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From: piglet <erichpwagner@hotmail.com>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Subject: Re: Exploding pagers
Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2024 22:53:24 -0000 (UTC)
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
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john larkin <jl@650pot.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 17 Sep 2024 13:18:26 -0500, Crash Gordon <uucp@crashelex.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> Pagers, even with a cheap LiPo battery that fails, do not explode. 
>> Somebody built hundreds, maybe thousands, of intentionally booby-trapped 
>> pagers and then managed to distribute them to a large group of targeted 
>> individuals.
>> 
>> This absolutely screams "state actor" but all of the states that would 
>> be capable of pulling it off have disavowed any connection, as would be 
>> expected.
>> 
>> Posting is on-topic for s.e.d because these things had to be *designed*. 
>> Targets can be expected to cross security boundaries so these pagers 
>> had to look like normal pagers under X-ray, and had to not "smell" like 
>> explosives.  Putting aside, for sake of discussion, the horror of the 
>> device itself and the evil necessary to conceive and deploy it, one has 
>> to on some level, admire the skill required to manage it.
> 
> It's assumed that the Israelis booby-trapped the batch of pagers that
> were bought by Hezbollah. Fiendishly clever.
> 
> I'm surprised that anybody still makes or uses pagers.
> 
> 

I heard that Hezbollah had decreed cell phones were too easily compromised
so thought lower tech would be better. Presumably the explosive material
was somehow embedded within the battery assembly as that is the only
largish object inside suitable for concealment?


-- 
piglet