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Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say
- anonu 2y agoYou would think all devices would be checked ASAP after yesterday's incident.
- yesbut 2y ago[flagged]
- readthenotes1 2y ago[flagged]
- gherard5555 2y agoIf i understood correctly they were rigged with explosive. There is no way that a regular battery would explode like this right ?
- tptacek 2y agoYes. There's sourcing for the first attack that Israel implanted daughterboards of some sort with small (30g?) amounts of explosive. The battery may have been involved with the triggering, but it wasn't a battery explosion.
- goldcd 2y agoBut if you wanted to put 30g of explosive into a device, you wouldn't just want it sat there looking out of place to any curious person with a screw-driver. My guess is that you'd want to put it inside a component like say a LiPo pouch that looks like it belongs there. Half-battery, half-explosive - and maybe hijack the BMS components to also allow it to be triggered.
- tptacek 2y agoMy understanding is that they were extremely well concealed, and would have been difficult to detect with simple internal visual inspection.
- gruez 2y ago>My understanding is that they were extremely well concealed Source? I'm not sure how you can concealed any meaningful amount of PCB/explosive in a pager/radio, unless you're hoping that your target never opens the plastic casing, or doesn't know what the internals are supposed to look like.
- lukan 2y agoThe most plausible theory seems, that the batteries were manipulated/replaced with smaller ones, from the outside still looking like normal batteries, but with explosive inside. So a shorter battery life, but usually no one cuts open batteries. (But now some will start doing it)
- edm0nd 2y agothe amount of explosives would be about the size of a pencil eraser, easily concealable imo. Reports are that they could have modified the existing batteries and put them inside there.
- Scoundreller 2y agoIf you had a known good copy, should be able to differentiate on an X-Ray. Weights might not be right either but they maybe they corrected for that. Centre of gravity may have changed.
- goldcd 2y agoYou know what a LiPo pouch looks like right? silvery bag, some yellow tape at the end with some wires sticking out. Less likely you know what they look like inside, as it's been drilled into us not to pierce the things. Also if your laptop battery only lasts a couple of hours you might suspect something is wrong. If your pager needs recharging every month instead of every 2 months... well nobody has a clue how often a pager should need recharging. I've no idea if it was the battery, but just feels like the right approach.
- dredmorbius 2y ago[flagged]
- Modified3019 2y agoCorrect. The injuries are comparable or worse to what you get if you try to use a .50 BMG cartridge as a hammer. Videos show outright detonations (so far with notably little fire), nothing like the fiery deflagrations you see in “battery explodes” videos while someone is doing a repair.
- yoavm 2y agoSome reports are saying the Icom-V82 devices were bought by Hezbollah 5 months ago, close to the time yesterday's beeper were purchased. However, the exploding part was the battery, imported to Lebanon only 2 weeks ago. I wonder if this operation had two sides - implanting something in the devices that will allow remotely triggering the explosion, and then also tampering with the batteries to include explosive material.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- golergka 2y ago[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- tptacek 2y agoSaying this "further heightened tensions" between Israel and Hezbollah is like saying Jason "further heightened tensions" with the campers at Camp Crystal Lake. Can you imagine what must be like to be a rank-and-file Hezbollah soldier at this point? What the fuck is going to happen tomorrow? I'd throw away my socks.
- Workaccount2 2y ago[flagged]
- miohtama 2y agoI know HN is not a place for political commentary, but why Israel would do it now when everyone tries to make them de-escalate?
- redditwhat 2y agoThere really isn’t any de-escalation. Hezbollah continues to bomb Northern Israel and the IDF continues to strike back. There are still hundreds of thousands of displaced Israelis who can’t go back to their homes.
- tptacek 2y agoWell, first, there's no de-escalation happening with Hezbollah. Israel, Hezbollah, and Iran are more or less openly at war. We don't talk about it much because the attack failed, but Iran launched a mass drone assault against Israel a few months back. Israel recently exploded Ismael Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, in Tehran. Hezbollah rocket attacks on Northern Israel, which killed half a youth soccer team, have more or less evacuated that whole region. Hezbollah is not Hamas: they are a military peer (a weaker one, but still) to Israel. Second, the reporting I've seen (incl. "confirmation" from US intelligence sources) is that this was a use-it-or-lose-it situation: that Hezbollah operatives were on the verge of discovering it.
- athesyn 2y agoThe Iran "retaliatory" attack was clearly not a serious effort, they mostly used old cheap rockets and drones. It was more to save face and they got a lot of information on Israel's defence systems out of it. And not to mention it cost the Israelis over a 1 billion dollars to thwart while Iran spend a few million.
- hnpolicestate 2y agoRemember the "end of history"? How times have changed.
- morwanger 2y agoThe “End of history” was just a euphemism for western comfort and insulation from the rest of the world. A number of comments here can demonstrate that. There’s simply not enough proximity to death and destruction for these people to feel like it’s anything more than entertainment or an interesting topic of discussion. The end of history will be over when we all recognize that this could just as easily be an operation against the Cartel or the Boogaloo Boys or whoever the fuck, with Feds blowing up pagers in a Whole Foods in LA instead of a market in Lebanon. Oh, but that could never happen here.
- steventhedev 2y agoPlease note that this is distinct from yesterday's incident - these are for a different set of communication devices - from what I can see, they went off at 16:58 local time - notably 2 minutes prior to Nasrallah's planned speech on the first incident.
- tptacek 2y agoApparently, these are ICOM devices --- you have in your head maybe like a police walkie talkie from the 80s, but these things are smaller than flip-phones, a little smaller than the palm of your hand.
- wl 2y agoIcom is a Japanese company. They make radios, including police walkie talkies (land mobile radios). The pictures I've seen look like bog-standard land mobile radios. Not particularly small, and larger than most flip phones. The radio in question: https://rigpix.com/icom/icv82.htm https://rigpix.com/icom/icv82.htm
- blackhawkC17 2y ago[flagged]
- tecleandor 2y ago> The death toll rose to 12, including two children, Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said on Wednesday. Tuesday's attack wounded nearly 3,000 people, including many of the militant group's fighters and Iran's envoy to Beirut. The cost and years in the making of this through a shell company in Hungary, and also putting a random (and probably innocent) Taiwanese company in the target, for just killing 12 people including two children... Doesn't look like galaxy brain to me either.
- blackhawkC17 2y agoKilling is not the point. It’s to feed raw terror to terrorists, giving them a nice taste of their own medicine.
- morwanger 2y ago[flagged]
- blackhawkC17 2y agoTerrorism directed at terrorists…I’m in full support.
- morwanger 2y ago[flagged]
- blackhawkC17 2y agoYeah, that’s very easy to do. I don’t live in a deranged place filled with terrorists supported by a significant part of the population.
- technics256 2y agoA second day! I can't believe the full up and down owning of the communications supply chain. Makes Hezbollah look like a clown show.
- empath75 2y agoI mean just from a pure opsec perspective, you'd think they'd have popped them open to look right?
- Zironic 2y agoNow we don't yet know which radios exactly these are. But more likely then not, wouldn't these be from the exact same supply chain attack and maybe even come in the same shipment?
- tptacek 2y agoI'm looking at pictures on my MidEast Twitter TL, with legit reporters RT'ing them, of palm-sized slim ICOM radios.
- Zironic 2y agoAccording to Routers, they were bought at the same time as the pagers 5 months ago. So I would bet on it being the same supply chain operation that targeted both devices and maybe other devices that were bought at the same time.
- realo 2y agoThousands of civilians injured... very few Hezbollah dead. Makes Israel look like a terrorist organization, IMHO.
- flyinglizard 2y agoWhy would civilians have in their possession tactical communication devices of a military organization?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- datameta 2y agoIf it walks like terrorism, and quacks like terrorism... I struggle to understand how they're imagining they're obviating the optics of this, unless they don't care what the dissenting population in Israel thinks (or the world for that matter) until "it is done".
- golergka 2y agoCan you explain how ultra targeted, small explosive charges quack terrorism? I have been reading comments like this yesterday, and I'm completely bewildered as to how any sane person could come to this conclusion. Did you consider the US operation to take down Bin Laden an act of terrorism too?
- morwanger 2y ago[flagged]
- golergka 2y agoThis is war. Any hostile action in armed conflict can, and will, have collateral damage to the innocent. Acts of terror and war crimes are determined by who is targeted, what precautions are taken to minimise collateral damage, and how significant is the military target compared to expected collateral damage. If you don't want to kill any innocent civilians, your only course of action is not to offer any resistance to people who attack you and surrender.
- datameta 2y agoThat last paragraph is disingenuous at best because there is a miles-wide valley of options between setting off explosives in peoples' pockets and surrender.
- golergka 2y agoNo, this paragraph explains that "this attack killed innocent" is not a good argument if you want to prove that this was a war crime or an act of terror. If you want to prove something like this, your argument should be "this attack targeted innocents", "reasonable precautions to minimise damage to innocents were not taken", or "the military significance of target is insignificant compared to damage to innocents". I don't see any of these arguments.
- boomdang 2y ago[flagged]
- morwanger 2y ago[flagged]
- Jordanpomeroy 2y agoI have to admit that, as a hack, the amount of planning, technical integration, and apparently flawless execution must have required an awesome amount of effort by very intelligent people. As a human being though, this is revolting. A new avenue of mass destruction. I sure hope I am never around someone a Mossad-like organization wants to kill.
- docdeek 2y ago[flagged]
- Qem 2y agoThe original pager attack was triggered in the anniversary of World War II hero Folke Bernadotte assassination by Zionists, on September 17. See https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-s-forgotten-hero-the-assassination-of-count-bernadotte-and-the-death-of-peace-934094.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-... I wonder if this was meaningful choice, or just a coincidence.
- Modified3019 2y agoMost likely coincidence. From what I’ve read, Israel had to pull the trigger on the pagers early because some people (whom they were monitoring) had gotten suspicious that something was up.
- morkalork 2y agoI wonder what tipped them off? The battery wasn't lasting as long? One accidentally went off early and they were investigating? A leak?
- yieldcrv 2y agoThat was Tuesday’s speculation It looks more likely to just be a demoralizing psyop, expose a couple thousand Hezbollah members based on hospital records and to the Lebanese public, disrupt communications and attack south Lebanon
- xenospn 2y agoConfidence for sure. I grew up in Israel and never heard of this anniversary.
- Qem 2y agoHe was assassinated one day after publishing his peace plan: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernadotte_plan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernadotte_plan
- hedgehog 2y agoCountries often scrub their history books of things they're not proud of. I grew up in the US and not once was the 1921 Tulsa massacre covered in school.
- msarrel 2y ago[flagged]
- vksixyb 2y agoYou absolutely do not need to hand it to them.
- nemo44x 2y ago[flagged]
- donthatemebro 2y ago[flagged]
- vksixyb 2y agoThese sorts of attacks are going to hurt a lot of innocent people. How do they control the munitions and ensure they limit civilian casualties? (I suspect they do not.) It also seems to be lionized in the media as something "impressive" and not "contemptible". I'm not saying it cannot be both! It could be contemptible and impressive, but the media seems comfortable just being impressed. If North Korea or Iran or Russia pulled this off against another military, would we all still be here discussing only the technical parts of the attack? I suspect not. Maybe I'm wrong, but I suspect there'd be a lot more condemnation.
- borski 2y agoYes. If North Korea or Russia pulled this off we would all be suitably impressed. This is an impressive feat, as targeted as it gets (you could have been standing right next to one of these and walked away, as shown in many of the videos online), and while we would certainly retaliate, the very next step would be studying how it happened.
- fortran77 2y agoRockets launched by Hezbolla into Israel hurt a lot of innocent people.
- TiredOfLife 2y agoThe explosives were in devices whose only functionality and purpose is communication between terrorists and their leadership. With No civilian functionality. With tiny amount of explosives.
- pvaldes 2y ago> The explosives were in devices whose only functionality and purpose is communication between terrorists and their leadership. With No civilian functionality Those devices are used still extensively by Hospitals, ambulances and first aid teams. The red cross use walkies. The firefighters and police also. They pose several advantages over the phone net, specially when managing sensible information from victims private life that you still have to custody and protect from internet. Nobody wants to talk on whasap about "somebody is being raped somewhere and we are on route to help, tell the other units that join us there". They still work after earthquakes or on wildfires, and common people use it extensively on places without phone coverage like mountainous areas or fisheries. None of those people are terrorists. But this does not matter, because the brands will stop making and selling this products to everybody. The risk as a company to became collateral damage in this new operations is too high.
- paulnpace 2y agoI see a lot of comments here that seem to imply there is knowledge that victims were exclusively members of Hezbollah.
- TacticalCoder 2y ago> I see a lot of comments here that seem to imply there is knowledge that victims were exclusively members of Hezbollah. Well a great many here also believe that raping and killing 1200 young civilians who were enjoying a music at a festival is an act of "resistance". I don't know about you but to me these civilians weren't Mossad agents. War is messy: if you don't want to find out, don't fuck around. For example begin by not firing missile on another country. And I see a lot of people who are fucking around at the moment, including in the EU and the US, thinking there shall never be any reaction. They can keep fucking around: at some point they'll find out.
- tptacek 2y agoYes, consider all the Hezbollah school teachers carrying Hezbollah ICOM walkie-talkies.
- dtornabene 2y agoYou realize these went off in supermarkets, right? In hospitals? In homes where children were near by? There has already been reporting on at least two dead children.
- dralley 2y agoWhat alternative do you suggest? It's not as though a 250, 500lb bomb is less prone to collateral damage. Hezbollah willingly joined with Hamas into a war. As far as war goes, this is just about the most precise form of targeting possible, especially in an urban area.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- kotaKat 2y agoAt this point someone needs to run an SDR and start capturing as much RF spectrum as possible, especially on any communications device that has a 'selective calling' feature. The pagers could have been set off with a page sent to a 'group' capcode in a hidden slot with a unique beep pattern that a little tiny MCU picked up and set off the detonator. Radios -- same thing. Possibly a group calling feature of a signalling system was used with a "secret" group hidden away in the radio programming?
- tamimio 2y agoUnless they were previously timed with in internal clock (unlikely), that should be one of the things they should do.
- itissid 2y ago#TIL: “Cap Code” stands for Channel Access Protocol code, which is the unique ID code assigned to a particular pager.
- Scoundreller 2y ago> especially on any communications device that has a 'selective calling' feature. I wonder if it’s even dumber than that. Entirely separate from the paging network and tuned to listen for a pulse at a specific RF frequency and then blow up. Also gives the ability to target certain geographic areas. But even if listening to pager spectrum, the paging network is incredibly insecure. Anyone could send out fake pages with the right RF setup (e.g. from a drone).
- __m 2y agoTo what end? Capturing it would mean you are already too late
- clueless 2y agoso how does one verify that the battery in their iphone doesn't contain explosives?
- tptacek 2y agoThe supply chain for an iPhone is much stronger than for a Gold Alpha pager, and it's likely that the same thing will end up being true of these ICOM radios: they'll turn out to be designed and branded by ICOM, but actually manufactured and distributed by some random Eastern European outfit that paid to use ICOM as a skinsuit. That would never happen with an Apple device.
- rmbyrro 2y ago> The supply chain for an iPhone is much stronger Probably not strong enough to make it unreachable by a sophisticated agency like the Mossad.
- tptacek 2y agoI think the most likely outcome here is that all these devices were intercepted from the same firm.
- borski 2y agoWith enough time, effort, and money? Sure. But that would be many orders of magnitude more difficult that what they pulled off here, which was already very impressively difficult to pull off.
- ianburrell 2y agoIt is likely that they were authentic Icom devices. My understanding is that it is common for commercial radios to be programmed by distributor. Or Gold Alpha gave a good deal on pagers and radios and then were intercepted from warehouse. I don't think Icom would ever put name on generic radio, they make all their radios in Japan. It is like Toyota putting name on another car.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago[flagged]
- yoavm 2y agoThat indeed happened in yesterday's attack. Not to take away from linking him to Hezbollah, however.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- rasz 2y agoA lot of "freedom" activists yesterday outed themselves sharing news of their relatives/close friends being injured in an unexplained pager accident.
- anigbrowl 2y agoNo, not really. In contact with, certainly. Hezbollah holds ~12% of seats in the Lebanese parliament and its military wing is arguably as powerful as the Lebanese army. It would be surprising, arguably irresponsible, if cabinet ministers did not have a channel to communicate with them. Every government has back channels, even to straight up enemies. For example: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/mar/18/northernireland.past https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/mar/18/northernire...
- TMWNN 2y ago>The NYT wrote today that Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon was injured (although this may have been in yesterday’s incident?), which makes it obvious that he works with Hezbollah. A joke I saw: "Why did the Iranian ambassador have a Hezbollah pager?" "Because he left the Hamas pager at home."
- lxchase 2y agoAnyone know how these devices may have been triggered that would be different from pagers? I imagine these radios would have to be modified to listen to multiple channels in case a radio was on a different channel than planned.
- elfbargpt 2y agoFor both attacks, I've been seeing stories of a plane, the "EC-130H Compass Call" flying in the area. It's supposedly an electronic intelligence aircraft that hasn't been seen in the sky for about a year. I don't know much more than that though
- petra 2y agoIt's possible to send the trigger message on every channel.
- isoprophlex 2y agoAn entire integrated explosive device + detonator + radio circuit that leeches off the host device's power supply, that you activate by blasting an area with some out-of-band signal on a frequency that propagates far and wide? Takes some upfront work but you don't have to mess with the device, any firmware that might leave traces, and the comms network itself. You just fly a big antenna nearby and everything goes boom.
- ineedasername 2y agoIf the Israelis are as careful as they were with Stuxnet there might be a permanent kill switch baked into the implementation to prevent being triggered in the future. Without an initiating event, the type of explosive believed to be used here is very stable with respect to normal kinetic shocks or heat.
- mrtksn 2y agoHa, maybe this will be the turning point for international corporations becoming national-only? Or maybe make the big brands like Apple/Samsung the only trusted device manufacturers and completely wipe out the small ones? No iPhones exploded so far but I wouldn't be surprised if the paranoia takes over everywhere and local supply chains and local producers become a thing. "Foreign social media platforms" was already a concern but this is "foreign hardware is booby trapped as you can see". Another nail for the globalized world, united humanity, citizens of the world etc. If a big brand has a supply chain is infiltrated too, then its all over. Also, are those people blind? Don't they see that booby trapping large number of devices rhymes with poisoning the well? It wouldn't help with antisemitism but that's another discussion.
- Zironic 2y agoYeah, I can't say I'm a big fan of this massive scale booby trapping devices all over civilian society and I suspect most nation stats are not very happy about this either. The EU is probably not going to be happy at all about Israel using an EU flagged company to do it either. This is going to create a lot of distrust in the international supply chain.
- tptacek 2y agoThese aren't civilian devices.
- gruez 2y agoThe claim isn't that they're "civilian devices", it's that they're "devices all over civilian society". That's relevant because bobby trapping them is liable to cause casualties.
- exe34 2y agothis was a special shipment created for the terrorists. this isn't just putting a bomb into every pager.
- salex89 2y agoIt's probably much more interesting to see what else is happening while everyone is paying attention on communication devices and tending wounded.
- CapricornNoble 2y agoIsrael is moving an additional division of troops into the Northern Command, probably preparing ground operations to commence shortly: https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/new-wave-blasts-rock-beirut-2nd-day-hand-held-radios-personal-devices-explode https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/new-wave-blasts-rock-...
- throwbecausebot 2y ago[flagged]
- lukan 2y agoBecause communication still needs to happen?
- throwbecausebot 2y agoOf course, but not worth it when you know you've been compromised.
- lukan 2y agoSo you would not call an ambulance, when you need one?
- grumple 2y ago*attack on terrorists
- themingus 2y agoI'll be curious about what details emerge concerning connections between the hand-held radios and the pagers. Any overlap in the manufacturers? Were the radios new/recently replaced like the pagers? How was the explosive triggered?
- janmo 2y agoIf the mossad was able to plant explosives without being caught, I wouldn't be surprised if they also planted bugs (indiscriminately) in many electronic devices delivered to Lebanon such as TVs, computers, phones etc... Similar to the spy chips implants within the Supermicro server motherboards.
- CamperBob2 2y agoThe Supermicro story was never proven to be anything but bullshit, though. The more you looked into it, the less it added up.
- janmo 2y agoTrue, probably the NSA wanted to smear the Chinese when in fact they are the ones implanting bugs in hardware.
- afthonos 2y agoMaybe the Chinese wanted to smear the NSA by making it look like the NSA was trying to smear the Chinese when the NSA in fact were the ones implanting bugs in the hardware...
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y agoGiven the embarrassingly bad security practices of hardware vendors (see recent secure boot key leak) do the spy agencies require deliberate backdoors anymore? I have lost count of the number of times Cisco has shipped a hardcoded admin password.
- Maken 2y agoMaybe everyone was implanting bugs and blamed the other party for being too sloppy and getting caught.
- glimshe 2y agoYou are joking, but that's probably the truth... Or at least that's what the NSA wants us to think!
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- fortran77 2y agoI've seen photos posted on X and Telegram (of course I can't verify) of what look like Baofeng and Icom UHF hand-helds that have detonated. Not sure how they can get them to all blow up in unison--these aren't devices that can receive a digital message--as they apparently did at a funeral today.
- ivan_gammel 2y agoThey could receive a radio broadcast.
- MPSimmons 2y agoGiven apparently(?) none of them detonated prematurely, the arming device would need to be content aware so that a normal transmission didn't set them off randomly and warn the rest of the targets that the devices were compromised.
- danparsonson 2y agoIf one can modify a device to incorporate an explosive, then it's surely possible to add another receiver of some kind too.
- carterparks 2y agoThey can detect analog tones for functions like CTCSS.
- solardev 2y agoThose radios do decode some digital messages, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squelch#DCS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squelch#DCS for managing group convos (squelching others on the same channel who aren't part of the same group). There's also ANI identifiers and repeater codes, for example. So there's definitely firmware/software to work with SOME digital stuff onboard. But I also think a lot of radios look like Baofengs, or are whitelabeled Baofengs, so who knows... Besides, if Israel or whoever can modify the supply chain, they can add whatever receivers/chips they want into it alongside the explosives. Or just some sort of analog radio detonator/trigger.
- 2y ago
- tamimio 2y agoProbably after the pagers yesterday, these Icom walkie-talkies were going to be discovered soon, leading to this subsequent trigger. Regardless, this is probably the first big worldwide event to bring the spotlight on supply chain attacks, and finally when we -nerds- talk about the possibility of bugging devices before delivering them or worse, detonating them remotely, it isn’t some sci-fi or conspiracy theory anymore.
- trallnag 2y agoVery impressive. A months long operation culminating in an early new year's eve celebration with a bunch of firecrackers. I guess it's time to go back to pigeons
- mmastrac 2y agoI guess they are taking a victory lap around yesterday's major embarrassment. I never thought that you could dismantle a terrorist organization so surgically by just booby-trapping comms devices. This will certainly be made into a blockbuster movie in ten years. I'll re-iterate my previous comment on this matter: this is an impressive supply-chain hack with absolutely oversized results, and you gotta hand it to them for pulling it off. I think this will go down as being significantly more impressive than Stuxnet.
- tptacek 2y agoIt's not a victory lap; this operation by itself is one of the largest and most intricate operations Israeli intelligence has ever executed, and would have been planned months in advance. Repeating from elsewhere on the thread: the reporting is that this is happening now because Hezbollah was on the verge of discovering the operation. I think it's likely both sets of devices came from the same manufacturer or distributor.
- bri3k 2y agoAgree. If one device was booby-trapped the first thing I would be doing is disassembling all my others devices for the same.
- exe34 2y agodisassemble? that would be too brave for me. I'd be burying them very quickly.
- ineedasername 2y agoNah, send in the new recruits to do it.
- mmastrac 2y agoI agree -- "victory lap" is just a figure of speech. Yesterday's results were probably far outsized impact on their own, and today's are (apologies for another figure of speech) "icing on the cake". I would imagine that they've been feeding these booby-trapped devices to the supply chain for at least a few months and showing that multiple devices are potentially bombs is just an even more powerful psychological victory. What devices can they even trust now? Will they need to go back to sneakernet?
- themingus 2y agoI'll be curious about what details emerge concerning connections between the hand-held radios and the pagers. Any overlap in the manufacturers? Were the radios new/recently replaced like the pagers? How was the explosive triggered?
- lukan 2y agoI assume it was the same factory, that made the explosive containing batteries. And then those batteries "just" had to be swapped with the intercepted original ones. Still requires effort, but less than building pagers and walki talkies for this purpose.
- knlam 2y agoIn the other thread, HN said Israel can only pull this trick only once and they just did it the second time
- dudisubekti 2y agoI mean, it has been only one day after the last attack. It's still part of the same attack plan IMO. I really doubt Israel can pull this off again next month or year. Hezbollah (and Lebanon) will switch all their electronics to Chinese supply chain or something, and double check it.
- moffkalast 2y agoTomorrow: "Hezbollah laptops explode across Lebanon, sources say"
- goldcd 2y agoThat's got to be a reason why the attacks are staggered. Separating them definitely increased the chances that somebody would check their radios - but taking out the pagers drove people to the radios. Now taking out the radios is making people worry what else might be compromised. Your enemy refusing to use their communication equipment is a definite win. The pagers and radios were supposedly due to the worry that the phone system was compromised - but I'm guessing more people will be using it tomorrow.
- dsauerbrun 2y agothe only safe option anymore is the cup and string
- frankie_t 2y agoI guess it could still be considered the same one, just the continuation of it. I was kind of expecting a ground invasion after such havoc in communications has been wrecked. I guess if the "electronic" attack is still going on, maybe something else will still proceed...
- ineedasername 2y agoI'd be eyeballing for anything that could still function with a couple cm^3 carved out & filled with HE. Next come the potatoes.
- rdtsc 2y agoThe only way we'd find out how they did it is if some pagers didn't explode and at least one would get into the hands of someone willing to do a public tear-down. In this video, we'll be cutting the explosive battery. Hit the like and subscribe buttons, and let us know what kind of explosive you think this is in the comments. Also, don't try this at home kids, we're what you'd call "professionals".
- e12e 2y agoIt seems overwhelmingly likely that this can be figured out by detecting traces of explosives - or lack of traces - on the fragments from a few of the devices?
- BobaFloutist 2y agoIf it was a US intelligence agency, we could just wait 20-50 years and ask politely and they'd probably tell us how. Say what you will about US intelligence agencies (and there's a LOT to say), but I always did kind of like that feature.
- kjkjadksj 2y agoExcept sometimes the document they give you is three words unredacted
- dredmorbius 2y agoListening to BBC News headlines earlier today, this seems to be exactly what's occurring. Multiple devices did not explode, and are being investigated by multiple parties. I cannot find a specific story detailing this presently. There's some discussion of the mechanics of the modifications in this TEMPCO story, though how the information was ascertained isn't clear: [S]enior Lebanese source said the devices had been modified by Israel's spy service "at the production level." "The Mossad injected a board inside of the device that has explosive material that receives a code. It's very hard to detect it through any means. Even with any device or scanner," the source said. <https://en.tempo.co/read/1917697/israel-planted-explosives-in-5000-hezbollah-pagers-say-sources https://en.tempo.co/read/1917697/israel-planted-explosives-i...> Presumably not by like-and-subscribe seeking YouTubers, however. Edit: World Service broadcast, analysis note at ~52s: <https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w172zgf8tw4nqq5 https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w172zgf8tw4nqq5>
- 1oooqooq 2y agoI guess we now know what intelligence org had the know how for supply chain attacks we we're thinking impossible a few years ago... Thank god they are our allies. :)
- hdivider 2y agoExcept not in NATO, Five Eyes, or even a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. In real terms, they're definitely among the more problematic allies. Compared with Germany, UK, France, Australia, Canada, etc.
- trallnag 2y agoThis is a blatant lie. For example, as part of operation Rubikon Germany and the US spied on Spain, a NATO ally, among other targets. It's commonplace to spy on each other.
- hdivider 2y agoI don't understand the 'lie' part here. How is what I stated false? The rest of what you said doesn't invalidate my points.
- rozap 2y agoNothing they said was a lie though. Yes, everyone spies on each other, but what matters is the level of aggression. Israel ranks up there with China and Russia, and that's an issue. And it's absolutely true that they did not sign the nuclear non proliferation treaty, and then went on to do nuclear tests off the coast of South Africa in the 1979 Vela incident. And that provided a huge motivation for Israel's enemies (which are absolutely anti-US) to seek nuclear weapons, which caused huge regional instability since then and threatened US national security. Yes, you can talk about how it's hypocritical that the US gets to do these things and nobody else does. And in a sense it is, but the fact is that at the moment, the US effectively rules the world for better or worse. And it is a fact that Israel's behavior is causing instability that threatens themselves and the US.
- 2y ago
- JodieBenitez 2y agoImpressive... but any collateral victim ?
- obnauticus 2y agoLooks like an ICOM IC-V82. https://batteriesamerica.com/collections/icom-ic-v8-ic-v82-ic-u82-ic-f3-ic-f4gt-gs https://batteriesamerica.com/collections/icom-ic-v8-ic-v82-i...
- minkles 2y agoWell that solves the eternal rivalry between ICOM and Yaesu.
- synack 2y agoYaesu radio explodes when I throw it at the wall because the UI is so frustrating.
- minkles 2y agoOk I'll give you that. My 818 is horrid.
- jhallenworld 2y agoI'm impressed that Hezbollah was not using Baofeng.
- minkles 2y agoI think they are better funded than Russia :)
- elfbargpt 2y agoI imagine there has to be hundreds of unexploded devices in Lebanon. I would expect to see some of those surface over the next few weeks, or someone get stopped at an airport with one
- guytv 2y agowhile blowing up a one-way comm device might make sense to intel agencies and countries, I am curious about the decision to blow up hand-helds instead of listening in on them undetected.
- coffeebeqn 2y agoIt is a little odd. I feel like Mossad didn’t do this just for fun? I can only guess what they’re trying to achieve
- crystalmeph 2y agoDemoralization of the enemy. Every single Hezbollah member is now paranoid that every single surface they touch is either listening to them or trying to kill them.
- wood_spirit 2y agoDay one, blow up the pagers. Everyone stops using pagers. Day two, blow up the backup device that Hezbollah had fallen back to using. Perhaps on day three, now that Hezbollah has no effective communication and coordination and might even fall back to mobile phones, start ground ops?
- anthk 2y agoDay 4, Hezbollah uses pen/papers disguised as recipes shared between women with token words and procedures.
- abracadaniel 2y agoReportedly, these were in use for a few months. Maybe they got what they wanted, and used that to identify which devices to blow.
- skc 2y agoImagine the paranoia that must be flooding Hezbollah right now. You can't function without your electronics...but you can't trust them at all now. You don't even know how many or which of your gadgets have been compromised to spy on you and for how long. Massive, massive L.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y agoThe actual body count could be zero and it would still be devastating. I could even believe the supply chain infiltration was fake and radios were manually replaced day of the attack with a crude timer. Anything to give the appearance of omnipotence.
- kklisura 2y agoOn the other hand: isn't risk to this enormous? What if they just abandon all electronics and conduct their _business_ "off grid"? Good luck tracking that down...
- cooper_ganglia 2y agoUnfortunately for them, pigeons fly slower than radio waves.
- robertlagrant 2y agoIf that were better or as good, they'd already be doing it. It's pretty obvious that would massively disrupt them.
- doodlebugging 2y agoI'm probably wrong but I think I remember that part of the reason the Oct 7 attacks worked so well was due to Hamas' avoiding known signals intelligence gathering operations by using hand-carried notes and keeping it all low-tech. They planned and trained in the open but never let it slip on commonly monitored media that they were about to do anything. That was Hamas, not Hezbollah so maybe the latter didn't learn the lesson and left themselves open to this type of attack or retribution, depending on your individual perspective. This may push things back to pencil and paper and sneaker-nets. It'll probably be a brief adaptation though since the temptation of technology is very real.
- Arch485 2y agoI'm genuinely curious: how is this not considered terrorism on Israel's part? (or is it considered terrorism?) From a tactical standpoint, this is very similar, and the only big difference I see is that this is technologically more advanced/more complex than just planting a bomb or something. If it's not terrorism, what is the differentiating factor(s)? *side note: I'm quite sure other western countries have used tactics that I would call terrorism as well. This isn't meant to be a callout or anti-anything post. I'm genuinely curious where the line is drawn.
- kvgr 2y ago[flagged]
- ivan_gammel 2y agoIt is terrorism if the attack is planned in such a way, where innocent people will suffer with very high probability and nothing is done to prevent that.
- N_A_T_E 2y agoIt's terrorism if non-combatants are the target. These attacks targeted combatants who were being sent information to conduct combat through the very same devices that exploded.
- ivan_gammel 2y agoWhen planning such operation you cannot be certain that: 1. all the devices will land in hands of legitimate targets 2. all those devices will be actually used by targets at the moment of explosion 3. there will be no civilians in the range of explosion Because of that civilian casualties should be anticipated at unknown scale. Since Israel pulled the trigger knowing that, it means they deliberately targeted civilians along with legitimate targets.
- mrguyorama 2y ago>It's terrorism if non-combatants are the target This is actually insufficient, unless you think the bombing of Berlin was terrorism. If your attack is about primarily about reducing military capability then it isn't terrorism. Bombing a tank factory staffed entirely by civilians is not terrorism. Launching an expensive cruise missile against a single apartment block is probably terrorism, but if that apartment block houses all the scientists of the Manhattan project, maybe it's not. Bombing a military base isn't terrorism even if you end up killing all the families of the soldiers stationed there.
- econner 2y agoIt makes me wonder how Israel can achieve something like this while simultaneously not being aware of the Oct 7 attacks.
- robertlagrant 2y agoOffence vs defence.
- atemerev 2y agoPreparation. Surprise attacks work… once. Then, you have to wait for a few years when the enemy side lowers their readiness again.
- onemoresoop 2y agoIt seems like these attacks happened multiple times in succession, a day apart from eachother. Yesterday pagers exploded, today walkie takies and solar panels. What's next to come?
- lukan 2y ago"solar panels" That is news to me. Who reported so?
- Ancapistani 2y agohttps://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/lebanons-official-news-agency-reports-home-solar-energy-113809042 https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/lebanons-offi...
- lukan 2y ago"home solar energy systems exploded in several areas of Beirut" Sounds more like the battery exploded, not the panel. That would be a weird and difficult attack vector.
- 2y ago
- bwanagary 2y ago[flagged]
- lm28469 2y ago[flagged]
- anonymouswacker 2y ago[dead]
- legitster 2y agoIt's interesting that both targets have been against non-cellular forms of communication. I suspect for Israel they have advanced ways of intercepting text and calls and (probably) even MITM encrypted communications over cellular networks. And this could just as easily be about seeding fear about using anything besides a cell phone.
- seydor 2y agoThey are famous for selling notorious spyware to many governments
- minkles 2y ago[flagged]
- runarberg 2y ago[flagged]
- minkles 2y agoNo, it wouldn't. An interpretation of an ideology is not a race and conflating the two is disingenuous.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- mandmandam 2y agoDiscriminating against a group of people on the basis of their religion can still be racist. There's legal precedent for that in the US, Canada, the UK, France, the European Council on Human Rights, etc... Not Saudi Arabia though. Are you Saudi?
- mandmandam 2y ago[flagged]
- zer8k 2y ago[flagged]
- runarberg 2y agoSeriously, what is going on here? Nobody needs to cite any statistics to proof that Muslims are in fact not more likely to commit terrorism. Claiming the need for such sources is hiding racism behind statistics, which is also a racist behavior. And on the flip-site citing any statistic to “proof” that Muslims to be more likely of terrorism is a fundamentally racist thing to do, and nobody should actually do that. The report you cited makes no such claim actually, it merely lists a number of terror organizations (with a western bias) and makes no conclusion about whether any group of peoples are more likely to commit terrorism. That was your leap of logic. Terrorism is such a rare act that, and such an extreme act that any statistic is going to be dictated by either noise or third factors. If you find any group of peoples to be likelier to commit this act it is either because of random fluctuations or because of unrelated factors (including—and most likely because of—bias). It is in fact a well known tactic among racists to hide their racism behind biased data. This goes well back to scientific racism of the 19th and 20th century, as well as among police districts justifying racial profiling (a deeply racist policy) in the 1980s and well into the 2000s. I share your parent’s worry that we are having this debate here on HN, and that you are so willing to double down on an obviously racist idea.
- known 2y ago[dead]
- dtornabene 2y ago[flagged]
- Duwensatzaj 2y agoTruly disgusting how many people conflate attacking a terrorist organization with minimal civilian casualties with terrorism.
- kbos87 2y ago[flagged]
- lupusreal 2y agoYounger Americans are by in large not buying Israel's bullshit. American support for Israel is a generational phenomenon and that support will be aging and dying out of the political process in the next 20 or so years, after that Israel will be on their own to face all the enemies they've made, and that won't end well for them. I think this is why they've been so aggressive in recent years. They know their window of opportunity is closing.
- snakeyjake 2y ago[flagged]
- cornercasechase 2y agoNo one wants to holiday in an apartheid state. The younger generations have access to actual footage on the ground in Palestine, they will never support Israel.
- YorickPeterse 2y agoYou can call Israel out on its bullshit while also doing the same with Hezbollah and Hamas, it's not mutually exclusive.
- jhallenworld 2y agoLGBTQ+ and even women's rights are a recent phenomenon in the west, and still unfolding (and could revert). If you want the less enlightened society to embrace these rights, how do you propose to do it? Take their land? Killing their kids? Open air prison? I don't think these strategies are going to do it..
- snakeyjake 2y agoUnless Patrick Stewart is involved I’m straighter than a laser beam. I’m talking about apostasy and being outspoken on civil rights. But good point about how they drag homosexuals from behind scooters until they are dead. As far as fixing them? I really don’t give a shit. They are as fixable as the North Korean ruling elite. Anyone who thinks they can be smiled and hugged into the modern age is a fool.
- elpepo 2y agoDoes anyone know, assuming this was a radio-triggered signal to detonate the booby trap, what range the originating signal or radio station could have? I'm curious if this type of remote activation could be achieved with just a single radio tower, or if it would require a network of geographically distributed radio towers to transmit the signal to the affected area. How would isolation conditions, like being inside a building or in a garage, affect it? Also, what kind of radio towers would be needed? Could it be disguised as a regular HAM radio antenna on a building?
- lugu 2y agoI would love to know that too. I don't know the frequency the walkie-talkie used: it could anywhere between 136 MHz to 900 MHz. To give you an idea, 135 MHz isn't too far from the FM spectrum. The antenna of your local radio can blast at several miles. If several cities were targeted, then multiple emitting stations were involved.
- daemonologist 2y agoInteresting that they chose to carry out this attack in two waves - presumably the thinking was that Hezbollah would assume only the pagers were compromised (single source/shipment) and thus increase their use of other communication devices. I suspect some did the opposite as well though (stopped carrying/using any devices).
- GenerocUsername 2y agoGTA V did it first
- WaitWaitWha 2y ago[flagged]
- csense 2y agoIs this making anyone else really nervous about how much of our tech comes from China? I'm thinking a scenario like this: - China makes a rule that all cellphones leaving the country must go through an "inspection facility" (where the explosive hardware and the backdoor trigger chip will be installed) - A year after the next big iPhone release, China sends a huge convoy of warships and troop transports toward Taiwan, telegraphing a major assault - The US says "Stop!" - China presses a button and a few thousand iPhones blow up in the US - China says "That is just a small taste of our capability, we just pressed the small red button. If you tell us to un-hand Taiwan again, we'll press the big red button and un-hand a few million of your citizens" Now that this kind of attack is frontpage news, every country in the world is by now aware it's possible -- and it appears to be super effective. So it seems entirely reasonable that some countries will start planning to do the same sort of attack against their enemies. What I'm saying is, now that everyone's become aware this sort of thing is possible and effective, China might realize it has the means, opportunity, and possibly motive to attack the US this way on a large scale. As I'd very much prefer not to be maimed or killed by my electronics, I hope the US government is actively looking into effective defenses against China or anyone who would try this sort of attack on US soil.
- nopocketbombs 2y ago[dead]
- schlick 2y agoI'll just continue my tactic of never buying a new phone
- ordinaryradical 2y agoThere’s a “live by the sword, die by the sword” reaction that I have to this. I think we expect better of democracies, which is why these kinds of attacks shock us. But it is interesting that we are unsurprised when Lebanon/Hezbollah uses terror tactics but it quickly becomes a news event when Israel responds in kind. Ironic because drone bombings like we did in Afghanistan would probably have a much more terrible collateral damage effect but be less newsworthy. But somehow boobytrapping radios and pagers pricks our conscience. Maybe because it feels more personal, intimate, and therefore retributive?
- greedylizard 2y agoI wasn’t aware those terrorists organizations had exploded devices in public spaces. Please share your source.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- vondur 2y agoAre you kidding? Here's just one of many: 14 FEB 2005 Beirut, Lebanon Suicide bomber detonated a VBIED, assassinates former Lebanese Prime Minister; 22 killed, 231 wounded
- rasz 2y agoDoes truck count as a device? Here is a history refresher https://aoav.org.uk/2020/a-short-history-of-suicide-bombings/ https://aoav.org.uk/2020/a-short-history-of-suicide-bombings...
- danielvf 2y agoJust a few months ago, Hezbollah exploded a rocket in soccer field with children playing, killing 12 children. Doesn't get much more "exploding devices in public spaces" than that. https://www.timesofisrael.com/11-killed-mostly-children-dozens-more-hurt-as-rocket-hits-soccer-field-in-majdal-shams/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/11-killed-mostly-children-doze...
- Log_out_ 2y ago"The hand that giveth taketh.." feelings. Planing atracks on the fab on a laptop whose core was made in that fab, should make one aware og consequences. Hezbollah and iran do not seem to have somebody sampling hardware ordered for defects and alterations. Basic military and state ability . You couldn't do such attacks on functional organisations.
- madcadmium 2y agoI wonder how many of their telecom devices like routers, switches, etc. have bombs implanted in their power supplies
- madcadmium 2y agoI wonder how many of their telecom devices like routers, switches, etc. have bombs implanted in their power supplies
- OutOfHere 2y agoWar and terrorism aside, for the rest of us, in practical terms, Israel can now never be trusted commercially for its software or hardware. Not only are they backdoored and exploited, but they also blow up and kill the user.
- hersko 2y agoDo you think Israel is just randomly planting bombs in everything it makes? This was clearly a targeted op aimed at Hezbollah.
- OutOfHere 2y agoYes, I actually do think that Israel is installing backdoors and explosives in 10x more things than they have activated in their current war against Lebanon.
- balthigor 2y ago[flagged]
- jprd 2y ago[flagged]
- stevenalowe 2y agoNo, because IDF soldiers are legitimate military targets in that context.
- anigbrowl 2y agoIf the parties were reversed as described above, I think the Israelis and their allies in the US would unhesitatingly label it terrorism.
- jprd 2y agoCorrect, should they be on a military base without civilians. Indiscriminately exploding devices, and accepting the certain civilian collateral damage?
- stevenalowe 2y agoI have questions: - why not a larger charge intended to kill/destroy? restraint? or some technical limitation? - why now, and twice? seems like a one-shot tactic, so what happened to make now seem like the right time?
- icar 2y agoA US forum talking about people they pre-consider terrorists of a country they surely can't pin point in a map. What can go wrong...
- negativeonehalf 2y ago'U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. called for a "full accounting" of the attacks to Congress to determine "whether any US assistance went into the development or deployment of this technology."' Are there any public records indicating the CIA is capable of pulling off something like this? I wish the US had been involved, but I seriously doubt it, if only because the opsec requirements are so high. If anyone in Hezbollah had even a whiff of concern that this could happen, the whole operation would have been a bust.
- nielsbot 2y agoWhy do you wish the US had been involved? Wouldn't it be better for us to stay clear of this?
- nine_k 2y agoTechnically this attack is not overly sophisticated. The hard part is knowing right people, long chains of right people, motivation, timing, that kind of thing. No agency in their right mind will even hint on whether they are capable of doing such things or not. Any whiff of information may put their people in mortal danger. They neither confirm nor deny. The fewer people know the better. The rest of the world learns about such operations by suddenly facing their results.
- IG_Semmelweiss 2y agoFor the first time ever since the beginning of conflict (pre-Hezbollah in fact) , native lebanese had been talking opening about partitioning the country into 2, and letting the Hezbollah group have their own fiefdom. This is because Hezbollah is a defacto government in the south. This was before these surprise IDF attacks - i wonder how the conversation evolves.
- lr1970 2y agoSeveral thousands of "modified" portable communication devices were distributed in Lebanon about half a year ago. I am curios how many of those explosive gadgets the unsuspecting owners were bringing to the airplanes through airport security without explosives being detected? Another proof that the airport security is a theater (at least in the Middle East).
- mjiyed 2y agoLet’s put the question other way around If Hezbollah had chance to make similar trigers in Israeli reservists soldiers, and launched same exploding attacks on reservists israeli soldiers while not in homes and not engaged, knowingly all israely reservists are linked to IDF apps for in case call of duty Should a triger to explode 50000 mobile devices in these hands considered terrorism? In time of engaged war from israeli side!!
- known 2y ago[dead]