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Home solar energy systems exploded in several areas of Beirut
- abricot 2y agoEverything seems to be exploding in Lebanon!?
- theGeatZhopa 2y agoThe third wave.. so.. we have mainly three parts that can be used by hisbola to be independent: communication, power and food processing and production. The next thing is the food. Keep fingers off tomatoes.
- seydor 2y agoEverything with a battery. I m safe here on my desktop PC. My phone is 2 rooms down.
- booleandilemma 2y agoIt's funny to think that there are members of Hezbollah here on HN.
- greenavocado 2y ago[flagged]
- strictnein 2y agoWhere is this all from?
- greenavocado 2y agoTwitter
- dekhn 2y agoWas this content generated by AI?
- greenavocado 2y agoNope
- scotty79 2y agoHalf of that doesn't sound plausible at all.
- greenavocado 2y agoWhich part are you having trouble with?
- scotty79 2y agoThe randomness of the items supposedly blowing up. This "report" seems more like incitement to panic rather than accurate information. Especially given that the pagers weren't naturally explosive. Instead the explosive was put into them at some point in the delivery chain.
- greenavocado 2y agoLooks like many more things were compromised though a supply chain attack. In unrelated news, the American University of Beirut Medican Center replaced the pagers of their doctors and staff two weeks ago. https://www.nna-leb.gov.lb/en/miscellaneous/722089/aub-medical-center-denies-allegations-linking-new https://www.nna-leb.gov.lb/en/miscellaneous/722089/aub-medic... NNA - The American University of Beirut Medical Center announced in a statement: "At a crucial time when AUBMC physicians, nurses, and staff have been fully mobilized to deal with the aftermath of today's injuries, several malicious social media outlets have started spreading rumors and conspiracy theories about the types of communications systems AUB has in place, attempting to link AUB to this tragic event. The university categorically denies these baseless allegations. Following are the facts. Our paging system infrastructure was upgraded in April 2024. The Go-Live for switching to the new system took place on August 29, 2024. The scope of this upgrade was to enhance emergency and code communication, as several devices and systems had become obsolete. The American University of Beirut Medical Center has received over 160 seriously injured individuals over the last three hours, with more to come. Our full focus must be on saving lives and caring for the wounded to the best of our ability. Rather than waste time spreading baseless rumors, we urge all to rally to support AUBMC and the heroic but overwhelmed medical system in Lebanon."
- alwa 2y agoWho is “we” here? My more excitable Twitter-infected friends have been speaking about these scraps of news items in “we” terms too. Is it just that the theatricality of this whole thing has ginned up a good ol’-fashioned Twitter mob “investigation”?
- greenavocado 2y agohttps://twitter.com/DropSiteNews/status/1836431337168806113 https://twitter.com/DropSiteNews/status/1836431337168806113
- hiddencost 2y agoGiven how indiscriminate the IED campaign in Lebanon is, it's quite reasonable to believe the parent poster is merely Lebanese and scared.
- alwa 2y agoIndiscriminate? Aren’t these operations targeting individual pieces of military operational hardware, the sort of thing that only combatants have any reason to have, and that the combatant force keeps confined to its own personnel for security reasons? Tawdry, unsportsmanlike, I can see those lines of criticism—but how does it get much more discriminate than this?
- borski 2y agoYes. It is the definition of discriminate. The only more discriminate attack would be individual in-person assassination. Everyone seems to want to find a reason to claim Israel is targeting civilians here, but they aren’t. This is surgical, which is what everyone wanted Israel to do more of, when it came to how they wage war.
- nemomarx 2y agoIt's more discriminate than bombs, but like poisoning food and hoping it gets to the right target I think anything where you don't actually see the person before choosing to detonate isn't that surgical either. They couldn't actually check if the pagers were on the targets at the time or etc.
- borski 2y agoBut they didn’t arbitrarily poison food and hope it got to their target, poisoning all sorts of civilians along the way. That is a strawman. These devices were not used by non-militants. These devices were used for communications, by militants. No civilian was “playing with” or using these devices, as they were issued by Hezbollah to their operatives. It would be no different from targeting specific guns used by Hezbollah and booby-trapping them to shoot backwards. That is a targeted attack.
- darby_nine 2y ago[flagged]
- diggan 2y ago> It's funny to think that there are members of Hezbollah here on HN. It's worth remembering that Hezbollah as a whole is more than just the paramilitary branch which is commonly referred to as a terrorist organization. Some entities (like the EU) only considers the paramilitary arm of Hezbollah as a terrorist group, while the rest is a proper political organization. Like always, things aren't quite as black and white as many want it to be.
- dralley 2y ago>Some entities (like the EU) only considers the paramilitary arm of Hezbollah as a terrorist group, while the rest is a proper political organization. And that decision is much more political than it is legal or rational. Imagine arguing that ISIS officials are off-limits because they're "not paramilitary". Hezbollah's occupation & control of southern Lebanon is against international law in the first place, but nobody actually wants to deal with that problem. I've never seen a comment that criticizes Hezbollah violations of UN Resolution 1701 the way that people criticize Israel.
- lenerdenator 2y agoSounds to me like they need to disarm, then. Same with Hamas, really. At this point anything either organization does basically violates the "just war" (oxymoron, I know) tenant of only attacking an enemy when you believe you have a reasonable chance of success.
- diggan 2y ago> Sounds to me like they need to disarm, then. I'd want all militaries to disarm too, unlikely to happen unless everyone starts to agree to not get into everyone else's business. So besides getting everyone to disarm, what could we do?
- lenerdenator 2y agoGenerally speaking, when the Israelis mutually recognize Arab nations, they respect the terms of the agreement. Jordan and Egypt are examples. So long as the other party says "you get to exist" and doesn't actively tolerate anti-Israeli militant activity within their borders, Israel won't use its military against them. There are probably some exceptions to this rule, and yes, their occupation of the West Bank violates international law, but attacking just no longer works. Gaza lies in ruins and the IDF conducts operations in the area at will. There are currently thousands of people wrapping their electronics in aluminum foil in Lebanon. Disarming and sitting down to talk in brokered negotiations is probably more effective at this point.
- wood_spirit 2y agoIs this a real news site? Byline says from associated press but abcnews isn’t carrying this story? So if this is fake news then _why_? Clicks, or something else like discrediting solar power?
- booleandilemma 2y agogo.com is owned by Disney, apparently. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go.com
- waltbosz 2y agoBefore the Disney acquisition, go.com used to have a fun chat room service that I used in my teens. This was late 90s.
- defen 2y agoIt's being reported on the AP's site at the bottom of this entry https://apnews.com/live/lebanon-syria-pagers-hezbollah-updates#00000192-059a-d337-afff-afff69a80000 https://apnews.com/live/lebanon-syria-pagers-hezbollah-updat...
- amluto 2y agodang, this is a much, much better source (although still not amazing). Maybe update the link?
- gpm 2y agoYes, this is the actual domain that ABC news uses for some reason. ABC news is an extremely well known US news organization. For a random example it was just the host of the US presidential debate a few days ago.
- ChrisArchitect 2y agoMore discussion on day's events: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41580205 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41580205
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- borski 2y agoIf I were a Hezbollah operative, I would be in a bomb shelter entirely naked for a few days… I'm not sure what electronics I'd be able to trust at this point.
- throw310822 2y agoAnd if Israel can physically plant explosives in its enemies' electronic devices, can you imagine what it does to those whose support it needs, namely US politicians?
- borski 2y agoThis is a strawman. US politicians are not at war with Israel, and do not use specifically distributed devices for military ops and communication against them. This has nothing at all do with politics.
- throw310822 2y agoContinued US support is absolutely essential to provide Israel a licence to keep doing basically whatever it wants. Making sure that politicians keep supporting Israel is possibly even more important than delivering blows to enemies. Israel planted cellphone spying devices near the White House: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/12/israel-planted-spying-devices-near-white-house-says-report https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/12/israel-planted... No consequences whatsoever, why?
- borski 2y agoSure, but the implication that US politicians are on board with Israel because of some perceived threat of danger to their lives is absurd. If Israel threatened, even once, to attack the US, rest assured their US support would be gone in an instant. Surveillance is separate. We surveil allies all the time, and they surveil us. It’s not nice, but it’s par for the course.
- 2y ago
- Sam6late 2y agoCNN:" The death toll from Wednesday’s walkie-talkie explosions has risen to nine, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health. More than 300 people were injured. The renewed attack comes just a day after a coordinated explosion of pagers killed 12 in Lebanon and left more than 2,800 people injured. "
- eth0up 2y agoI wonder if China has the capacity to do the equivalent or worse to an (perceived, or actual) adversary's infrastructure (electric grid, etc).
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> wonder if China has the capacity to do the equivalent If this is still a question of implanted explosives, it’s detectable. If it’s firmware spinning up, that’s far more troubling.
- eth0up 2y agoThe latter is certainly where I was alluding to, hence "worse". Although I might have written much worse.
- pzo 2y agoI'm not expert but does small amounts like this are really detectable in bulk? Even at the airport for some reason you have to remove all electronics and put in separate box.
- HeyLaughingBoy 2y agoThe latest FDA Guidance on Cybersecurity requires that we show how we secure our device's software supply chain. Next time someone complains, I'm going to remind them of this attack.
- lenerdenator 2y agoAnd the person complaining will say "unless you can guarantee a greater than 50% chance of that happening in the period we're budgeting for, we're not going to bother with all of that work."
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> the person complaining will say "unless you can guarantee a greater than 50% chance of that happening in the period we're budgeting for, we're not going to bother with all of that work" If you've worked at a medical-device manufacturer, please blow a whistle. That isn't normal and could seriously hurt people. The reason it isn't a broad issue is the cost of approval revocation, or even suspension, is existential for many companies.
- xkcd-sucks 2y agoReally hope there isn't a sloppy geolocation ready to be confused by Lebanon NH
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoIs this targeted to Hezbollah structures?
- dralley 2y agoNobody is going to be able to answer that question immediately. With the pagers and radios, it's pretty clear that it was limited to Hezbollah according to Hezbollah's own statements.
- ChrisArchitect 2y agoRelated: Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41580205 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41580205
- rich_sasha 2y agoI think possibly this is Israel sticking a dagger in Chinese manufacturing. We sort of knew all along something like this could happen, hence why Huawei got kicked out from the West. But this makes you realize that anything made in mainland China with a Lithium battery is a potential incendiary device, worse still, usually connected to the Internet. Not that I necessarily think China would want to do that, but basically the genie is out of the bottle, and you can't put it back in. The theoretical threat has just literally exploded in people's faces. (I know this was actual explosives not batteries but you could do a lot of damage with batteries)
- nemomarx 2y agocould you do as much damage with batteries though? it seems like they would start fires instead of exploding
- rich_sasha 2y agoSet 10% of all electric car batteries on fire at the same time and we're in trouble. Or half of mobile phones.
- diggan 2y ago> I think possibly this is Israel sticking a dagger in Chinese manufacturing. Based on the small amount of information available, hard to say. 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...) quotes one device as made in Japan, so seemingly goes beyond Chinese manufacturing. Probably some point along the import/export that got hit instead? > Images of the exploded walkie-talkies examined by Reuters showed an inside panel labeled "ICOM" and "made in Japan." > According to its website, ICOM is a Japan-based radio communications and telephone company. > The company has said that production of several models of the ICOM hand-held radio have been discontinued, including the IC-V82, which appeared to closely match those in images from Lebanon on Wednesday and which was phased out in 2014. > The hand-held radios were purchased by Hezbollah five months ago, around the same time that the pagers were bought, said a security source.
- FridayoLeary 2y agoEverything seems to be going up at once. The pagers were an unprecedented and major attack. It was also pretty incredible they managed to also infect their radios but now its already a farce.
- more_corn 2y agoInfect is the wrong word. Implant is better. I’m certain we’ll find that high explosives were inserted into the affected devices en-route.
- gwbas1c 2y agoFlagged: The linked article doesn't provide anything beyond a headline and a video showing unrelated headlines.
- OutOfHere 2y agoThe argument that Israel was only targeting terrorists has gone out of the window. Anyone can use solar energy.
- kkfx 2y agoThe nth good example why we need mandatory open hardware and FLOSS from the first line on any commercial project. Remember such attacks are perfectly possible from any country to another... Oh, and imaging a supply chain attack against drugs, something that does not act so quickly...
- zczc 2y ago"Pictures of exploded solar panels, fingerprint readers and other devices circulated through social media, though it was unclear if they blew up by themselves or were simply near walkie-talkies which blew up." [1] [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/sep/18/middle-east-crisis-live-hezbollah-pager-explosion-lebanon-irael-iran-latest-updates?page=with%3Ablock-66eaf4978f0860cc21944cc8#block-66eaf4978f0860cc21944cc8 https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/sep/18/middle-ea...
- OutOfHere 2y agoAfter these incidents, Israel can now never be trusted commercially for its software or hardware. Their backdoors are not just backdoors; it's a blowdoor.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> can now never be trusted commercially for its software or hardware Obviously not if you're an enemy or adversary of Israel's. If America and China go to war and Chinese equipment shuts down or starts exploding, that's fair game under the rules of war.
- za3faran 2y agoUSS Liberty says hi.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> USS Liberty says hi I mean yes, blowing up things in another country's territory is an act of war. If you commit acts of war against the America, the U.S. government will do war to you.
- OutOfHere 2y ago> Chinese equipment shuts down or starts exploding, that's fair game under the rules of war. I am not so sure that it is fair game. Here is what Volker Turk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has to say: > "such attacks violate international human rights law and potentially international humanitarian law." > if you're an enemy or adversary You seem to have conveniently forgotten how backdoors work. They eventually leak, and then anyone can exploit and trigger them. No matter the original intended target, pretty soon everyone can become a target.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> seem to have conveniently forgotten how backdoors work. They eventually leak, and then anyone can exploit and trigger them This is also true of the access controls to a weapons system. We get angry when people let others use their weapons. It's sort of par for the course when it comes to war.
- josefritzishere 2y agoI think we can start using the term "terrorism" safely now.