~~Well this has horrifying broader implications.~~
Edit: They added explosives to the pagers.
this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2024
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Not really. These were almost certainly tiny shaped RDX charges. Pretty sure that stuff isn't in your everyday cellphone/smartphone. Israel must've identified and infiltrated the supply chain used by Hezbollah.
~~There are critical facilities that still make high use of pagers in the US.~~
Edit: They added explosives to the pagers.
They probably weren't putting shaped charges into the pagers at the factory
The explosive material was allegedly placed inside the pagers’ batteries and detonated by an external command that caused the batteries’ temperatures to overheat and trigger the explosion, the sources added.
Yeah, you're right. I read that article too quickly. Thought it said they just did something with malware to trigger the battery to explode.
Even if they did do that, afaik batteries can't fail like that, especially little ones in pagers. If anything they'd just burst into flames and people would get a few burns
I'm not sure i understand the value of this attack. If you've infiltrated supply lines enough to feed your opponents trapped devices, why make them bombs? Why not, you know, spy on them with them?
I can only assume they either:
a) have enough visibility into their org already or
b) value the potential damage over any future information advantage
But again these don't square to me. If A is true then why not use soldiers, drones, or smart bombs to target people since you've already located them? If B is true, why trigger the attack now? Did they kill any high value targets, does this disrupt operations at a critical moment?
I have to think it's pure terrorism. Make people distrustful of any devices, voluntarily complicating or crippling their own communication system in the belief it could be explosive. Still, I feel like having this deep of an infiltration is so much more valuable than anything detonating them could have accomplished.
It could be that the targets spend tons of time around civilians and they figured this might be a better way to attack them than using something like a drone, missile, or ICBM. And these pagers are pretty low tech as I understand it so I would be surprised if they had the technical capability to be used as spy devices.
To get them in those hands, that must mean there are thousands of unexploded pagers in circulation, right?
Regardless if there are they have to assume so. Which, I suspect, completely guts any communication/logistics systems they have using the pagers.
The uncertainty itself will be quite disruptive.