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Other electronic devices (laptops, tablets, etc) are far less likely to contain anything like this, because Apple, Huawei, Dell etc manage their supply chains a
by diebeforei485 2y ago
Other electronic devices (laptops, tablets, etc) are far less likely to contain anything like this, because Apple, Huawei, Dell etc manage their supply chains and don't just let anyone make products carrying their brand.
There are so many manufacturers of walkie-talkies and pagers, it's essentially a wild west. No one knows how many PETN-laced pagers were manufactured. The ones that exploded were the ones that happened to have certain phone numbers and were in range at the time.
It's unclear how many of those might have PETN, which is essentially undetectable. It doesn't give off any vapors, so sniffer dogs cannot detect it. 6 grams of it can blow the fuselage of the plane. It doesn't show up on X-Rays.
- eesmith 2y agoAhh, so we must have more e-waste because terrorism means we can't replace our batteries with anything not under the full control of Buy n Large.
- echoangle 2y ago> The ones that exploded were the ones that happened to have certain phone numbers and were in range at the time. Nitpick but the pagers don’t have phone numbers, right? As I understood it, they are using a completely separate network from the phone network and are waiting for a message starting with a specific code which identifies them. But I don’t think you could send an SMS to a pager for example, without some gateway in the middle.
- diebeforei485 2y agoYeah they have a pager number, not a phone number.
- philwelch 2y agoThis doesn’t match my understanding of the operation. The reporting I’ve seen said that Mossad became aware that Hezbollah was in the market for a large order of pagers and quickly set up a shell company to sell them the exact batch of compromised pagers that they subsequently detonated.
- diebeforei485 2y agoGood reporting would have sourced more pagers of this model and examined them to verify this, but regardless, how many copycats did this inspire? DB Cooper's antics led to several security procedures and aircraft modifications being implemented - not because of a single incident, but because it inspired other threats.
- philwelch 2y ago> Good reporting would have sourced more pagers of this model How exactly do you source more pagers from a now-defunct company that was a Mossad front formed specifically to sell a single order of explosives-laden pagers to Hezbollah?
- diebeforei485 2y agoWrong. BAC also sold pagers to ordinary clients.
- philwelch 2y agoIt’s funny how you say “wrong” and then fail to even contradict my claim.
- diebeforei485 2y agoI very specifically contradicted your claim. If you want sourcing, here is the New York Times[1] saying "B.A.C. did take on ordinary clients, for which it produced a range of ordinary pagers." 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/18/world/middleeast/israel-exploding-pagers-hezbollah.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/18/world/middleeast/israel-e...
- philwelch 2y agoMy claim was not that Hezbollah was BAC’s sole client; it was that BAC was a Mossad front formed for the sole purpose of selling tampered pagers to Hezbollah. That’s perfectly consistent with having other clients. Its not like Mossad was trying to make money in the pager business.
- n_ary 2y agoMy Thinkpad can be definitely modified to insert an explosive object and it is fairly innocent looking as no one knows whatever the device has in it. Of course the scanner will detect some mild traces of certain explosive chemicals if the inserted object is not correctly shielded.
- diebeforei485 2y agoAirport security knows what laptops look like under the scanner. Modifications will probably result in it being immediately flagged - increasing done automatically by the machines themselves. What is the likelihood that the manufacturer put explosives into your laptop? Very low, perhaps zero. Additionally, laptops have lots of other components - unlike pagers - that absorb some of the damage, so that can reduce the damage to things outside the laptop. There are also additional checks to laptops on international flights - they must turn on, for example. The purpose is to reduce the risk, not to eliminate it.