-sources-2024-09-18/ https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-planted-exp...
• b112 2y ago
  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 hotels. Franchised ones have more control from corporate, licensed far less. And it shows. Same as t-fal, which in Canada is just the cheapest junk you can get, with Canadian Tire owning and manufacturing under the name: https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/t-fal-viva-aluminum-frying-pan-non-stick-dishwasher-oven-safe-black-0420043p.html https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/t-fal-viva-aluminum-fryin... Anyone buyong t-fal pans there will think t-fal is the cheapest junk ever. Because it is. This worked well pre-Internet, but now people see reviews for Canadian Tire t-fal when researching pans in Europe. Way to trash your local name. Licensing your name doesn't work the same in 2024 as 1994. Don't do it.
  • dangsux 2y ago
    [dead]
  • Y_Y 2y ago
    TIL Canadians call Tefal t-fal
    • account42 2y ago
      Ironically this appears to be because another company wanted to protect its trademark. > In the United States, Tefal is marketed as T-fal. This is to comply with DuPont's objection that the name "Tefal" was too close to DuPont's trademark "Teflon". The T-fal brand is also used in Canada and Japan.
    • kijin 2y ago
      The alphabet T is pronounced "teh" in French. So insofar as the French company is concerned, T-fal sounds close enough to Tefal.
      • Y_Y 2y ago
        It sounds more like "tay" (as pronounced in English). https://forvo.com/word/t/#fr https://forvo.com/word/t/#fr And it would hardly make sense to make a name for US market based on how it sounds in French.
  • ericjmorey 2y ago
    More concisely, why should anyone who, due to these explosions, does not trust devices branded as Gold Apollo care about a distinction between a product using a licensed trademark vs a product that has been contracted out for production of products using the brand name they own?
    • account42 2y ago
      Or to really drive the point home, the only reason we give companies exclusive control over certain names (trademarks) is so that they can build a reputation. If companies are going to just license out the names to whoever gives them money anyway then we might as well get rid of trademarks entirely and let anybody produce crap knock off products without having to pay a trademark owner.
• repelsteeltje 2y ago
  Gold Apollo claims the devices were assembled in Hungary by a company named BAC.
  • vincnetas 2y ago
    Very appropriate name for such outcome. BUM or BOM would be better but it is what it is.
  • stef25 2y ago
    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
    • hackeraccount 2y ago
      A front yes. A front for who though? Was it a front for Hezbollah that got infiltrated or a front setup by Israel fit for purpose. I have no sympathy for Hezbollah but empathy a plenty - I've been on that side of a security breech and step one involves tearing things apart; things that are the problem and invariably unless you've got ice water in your veins you'll tear apart things that are not the problem as well.
• SenorKimchi 2y ago
  > planted a small amount (3 gm) The abbreviation for gram is simply "g". I was a bit confused but at least the link cleared things up.
  • vocram 2y ago
    g is the correct SI unit symbol, not only an abbreviation
    • SenorKimchi 2y ago
      Thanks. I am usually not super pedantic but I've noticed some people using "mt" for meters recently. I immediately fall into confusion when the wrong symbols are used. Then go down the rabbit hole of trying to figure out if it is a cultural or regional thing.
      • delta_p_delta_x 2y ago
        People have used all sorts of abbreviations for the SI prefixes and SI units for as long as I can remember. I want to ask—are people not taught this in school? I had multiple introductions and revisions of the SI units and SI prefixes in secondary school, pre-university, and university, and every time, a wrong prefix or a wrong symbol was penalised by half a mark per question. I had classmates who mixed them up regularly and lost something like seven marks each time. They learnt very quickly not to, as those seven marks could make one or two grades' difference. As someone who champions sole use of the SI units, this annoys me to no end. I've seen things like 'kgs', 'gm', 'gms', 'mtr', 'mt', 'K' instead of 'k' (note capitals) for 'kilo-', mixing 'm' and 'M' (which are supposed to mean 'milli-' and 'mega-' respectively), usage of 'u' instead of 'μ' for 'micro-' (the one exception I will concede is 'mc' in the medical field, because people apparently confused 'μ' and 'm' which results in a 1000× over/underdose), and don't bother with the degree symbol (Alt+numpad 0176 on Windows, Option-Shift-8 on macOS) for °C, or use °K for kelvins (there is no degree, as it is an absolute scale and not relative to anything else, unlike the Celsius/centigrade and Fahrenheit scales), and so many other typographical errors.
• 4gotunameagain 2y ago
  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 ?
  • H8crilA 2y ago
    Dropping kilotons of aviation bombs on a populated city is indiscriminate. This is nothing in comparison to that. Frankly I would even call this surgical.
    • beeboobaa3 2y ago
      You're shopping for groceries. someone is standing next to you. Their pager explodes and you are severely injured. You never had anything to do with this war. Still think it's surgical? By that definition 9/11 was surgical as well, after all they only targeted two towers and just a few people who happened to be there got hurt.
      • H8crilA 2y ago
        In comparison to bombing to smithereens the entire block, and having hundreds/thousands of people die under the rubble, some of them over the course of days - yes. Do you know that 100 is more than 1? Some people get confused by simple arithmetic.
        • beeboobaa3 2y ago
          [flagged]
      • babkayaga 2y ago
        surely more surgical than what these guys were doing, which is repeatedly shoot missiles at densely populated areas, for months.
• pvaldes 2y ago
  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 the conflict could escalate. That company should be crushed and closed for good by the Hungarian law system IMO. Either you are a military grade company or you aren't. 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.
  • oytis 2y ago
    > That company should be crushed and closed for good by the Hungarian law system IMO. Either you are a military grade company or you aren't. Were the pagers military grade? Hungarian company providing military equipment to Hezbollah would be a scandal on its own.
    • steventhedev 2y ago
      Doesn't matter. Hezbollah are subject to sanctions by the EU as a designated terrorist organization. Presumably, that applies to all companies operating within the EU. Sanctions violations are very much a "do not pass go" style crime, and this looks like it was an entire batch that was delivered directly to Hezbollah.
      • hackeraccount 2y ago
        This is the right answer.
    • pvaldes 2y ago
      I assume that you, as a company, need a special permit to manufacture lethal weapons or military products on EU. Either you have it, or you don't. And if you don't have and still do it, I understand that you are breaking a dozen of EU laws. The EU now needs to do something about it, and do it fast. Or to pretend that nothing happened, surrender to Israel, create a dangerous legal precedent "for the cause" and send a clear message that EU manufacture laws are a joke: "All those security filters painfully raised around EU products worth zero and can be easily jumped over". This is a really bad message for all the EU makers. A franchise of your brand also signed a contract to make your product. I assume that changing the functionality or specifications of your registered product is strictly forbidden in that contract. I bet that this move violated some laws on Taiwan also. If I was the CEO of Gold Apollo I would be fuming and furious at this moment. Israel not only pushed them into the middle of a war that is not their war, without their consent or knowledge; also destroyed the brand image and painted a target in the backs of each employee and reseller of Gold Apollo. At this moment, nothing suggests that the Taiwan based company were part of this. They should apologize, clear things, and detach themselves from this PR mess as soon as possible. I understand that from the Mossad point of view this can be a big success, but from the point of view of the companies that try to sell their legit products, this is an direct attack.
• niutech 2y ago
  > "The product was not ours. It was only that it had our brand on it" That's whitewashing. If they license the brand, they should control every aspect of manufacturing. Otherwise they are irresponsible. If I was their client, I wouldn't trust them any longer and return all pagers. I am curious about the technical details - where were the explosives packed, how were they connected and triggered? Did any pager survive and didn't blow up?
  • llmfan 2y ago
    You can judge them to be not a generally super-trustworthy brand. But I would grant them that their responsibility for the deaths of these people is limited.
    • kijin 2y ago
      Few civilian brands would survive the scrutiny if every product they put their stickers on were required to be Mossad-proof.
      • prepend 2y ago
        I feel like it’s reasonable to expect a brand to be aware if some organization, even Mossad, placed explosives in 5000 of their items. It means this company is incompetent and should not be trusted. It’s one thing to have malware injected into software (pretty bad) and another to have physical explosives put into your product.
        • flakeoil 2y ago
          So if someone steals a box of iphones, adds a few grams of explosives inside each phone, and then resells them or gives them away, then Apple is at fault?
          • lucianbr 2y ago
            If you buy the boxes from an Apple store, or from an approved distributor, Apple is at fault. What's the meaning of "approved"? If you buy them from the back of a truck, then no, Apple has no fault of course. But there's a declaration saying "we had nothing to do with the pagers even though they have our brand". That's different from saying "they were booby-trapped after they left our hands". Not even the company itself is claiming the defense you're using.
• green-eclipse 2y ago
  What is this news source NDTV? I've never heard of it. Are they reputable?
  • lawlessone 2y ago
    Indian network, a bit tabloidy but i think they are mostly ok.
• limit499karma 2y ago
  > Gold Apollo founder Hsu Ching-Kuang said the pagers used in the explosion were made by a company in Europe that had the right to use the Taipei-based firm's brand, "The product was not ours. It was only that it had our brand on it" He also said it was strange he got paid from "Middle East". That statement of his also indicates this was not a long standing "licensing" agreement. Someone likely called up from "Europe" and asked for the license for that specific device. Conclusion: the company in Europe is a paper fiction. The devices were made in "Israel" and the only time they may have been in Europe was to get them from Middle East to so a "European" company can ship them back. This also means Hezbollah has an asset in its upper ranks. We can assume this since they announced before "We're gonna use pagers from now on folks" and thus prior to this Shin Bet had no reason to run a cutout in "Europe" making pagers. The entire production chain was then a fiction setup likely recently, certainly post "headsup everyone, pagers" announcement by the targeted organization. So the chain of events is clear: - "Did all you hear we are going to use pagers?" - Shin Bet sets up the phony production Taiwan -> EU. - Devices made in "Israel". - Asset recommends make / model / seller. - boom.
  • MichaelZuo 2y ago
    I think from now on future OEMs will be very careful indicating whether a product was in fact made by them, under their supervision, or was license made by some third party.
    • talldayo 2y ago
      You'd think that. Here in America, the NSA has been intercepting and bugging servers for decades, and manufacturers have been suspiciously quiet about the whole affair. Suffice to say, when enough pressure can be exerted by a government agency, OEMs are happy to keep their mouth shut.
      • cyberpunk 2y ago
        Has anyone actually found and documented one of these bugs?
• delichon 2y ago
  If such a supply chain attack was in progress on a larger scale against the US, do we have mechanisms in place to detect it? Would shipments of these same devices pass through US customs?