Yeah they’re not short of them. Infiltrating a bunch of pagers and blowing them all up is plausible.
Israel - Iran and regional players | Please post respectfully and stay on topic
- Thread starter Raoul
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The other really interesting side of this operation -
All the corrupt Lebanese officials who were in direct communication and ties to Hezbollah are now being treated in hospital and have been fulled outed.
All the corrupt Lebanese officials who were in direct communication and ties to Hezbollah are now being treated in hospital and have been fulled outed.
Strange attack method with these pagers, first time I've heard of it being done on this scale.
That was the head of Iran's nuclear program. But yeah, that was crazy.
Edit: Just seen he had the rank of brigadier general as well.
It was a collaboration, but the dirty work of getting the code into place was likely all Mossad given how deeply they have infiltrated the Islamic Republic's security apparatus.
How? All at once? If they can do that, does that mean our phones are literal bombs the US and China could trigger at will? So many questions.
The ability to hit Hezbollah at such an unexpected vulnerability with such devastating precision and no regards to the inevitable collateral damage (to innocent Lebanese civilians) or international consequences (there don't seem to be any for Israel, though) is chilling and sinister.
Sir Mix-a-Lot has much to answer for.
I like how the western media is reporting it as if only Hezbollah members had those pagers and not innocent people from other professions. Framing it as counter terrorism and not an attack that they knew would harm innocent people as well.
I'm sure this will elicit a deep dive into all devices to see if this is possible, or if its simply a design flaw among the specific pagers Hezbollah used in terms of battery and/or network vulnerabilities to where the latter could leverage the former for an attack at scale.
Are they though? I'm reading AP which cites Middle Eastern media and they mention a killed girl.
Guardian's headline is "3000 people hurt....after Hezbollah pagers explode", as if only Hezbollah members had those pagers.
Media in my country is reporting several thousands injured with several kids being killed, with "only" a few hundred of them being mentioned as Hezbollah members.
The west has plenty of nastier attack avenues than this but has never had the geopolitical necessity to even consider using.
The amount of D0s the NSA has accumulated is insane.
There was a really nice cybersec blog which detailed how they discovered that an American security apparatus had infiltrated every single iOS device in the world.
When they emailed apple they got a shrug as a response.
The amount of D0s the NSA has accumulated is insane.
There was a really nice cybersec blog which detailed how they discovered that an American security apparatus had infiltrated every single iOS device in the world.
When they emailed apple they got a shrug as a response.
Payment terminals is going to be a huge vulnerability because they’re all updated remotely from cloud based infrastructure.
Can see a lot of eyebrows being raised among the world's intelligence agencies. Not necessarily because they didn't know about such capabilities but the fact it's been used on such a scale and how this will be interpreted and that the wider world is now aware.
It really is scary how much power security services of the powerful countries have, I can't imagine being able to hide from them unless you literally go off the electronic map and hide in the forest.
I'm not surprised Israel's spies were able to accomplish this, they probably have moles infiltrated in every major security agency and can easily these things no other county can.
There's a decent early article about how it may have been co-ordinated. The update on the bottom of the article tends to suggest the supply chain being targeted rather than malware heating the batteries until they explode.
Iran's ambassador also among the casualties.
I would gravitate more to the possibility of a firmware hack. Even so, there had to be some sort of networking component to the attack to have them all detonate simultaneously.
I still need an engineer to tell me if it's feasible to make a small electronic device instantly EXPLODE (not just gradually catch fire) remotely without:
A) Hardware specifically designed for this purpose
B) Actual explosives inside
I've seen plenty of videos of devices with lithium batteries catching fire, but nothing like these explosions.
A) Hardware specifically designed for this purpose
B) Actual explosives inside
I've seen plenty of videos of devices with lithium batteries catching fire, but nothing like these explosions.
There's reports saying the explosion doesn't suit a lithium battery, and was more like a small explosive, but it's all early information at the moment.
Nah, Mossad isn't that competent.
Even if Pound for Pound they're the most efficient, they lack the resources and the manpower and the budget that a huge organisation like the CIA/NSA have.
For context, the entire Israeli Intelligence apparatus has a budget of 2.8 billion USD.
The US intelligence apparatus, would be the third highest defense budget in the world on it's own. They spend upwards of 120 billion in discrentionary funding, plus all the non-disclosed funding.
https://crsreports.congress.gov/pro...ng for MIP.&text=program executive of the NIP.
Well, like you mentioned, loads of phones have exploded across the world previously, due to faulty batteries/bad design. But those are random, sporadic instances. What happened here is surely not possible without hardware being tweaked to achieve the purpose. You're right, lithium batteries get very hot just before they actually explode.
Israel must have so thoroughly compromised Hezbollahs communications that getting rid of its entire pager network was no great loss.
From a military intelligence point of view, it's quite the message to send. Hezbollah used the low tech pagers to avoid Israeli network monitoring and digital surveillance, and Israel (probably) just go and blow them all up simultaneously - and in such a way that no one is entirely sure how they did it.
As someone old enough to have worked with pagers, I don't get how they can blow up unless someone put something more explosive than the AA battery in them.
Did they somehow plant small materiels in these things in advance? That's crazy.
Also. Of course. What the fck are Israel doing?!
Did they somehow plant small materiels in these things in advance? That's crazy.
Also. Of course. What the fck are Israel doing?!
I read some statements from various experts.
I don't think that it's possible to make a regular device explode remotely, which suggests physical tampering before delivery. That leaves two main possibilities:
A) Actual explosives installed. Very easy to trigger and low tech. The main obstacle being lots of manual labour and secrecy.
B) More advanced hardware and/or software pre-installed that somehow causes the battery to explode when triggered. Honestly not that different from A in practice, but possibly less manual labour.
I don't think that it's possible to make a regular device explode remotely, which suggests physical tampering before delivery. That leaves two main possibilities:
A) Actual explosives installed. Very easy to trigger and low tech. The main obstacle being lots of manual labour and secrecy.
B) More advanced hardware and/or software pre-installed that somehow causes the battery to explode when triggered. Honestly not that different from A in practice, but possibly less manual labour.
But a former British Army munitions expert, who asked not to be named, told the BBC the pagers would have likely been packed with between 10g and 20g of military-grade high explosive, hidden inside a fake electronic component.
Once armed by a signal, called an alphanumeric text message, the next person to use the device would have triggered the explosive, the expert said.
Once armed by a signal, called an alphanumeric text message, the next person to use the device would have triggered the explosive, the expert said.
They supplied the things, surely that's obvious? You can't just tell a battery to explode with code... in a fricking pager. Those were explosives.
Whilst a lithium battery can explode in that sort of fashion, maybe not as powerfully as seen here for such a small device, I dunno. They'd mostly just catch fire however and even then it needs time to overheat and build up the pressure. These would have had to be be designed to explode, with an extra ingredient or two probably.
Whilst a lithium battery can explode in that sort of fashion, maybe not as powerfully as seen here for such a small device, I dunno. They'd mostly just catch fire however and even then it needs time to overheat and build up the pressure. These would have had to be be designed to explode, with an extra ingredient or two probably.
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If that is not a declaraution of war...
Scary stuff
I guess it would depend on the battery?
But yes, that seems overly convoluted when you already got your hands on the devices.
The terrorist state continues its terrorist attacks..