8 ms·

Israel concealed explosives inside batteries of pagers, Lebanese officials say

45 points by vFunct 2y ago

buran77 2y ago
> “These attacks represent a new development in warfare, where communication tools become weapons, simultaneously exploding across marketplaces, on street corners, and in homes as daily life unfolds,” UN human rights chief Volker Türk told the Security Council last Friday. “Authorities have reportedly dismantled unexploded devices in universities, banks, and hospitals.” Calling it just "warfare" greatly detracts from the terrorist nature of this scandal.
- rajup 2y ago
  Oh it's not terrorism if it's done by a US-backed vassal state. /s
  - hudon 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - Tagbert 2y ago
    This would be a lot easier if Israel really was a vassal. Then we could decree that they halt the offensive and settle with the Palestinians. As it is, this ally has their own goals which don’t always align with the goals of the US.
    - GoldenMonkey 2y ago
      It's more like the US is a vassal of Israel. Obviously, we bend over backwards for Israel
- hypeatei 2y ago
  That and the inherent risk of fucking with a supply chain. I saw a lot of people covering for Mossad saying they were sure it was going to Hezbollah so it's all fine. I guess people trust and simp for intelligence agencies now or maybe there was a lot of operatives in that thread... who knows.
  - asynchronous 2y ago
    To be fair, the supply chain angle was probably the main point of the attack- it’s a psychological flex in the highest order, you can’t even trust your equipment anymore.
    - giraffe_lady 2y ago
      I wonder if we should come up with a term for an attack whose goal is to sow fear and distrust rather than accomplish a concrete military objective.
    - Izkata 2y ago
      That's pretty much certain: First the pagers, then after they have a chance to switch devices the walkie talkies were detonated the same way.
    - the_gorilla 2y ago
      That's generally what sets terrorism apart from "regular" crime. Of course, if you're a civilian anywhere near one of these pager-bombs when were triggered it's going to have the same effect.
    - praptak 2y ago
      The blast radius of trust is much larger though. If we don't have a reliable way of stopping similar attacks in the future then it's pretty bad for everyone, not only for Hezbollah.
- xxpor 2y ago
  Terrorism implies the targets are non-combatants, and that was intentional. That's not obvious here. Opening the door to supply chain attacks like this is a huge problem, but I'm not sure it was illegal under IHL.
  - aprilthird2021 2y ago
    The targets included non-combatants intentionally. Was trying to hijack a plane and hit the Pentagon not a terrorist attack then since the Pentagon is full of military members?
    - dralley 2y ago
      >The targets included non-combatants intentionally. No, it didn't.
      - aprilthird2021 2y ago
        Answer my other question
        dralley 2y ago
        It's not applicable. I don't feel any need to answer a complete non-sequitur.
      - GoldenMonkey 2y ago
        Sure it did. Setting off bombs in residential areas will always have non-combatant casualties. "Intent" mind reading or not. This is what happened and is a terrorist act.
        dralley 2y ago
        Setting off bombs frequently results in non-combatant casualties no matter where it happens. Hezbollah has no "military bases" so I don't know what you expect. The existence of non-combatant casualties doesn't make the strike illegal.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- jeffwask 2y ago
  This was no different than any other terror attack. The person pushing the button had no visibility into who was holding the device and who would be injured in the blast radius. These sorts of attacks have always been possible, and most counties have not chosen to go this route due to the trickledown effect on society at large if they lose confidence in the safety of things they use every day,
  - abigail95 2y ago
    I'm not at all worried that any of my electronics are about to explode. Same reason I'm not worried my wedding will be blown up by a drone strike - I don't let terrorist infiltrate my society. If my family gets blown up because my neighbor was storing a cruise missile in his living room - he's my enemy. Not the person that blew them up.
    - GoldenMonkey 2y ago
      This didn't happen only in living rooms... this was among the civilian and non-involved populace. It happened outside their homes, inside restaurants, inside malls. So, if someone sets off a bomb in a mall...to kill a terrorist... it's not a terrorist act? And do these people really have the POWER to not let terrorist infiltrate their society?
      - jeffwask 2y ago
        That's exactly it, it could have been sitting on a coffee table with kids playing around it. Terrorists bad, governments stooping down to the same level is also bad.
      - foogazi 2y ago
        > So, if someone sets off a bomb in a mall...to kill a terrorist... it's not a terrorist act? No, by definition a terrorist act is done to cause “terror” These were assassinations with collateral damage
    - fatbird 2y ago
      If the person blowing them up takes out the entire city block that happens to include my family, then the person blowing them up is also my enemy. Your family dies as collateral damage and your reaction is "enh, they did what was necessary"? What if your wedding is blown up by drone strike because of some analyst's mistake, or choice to err on the side of "probably terrorist"?
- golergka 2y ago
  This attack has nothing to do with terrorism. I've grown tired of seeing this claim again and again, and wrote everything up here if you're interested. https://github.com/golergka/golergka/blob/main/israeli-pager-attack.md https://github.com/golergka/golergka/blob/main/israeli-pager...
aaron695 2y ago
[dead]
owl777 2y ago
It seems to me like the most targeted attack against terrorist organization.
abigail95 2y ago
If it's impossible to detect you could use these to bomb planes, or anything else. An undetectable explosive capable of killing and wounding a crowd of people with no reagent, just a trigger? Doesn't pass the smell test. To further my knowledge - did Hamas coordinate with Hezbollah for Oct 7? Or did they start launching rockets out of solidarity and general support? How many rockets = 1 pager? Is Israels response proportional? Maybe half the number of pagers should have exploded?
- vorpalhex 2y ago
  Hezbollah has fired 20,000 rockets since 2000. They started firing rockets in the 1980s. Hezbollah's stated aim in their 1985 charter is the Destruction of Israel and to help the Ayatollah of Iran create a Muslim Caliphate and kill the non-Muslims. So yes, killing them seems appropriate. If you don't want your electronics exploding, don't attack the Jews.
  - marcosdumay 2y ago
    The population there has been the victims of genocides for the sake of freeing area for Israel since more than half a century before Israel was even created. At some point somebody will have to deescalate, but Israel has had the upper hand for half a century by now, and never did anything but attack. It's really hard to complain about the underdogs attacking too.
    - golergka 2y ago
      > The population there has been the victims of genocides for the sake of freeing area for Israel since more than half a century before Israel was even created. Were the massacres of native jewish populations also done for the sake of freeing area for Israel? UPDATE: Since I cannot post new comments, I'll reply here. > But as a point in fact group you are referring to, being by and large composed of descendants of recent migrations from other regions (with no direct ancestry in Palestine for 1000+ years) -- is better described as "long-term resident" rather than "native". This is false. I'm talking about Jewish communities which have continuously lived in the region for 2 thousand years, like community in Hebron. They were much more numerous just a few hundred years before. For example, back in 17th century, about half of the population of Gaza was Jewish. You can take a guess about what happened to that half. Statements like "Jews didn't live in Palestine for 2 thousand years", just as "Jews came from Europe" are false narratives distributed for propaganda purposes.
teroshan 2y ago
Also see bunnie's recent blog post about how such an attack is not only not particularly sophisticated, but surprisingly affordable to do [1], which is scary considering how hard it is to detect (discussion here [2]) [1]: https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/2024/turning-everyday-gadgets-into-bombs-is-a-bad-idea/ https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/2024/turning-everyday-gad... [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41594774 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41594774
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
tzs 2y ago
If the explosives are inside the battery how were they actually triggered? Some reports suggest they were triggered by a message sent to the pagers over the pager network. But batteries generally are only connected to the power and ground lines of the device they are powering. If the pager firmware was modified to watch for receiving a special trigger how would the firmware communicate that to the explosives inside the battery? It would seem there would have to be some extra connection from the mainboard to the battery. I suppose there could be wireless communication between the mainboard and something inside the battery. I doubt a pager would feature Bluetooth, since you generally don't need headphones with a pager, but often devices use chipsets that include capabilities the device doesn't use. E.g., you might use an ESP32 module to give your device WiFi capabilities and completely ignore that ESP32 also can do Bluetooth. If the chipset has Bluetooth or some other radio communication support not used by the pager firmware, the bomb maker could have put a receiver for that in the battery with the explosive and hacked the firmware to use that. Actually, now that I think about it, maybe a firmware hack could communicate to something inside the battery over the power connection. There are probably things the firmware can do that affects power use, like changing the display brightness. It could do something like rapidly switch between maximum and minimum brightness in a particular pattern. A trigger inside the battery could watch power use and look for fluctuations that match that pattern.
- molticrystal 2y ago
  For safety, rapid charging, or other reasons, some batteries include a thermal probe and a contact for that. So it wouldn't be hard for the replacement batteries to have yet another contact and this one wired to a part of the circuit board perhaps intended to be used only for testing during manufacturing but going hot thanks to modded firmware that matches a certain phone number or something. It only takes a few bytes of extra instructions to match a string and set a pin high/low on a micro-controller. Alternatively using a microcontroller inside that battery that is signaled through existing contacts would take even less wiring. The signaling code to activate the microcontroller would be a bit more complex, but since you don't care what happens afterwards you can still keep it small.
  - 2y ago
TMWNN 2y ago
A joke I saw: "Why did the Iranian ambassador have a Hezbollah pager?" "Because he left the Hamas pager at home."

45 points by vFunct 2y ago

> “These attacks represent a new development in warfare, where communication tools become weapons, simultaneously exploding across marketplaces, on street corners, and in homes as daily life unfolds,” UN human rights chief Volker Türk told the Security Council last Friday. “Authorities have reportedly dismantled unexploded devices in universities, banks, and hospitals.” Calling it just "warfare" greatly detracts from the terrorist nature of this scandal.

rajup 2y ago
Oh it's not terrorism if it's done by a US-backed vassal state. /s
- hudon 2y ago
  [flagged]
- Tagbert 2y ago
  This would be a lot easier if Israel really was a vassal. Then we could decree that they halt the offensive and settle with the Palestinians. As it is, this ally has their own goals which don’t always align with the goals of the US.
  - GoldenMonkey 2y ago
    It's more like the US is a vassal of Israel. Obviously, we bend over backwards for Israel
hypeatei 2y ago
That and the inherent risk of fucking with a supply chain. I saw a lot of people covering for Mossad saying they were sure it was going to Hezbollah so it's all fine. I guess people trust and simp for intelligence agencies now or maybe there was a lot of operatives in that thread... who knows.
- asynchronous 2y ago
  To be fair, the supply chain angle was probably the main point of the attack- it’s a psychological flex in the highest order, you can’t even trust your equipment anymore.
  - giraffe_lady 2y ago
    I wonder if we should come up with a term for an attack whose goal is to sow fear and distrust rather than accomplish a concrete military objective.
  - Izkata 2y ago
    That's pretty much certain: First the pagers, then after they have a chance to switch devices the walkie talkies were detonated the same way.
  - the_gorilla 2y ago
    That's generally what sets terrorism apart from "regular" crime. Of course, if you're a civilian anywhere near one of these pager-bombs when were triggered it's going to have the same effect.
  - praptak 2y ago
    The blast radius of trust is much larger though. If we don't have a reliable way of stopping similar attacks in the future then it's pretty bad for everyone, not only for Hezbollah.
xxpor 2y ago
Terrorism implies the targets are non-combatants, and that was intentional. That's not obvious here. Opening the door to supply chain attacks like this is a huge problem, but I'm not sure it was illegal under IHL.
- aprilthird2021 2y ago
  The targets included non-combatants intentionally. Was trying to hijack a plane and hit the Pentagon not a terrorist attack then since the Pentagon is full of military members?
  - dralley 2y ago
    >The targets included non-combatants intentionally. No, it didn't.
    - aprilthird2021 2y ago
      Answer my other question
      - dralley 2y ago
        It's not applicable. I don't feel any need to answer a complete non-sequitur.
    - GoldenMonkey 2y ago
      Sure it did. Setting off bombs in residential areas will always have non-combatant casualties. "Intent" mind reading or not. This is what happened and is a terrorist act.
      - dralley 2y ago
        Setting off bombs frequently results in non-combatant casualties no matter where it happens. Hezbollah has no "military bases" so I don't know what you expect. The existence of non-combatant casualties doesn't make the strike illegal.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
jeffwask 2y ago
This was no different than any other terror attack. The person pushing the button had no visibility into who was holding the device and who would be injured in the blast radius. These sorts of attacks have always been possible, and most counties have not chosen to go this route due to the trickledown effect on society at large if they lose confidence in the safety of things they use every day,
- abigail95 2y ago
  I'm not at all worried that any of my electronics are about to explode. Same reason I'm not worried my wedding will be blown up by a drone strike - I don't let terrorist infiltrate my society. If my family gets blown up because my neighbor was storing a cruise missile in his living room - he's my enemy. Not the person that blew them up.
  - GoldenMonkey 2y ago
    This didn't happen only in living rooms... this was among the civilian and non-involved populace. It happened outside their homes, inside restaurants, inside malls. So, if someone sets off a bomb in a mall...to kill a terrorist... it's not a terrorist act? And do these people really have the POWER to not let terrorist infiltrate their society?
    - jeffwask 2y ago
      That's exactly it, it could have been sitting on a coffee table with kids playing around it. Terrorists bad, governments stooping down to the same level is also bad.
    - foogazi 2y ago
      > So, if someone sets off a bomb in a mall...to kill a terrorist... it's not a terrorist act? No, by definition a terrorist act is done to cause “terror” These were assassinations with collateral damage
  - fatbird 2y ago
    If the person blowing them up takes out the entire city block that happens to include my family, then the person blowing them up is also my enemy. Your family dies as collateral damage and your reaction is "enh, they did what was necessary"? What if your wedding is blown up by drone strike because of some analyst's mistake, or choice to err on the side of "probably terrorist"?
golergka 2y ago
This attack has nothing to do with terrorism. I've grown tired of seeing this claim again and again, and wrote everything up here if you're interested. https://github.com/golergka/golergka/blob/main/israeli-pager-attack.md https://github.com/golergka/golergka/blob/main/israeli-pager...

aaron695 2y ago

[dead]

owl777 2y ago

It seems to me like the most targeted attack against terrorist organization.

abigail95 2y ago

If it's impossible to detect you could use these to bomb planes, or anything else. An undetectable explosive capable of killing and wounding a crowd of people with no reagent, just a trigger? Doesn't pass the smell test. To further my knowledge - did Hamas coordinate with Hezbollah for Oct 7? Or did they start launching rockets out of solidarity and general support? How many rockets = 1 pager? Is Israels response proportional? Maybe half the number of pagers should have exploded?

vorpalhex 2y ago
Hezbollah has fired 20,000 rockets since 2000. They started firing rockets in the 1980s. Hezbollah's stated aim in their 1985 charter is the Destruction of Israel and to help the Ayatollah of Iran create a Muslim Caliphate and kill the non-Muslims. So yes, killing them seems appropriate. If you don't want your electronics exploding, don't attack the Jews.
- marcosdumay 2y ago
  The population there has been the victims of genocides for the sake of freeing area for Israel since more than half a century before Israel was even created. At some point somebody will have to deescalate, but Israel has had the upper hand for half a century by now, and never did anything but attack. It's really hard to complain about the underdogs attacking too.
  - golergka 2y ago
    > The population there has been the victims of genocides for the sake of freeing area for Israel since more than half a century before Israel was even created. Were the massacres of native jewish populations also done for the sake of freeing area for Israel? UPDATE: Since I cannot post new comments, I'll reply here. > But as a point in fact group you are referring to, being by and large composed of descendants of recent migrations from other regions (with no direct ancestry in Palestine for 1000+ years) -- is better described as "long-term resident" rather than "native". This is false. I'm talking about Jewish communities which have continuously lived in the region for 2 thousand years, like community in Hebron. They were much more numerous just a few hundred years before. For example, back in 17th century, about half of the population of Gaza was Jewish. You can take a guess about what happened to that half. Statements like "Jews didn't live in Palestine for 2 thousand years", just as "Jews came from Europe" are false narratives distributed for propaganda purposes.

teroshan 2y ago

Also see bunnie's recent blog post about how such an attack is not only not particularly sophisticated, but surprisingly affordable to do [1], which is scary considering how hard it is to detect (discussion here [2]) [1]: https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/2024/turning-everyday-gadgets-into-bombs-is-a-bad-idea/ https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/2024/turning-everyday-gad... [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41594774 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41594774

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

tzs 2y ago

If the explosives are inside the battery how were they actually triggered? Some reports suggest they were triggered by a message sent to the pagers over the pager network. But batteries generally are only connected to the power and ground lines of the device they are powering. If the pager firmware was modified to watch for receiving a special trigger how would the firmware communicate that to the explosives inside the battery? It would seem there would have to be some extra connection from the mainboard to the battery. I suppose there could be wireless communication between the mainboard and something inside the battery. I doubt a pager would feature Bluetooth, since you generally don't need headphones with a pager, but often devices use chipsets that include capabilities the device doesn't use. E.g., you might use an ESP32 module to give your device WiFi capabilities and completely ignore that ESP32 also can do Bluetooth. If the chipset has Bluetooth or some other radio communication support not used by the pager firmware, the bomb maker could have put a receiver for that in the battery with the explosive and hacked the firmware to use that. Actually, now that I think about it, maybe a firmware hack could communicate to something inside the battery over the power connection. There are probably things the firmware can do that affects power use, like changing the display brightness. It could do something like rapidly switch between maximum and minimum brightness in a particular pattern. A trigger inside the battery could watch power use and look for fluctuations that match that pattern.

molticrystal 2y ago
For safety, rapid charging, or other reasons, some batteries include a thermal probe and a contact for that. So it wouldn't be hard for the replacement batteries to have yet another contact and this one wired to a part of the circuit board perhaps intended to be used only for testing during manufacturing but going hot thanks to modded firmware that matches a certain phone number or something. It only takes a few bytes of extra instructions to match a string and set a pin high/low on a micro-controller. Alternatively using a microcontroller inside that battery that is signaled through existing contacts would take even less wiring. The signaling code to activate the microcontroller would be a bit more complex, but since you don't care what happens afterwards you can still keep it small.
- 2y ago

TMWNN 2y ago

A joke I saw: "Why did the Iranian ambassador have a Hezbollah pager?" "Because he left the Hamas pager at home."