5 ms·

Emirates airline bans pagers and walkie-talkies after device attacks in Lebanon

36 points by teleforce 2y ago

woggy 2y ago
Curious if the explosives in the pagers would have been detected at airports. Also, imagine if one went off in a plane.
- DANmode 2y ago
  Gotta imagine if they wanted to detonate during a flight time they could have.
  - aymaneSennoussi 2y ago
    [flagged]
- killingtime74 2y ago
  I would have not much faith in that. They only randomly do the swab tests for explosive traces from what I've seen. Presumably the explosives were well hidden and might not even trigger these scanners. TSA is famous for not identifying the majority of weapons: https://abcnews.go.com/US/tsa-fails-tests-latest-undercover-operation-us-airports/story?id=51022188 https://abcnews.go.com/US/tsa-fails-tests-latest-undercover-...
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    The thing is, these explosives were meant to be hidden. I'm sure the swabbing and scanning would not work because Hezbollah would have access to the same tech. It's a bit different from other military uses that are more open.
- skybrian 2y ago
  > Hezbollah examined the pagers after they were delivered to Lebanon, starting in 2022, including by travelling through airports with them to ensure they would not trigger alarms, two additional sources told Reuters. [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/hezbollah-handed-out-pagers-hours-before-blasts-even-after-checks-2024-09-20/ https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/hezbollah-handed-o...
  - kmlx 2y ago
    i find this story very weird. hezbollah is a terrorist organisation. which airports allow terrorists to travel through them with pallets of electronic devices?
    - skybrian 2y ago
      I doubt that every member is on a list, and even if they are, there are fake ids. Maybe the airport in Beirut would be cooperative? And it also doesn’t say that they tested every device this way.
    - raincom 2y ago
      Hezbollah has 20,000 fighters, another 20,000 reservists. 97% of all shias, 35% of all sunnis, 25% of Christians in Lebanon support them for various reasons. Hezbollah is the king maker of Lebanon politics: whoever(esp politicians) goes against Hezbollah in Lebanon will get assassinated. How many of them are on watch lists? Maybe, 100 to 200. Even the people who are on watch lists travel secretly on middle eastern carriers by using aliases.
- seo-speedwagon 2y ago
  The explosive used was PETN which is very difficult to make and very difficult to detect. You pretty much need a spectroscope. Generally airports and ports are set up for detecting things like explosives you cooked up yourself or stolen mining equipment or whatever. Military grade explosives are expected to be chemically tagged because they’re for, y’know, legit military use and not terrorism. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Marking_of_Plastic_Explosives https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Marking_of... I can’t find anything on whether or not the PETN that Israel used was tagged. If not, it would be yet another layer of irresponsibility. Unexploded ordinance is very real, as the recent news about the WWII era bomb blowing a hole in that airport runway in Japan attests to.
Dalewyn 2y ago
The headline is sensationalist; Emirates is banning pagers and walkie talkies for all flights into and out of Dubai: >“All Passengers travelling on flights to, from or via Dubai are prohibited from transporting pagers and walkie talkies in checked or cabin baggage,” the airline wrote in a statement posted on its website Friday. If Dubai isn't on your itinerary this doesn't affect you, at least for now.
- justinclift 2y ago
  Isn't Dubai a major international stop over for long haul flights?
  - bruce511 2y ago
    Yes. The middle east is geographically well located for intercontinental traffic. So Emirates (and Qatar) serve has big hubs for long-distance travel. Dubai Airport is large, and runs 24x7. I've had a couple long layovers there (in the airside hotel) and its amazing to see the never-ending, round the clock, activity in the terminal. Indeed the shops etc in the terminal cannot be closed - there are literally no doors on them. Equally reporting flight boards are amazing. There are flights from everywhere to everywhere.
    - AStonesThrow 2y ago
      It must be a remarkable boon to their economy, with a captive audience streaming through in high volume and probably willing to drop a few denarii on food and accommodations. Almost preferable to actual tourism.
- bluepizza 2y ago
  Emirates only flies through Dubai. They don't have any flights that don't go to or depart from Dubai.
  - nl 2y ago
    This isn't true. I've flown MEL->SIN. They also fly SYD->SIN
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
jfoster 2y ago
What's the threat vector that they are trying to mitigate against? The attack already happened and the vector that the attack used seems to be applicable to any device with a battery. Are they worried about pagers that are affected but didn't go off in the original operation?
- mingus88 2y ago
  You must be new to airport security theater We all had to start taking off our shoes after the Richard Reid shoe bomber. Twenty plus years later we are still reacting to a terrifying attack with an ordinary object that didn’t even work. And we are still bottlenecking hundreds of people in a crowd BEFORE the checkpoint and it won’t be until someone attacks there will we ever actually do anything about it It has never been about preventing anything. It was about the appearance of doing something.
  - tomohelix 2y ago
    Agree. It is simply idiotic how they conveniently gather hundreds of people in a crowded spot who are all pulling and tinkering with stuff from their backpacks. A bad actor can easily cause more deaths there than on a plane nowadays. Everytime I go through that charade, I roll my eye at everything they do since it is so obviously useless and unnecessary. The worst thing is, apparently, some people really believe in it.
  - bruce511 2y ago
    The US particularly is extreme in this regard. The TSA has become such a large employer that it's now unthinkable to scale it back. 9.11 was of course tragic, but that problem was solved by locking the cockpit door. And yes, no-one wants to be on a plane with an explosive device, but those are really rare. Not least because that same device is easier to use, with more effective results, in pretty much anywhere else. And after all that money spent, it's unclear that the TSA would actually prevent any serious attack. Outside the US things tend to be a lot more relaxed. (So much so that special checkpoints are arranged for flights to and from the US to conform to US requirements.)
kylehotchkiss 2y ago
My favorite other emirates banned item is “attaché cases”. Never could figure out why. Please satisfy my curiosity.
- rlt 2y ago
  They watched too many spy/thriller movies?
- diebeforei485 2y ago
  It's on the IATA dangerous goods list, with pretty much the same wording: https://www.iata.org/contentassets/6fea26dd84d24b26a7a1fd5788561d6e/dgr-62-en-2.3a.pdf https://www.iata.org/contentassets/6fea26dd84d24b26a7a1fd578... Attaché cases Security-type attaché cases, cash boxes, cash bags, etc. incorporating dangerous goods, such as lithium batteries and/or pyrotechnic material, except when authorized by the airline, are totally forbidden. https://www.emirates.com/english/before-you-fly/travel/dangerous-goods-policy/ https://www.emirates.com/english/before-you-fly/travel/dange... For what it's worth the FAA doesn't like these either: https://www.faa.gov/hazmat/packsafe/security-type-equipment https://www.faa.gov/hazmat/packsafe/security-type-equipment
- wkat4242 2y ago
  What's so special about an attaché case? It's just one of those leather briefcases with two latches, right?
  - compsciphd 2y ago
    a normal leather "attache cache" is fine. the regulation says "Security-type attaché cases, cash boxes, cash bags, etc. incorporating dangerous goods, such as lithium batteries and/or pyrotechnic material, except as provided in 2.3.2.6 are totally forbidden. See entry in 4.2–List of Dangerous Goods." i.e. not a normal leather attache case.
    - wkat4242 2y ago
      Ah ok, I wonder why they call it that then. I still don't know what a "security-type" is then. Is that one of those metal briefcases that criminals always pay each other with in the movies? Always full of dollar bills of course :) Cash boxes, I don't really see why they should be prohibited as long as the owner can open them for inspection. But anyway, it's not something I would bring anyway. And yeah the lithium is a long-standing problem of course.
aaron695 2y ago
[dead]
wkat4242 2y ago
This sucks. I regularly bring walkie talkies as I'm a ham radio operator. And it's a stupid rule because it was a supply chain attack that can be done with any type of electronic device. Having said that I would not be able to travel through Dubai anyway as I'm getting an "X" passport and they refuse those even for transfers.
- kylehotchkiss 2y ago
  Bringing a high powered radio through Dubai would have raised suspicions even before this. It’s not what they could consider an ordinary hobby and they may assume you have more nefarious motives (the context of that just being that it’s a tense region, I’ve had my garmin handhelds carefully analyzed before) Being able to openly listen to any frequency isn’t exactly a universal right.
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    It's not "high-powered" what I bring on planes. Just a regular walkie talkie (usually digital DMR) with up to 4 watts or so. There's even ones that look like a 2005's mobile phone, like this one: https://www.radiocommunicationsonline.com/products/motorola-sl400e/ https://www.radiocommunicationsonline.com/products/motorola-... I thought of getting one of these for airline travel because they'd raise less eyebrows but in practice it wasn't needed. Also, the regular models I use are much more convenient for ham use (having a promiscuous mode to listen in to all traffic even not addressed to my DMR ID, and huge database capacity for callsigns). A Garmin GPS also has this "military" look about it (due to its ruggedness of course), and some can also do satcom (with InReach functionality) which is pretty strictly banned in some countries like India. In the Middle East this is not a thing, and sat phones are actually a huge think (they even have their own sat network called Thuraya). Probably because of the large swathes of desert without any infrastructure. So I'd expect less eyebrows raised about the garmin there. But yeah like I said I am never going to end up in Dubai anyway.
- komali2 2y ago
  I hadn't heard of the X on the passport thing, that's super cool. I'm guessing it'll cause issues at borders all over even if it's not banned, just from confused border agents. Not to mention on airline websites...
rkho 2y ago
How many collective human lifetimes have been eliminated by security theater?

36 points by teleforce 2y ago

woggy 2y ago

Curious if the explosives in the pagers would have been detected at airports. Also, imagine if one went off in a plane.

DANmode 2y ago
Gotta imagine if they wanted to detonate during a flight time they could have.
- aymaneSennoussi 2y ago
  [flagged]
killingtime74 2y ago
I would have not much faith in that. They only randomly do the swab tests for explosive traces from what I've seen. Presumably the explosives were well hidden and might not even trigger these scanners. TSA is famous for not identifying the majority of weapons: https://abcnews.go.com/US/tsa-fails-tests-latest-undercover-operation-us-airports/story?id=51022188 https://abcnews.go.com/US/tsa-fails-tests-latest-undercover-...
- wkat4242 2y ago
  The thing is, these explosives were meant to be hidden. I'm sure the swabbing and scanning would not work because Hezbollah would have access to the same tech. It's a bit different from other military uses that are more open.
skybrian 2y ago
> Hezbollah examined the pagers after they were delivered to Lebanon, starting in 2022, including by travelling through airports with them to ensure they would not trigger alarms, two additional sources told Reuters. [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/hezbollah-handed-out-pagers-hours-before-blasts-even-after-checks-2024-09-20/ https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/hezbollah-handed-o...
- kmlx 2y ago
  i find this story very weird. hezbollah is a terrorist organisation. which airports allow terrorists to travel through them with pallets of electronic devices?
  - skybrian 2y ago
    I doubt that every member is on a list, and even if they are, there are fake ids. Maybe the airport in Beirut would be cooperative? And it also doesn’t say that they tested every device this way.
  - raincom 2y ago
    Hezbollah has 20,000 fighters, another 20,000 reservists. 97% of all shias, 35% of all sunnis, 25% of Christians in Lebanon support them for various reasons. Hezbollah is the king maker of Lebanon politics: whoever(esp politicians) goes against Hezbollah in Lebanon will get assassinated. How many of them are on watch lists? Maybe, 100 to 200. Even the people who are on watch lists travel secretly on middle eastern carriers by using aliases.
seo-speedwagon 2y ago
The explosive used was PETN which is very difficult to make and very difficult to detect. You pretty much need a spectroscope. Generally airports and ports are set up for detecting things like explosives you cooked up yourself or stolen mining equipment or whatever. Military grade explosives are expected to be chemically tagged because they’re for, y’know, legit military use and not terrorism. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Marking_of_Plastic_Explosives https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Marking_of... I can’t find anything on whether or not the PETN that Israel used was tagged. If not, it would be yet another layer of irresponsibility. Unexploded ordinance is very real, as the recent news about the WWII era bomb blowing a hole in that airport runway in Japan attests to.

Dalewyn 2y ago

The headline is sensationalist; Emirates is banning pagers and walkie talkies for all flights into and out of Dubai: >“All Passengers travelling on flights to, from or via Dubai are prohibited from transporting pagers and walkie talkies in checked or cabin baggage,” the airline wrote in a statement posted on its website Friday. If Dubai isn't on your itinerary this doesn't affect you, at least for now.

justinclift 2y ago
Isn't Dubai a major international stop over for long haul flights?
- bruce511 2y ago
  Yes. The middle east is geographically well located for intercontinental traffic. So Emirates (and Qatar) serve has big hubs for long-distance travel. Dubai Airport is large, and runs 24x7. I've had a couple long layovers there (in the airside hotel) and its amazing to see the never-ending, round the clock, activity in the terminal. Indeed the shops etc in the terminal cannot be closed - there are literally no doors on them. Equally reporting flight boards are amazing. There are flights from everywhere to everywhere.
  - AStonesThrow 2y ago
    It must be a remarkable boon to their economy, with a captive audience streaming through in high volume and probably willing to drop a few denarii on food and accommodations. Almost preferable to actual tourism.
bluepizza 2y ago
Emirates only flies through Dubai. They don't have any flights that don't go to or depart from Dubai.
- nl 2y ago
  This isn't true. I've flown MEL->SIN. They also fly SYD->SIN

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

jfoster 2y ago

What's the threat vector that they are trying to mitigate against? The attack already happened and the vector that the attack used seems to be applicable to any device with a battery. Are they worried about pagers that are affected but didn't go off in the original operation?

mingus88 2y ago
You must be new to airport security theater We all had to start taking off our shoes after the Richard Reid shoe bomber. Twenty plus years later we are still reacting to a terrifying attack with an ordinary object that didn’t even work. And we are still bottlenecking hundreds of people in a crowd BEFORE the checkpoint and it won’t be until someone attacks there will we ever actually do anything about it It has never been about preventing anything. It was about the appearance of doing something.
- tomohelix 2y ago
  Agree. It is simply idiotic how they conveniently gather hundreds of people in a crowded spot who are all pulling and tinkering with stuff from their backpacks. A bad actor can easily cause more deaths there than on a plane nowadays. Everytime I go through that charade, I roll my eye at everything they do since it is so obviously useless and unnecessary. The worst thing is, apparently, some people really believe in it.
- bruce511 2y ago
  The US particularly is extreme in this regard. The TSA has become such a large employer that it's now unthinkable to scale it back. 9.11 was of course tragic, but that problem was solved by locking the cockpit door. And yes, no-one wants to be on a plane with an explosive device, but those are really rare. Not least because that same device is easier to use, with more effective results, in pretty much anywhere else. And after all that money spent, it's unclear that the TSA would actually prevent any serious attack. Outside the US things tend to be a lot more relaxed. (So much so that special checkpoints are arranged for flights to and from the US to conform to US requirements.)

kylehotchkiss 2y ago

My favorite other emirates banned item is “attaché cases”. Never could figure out why. Please satisfy my curiosity.

rlt 2y ago
They watched too many spy/thriller movies?
diebeforei485 2y ago
It's on the IATA dangerous goods list, with pretty much the same wording: https://www.iata.org/contentassets/6fea26dd84d24b26a7a1fd5788561d6e/dgr-62-en-2.3a.pdf https://www.iata.org/contentassets/6fea26dd84d24b26a7a1fd578... Attaché cases Security-type attaché cases, cash boxes, cash bags, etc. incorporating dangerous goods, such as lithium batteries and/or pyrotechnic material, except when authorized by the airline, are totally forbidden. https://www.emirates.com/english/before-you-fly/travel/dangerous-goods-policy/ https://www.emirates.com/english/before-you-fly/travel/dange... For what it's worth the FAA doesn't like these either: https://www.faa.gov/hazmat/packsafe/security-type-equipment https://www.faa.gov/hazmat/packsafe/security-type-equipment
wkat4242 2y ago
What's so special about an attaché case? It's just one of those leather briefcases with two latches, right?
- compsciphd 2y ago
  a normal leather "attache cache" is fine. the regulation says "Security-type attaché cases, cash boxes, cash bags, etc. incorporating dangerous goods, such as lithium batteries and/or pyrotechnic material, except as provided in 2.3.2.6 are totally forbidden. See entry in 4.2–List of Dangerous Goods." i.e. not a normal leather attache case.
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    Ah ok, I wonder why they call it that then. I still don't know what a "security-type" is then. Is that one of those metal briefcases that criminals always pay each other with in the movies? Always full of dollar bills of course :) Cash boxes, I don't really see why they should be prohibited as long as the owner can open them for inspection. But anyway, it's not something I would bring anyway. And yeah the lithium is a long-standing problem of course.

aaron695 2y ago

[dead]

wkat4242 2y ago

This sucks. I regularly bring walkie talkies as I'm a ham radio operator. And it's a stupid rule because it was a supply chain attack that can be done with any type of electronic device. Having said that I would not be able to travel through Dubai anyway as I'm getting an "X" passport and they refuse those even for transfers.

kylehotchkiss 2y ago
Bringing a high powered radio through Dubai would have raised suspicions even before this. It’s not what they could consider an ordinary hobby and they may assume you have more nefarious motives (the context of that just being that it’s a tense region, I’ve had my garmin handhelds carefully analyzed before) Being able to openly listen to any frequency isn’t exactly a universal right.
- wkat4242 2y ago
  It's not "high-powered" what I bring on planes. Just a regular walkie talkie (usually digital DMR) with up to 4 watts or so. There's even ones that look like a 2005's mobile phone, like this one: https://www.radiocommunicationsonline.com/products/motorola-sl400e/ https://www.radiocommunicationsonline.com/products/motorola-... I thought of getting one of these for airline travel because they'd raise less eyebrows but in practice it wasn't needed. Also, the regular models I use are much more convenient for ham use (having a promiscuous mode to listen in to all traffic even not addressed to my DMR ID, and huge database capacity for callsigns). A Garmin GPS also has this "military" look about it (due to its ruggedness of course), and some can also do satcom (with InReach functionality) which is pretty strictly banned in some countries like India. In the Middle East this is not a thing, and sat phones are actually a huge think (they even have their own sat network called Thuraya). Probably because of the large swathes of desert without any infrastructure. So I'd expect less eyebrows raised about the garmin there. But yeah like I said I am never going to end up in Dubai anyway.
komali2 2y ago
I hadn't heard of the X on the passport thing, that's super cool. I'm guessing it'll cause issues at borders all over even if it's not banned, just from confused border agents. Not to mention on airline websites...

rkho 2y ago

How many collective human lifetimes have been eliminated by security theater?