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From: john larkin <jl@650pot.com>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Subject: Re: Exploding pagers
Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2024 16:32:19 -0700
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On Tue, 17 Sep 2024 19:03:45 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

>On 9/17/2024 6:39 PM, john larkin 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.
>
>They probably got a few militants among the thousands of civilians 
>injured, only credulous Americans would believe there was any kind of 
>highly rigorous methodology as to how they were distributed.

I understand that Hezbollah bought the pagers for their own use for
secure communications, so Hezbollah people mostly got them.

Collateral damage is to some extent inevitable in war, but the
Israelis are not terrorists. Hamas and Hezbollah are.

>
>> I'm surprised that anybody still makes or uses pagers.
>
>Well, after it became widely believed that Israel was targeting 
>residents of Gaza based on smartphone data..

That makes sense. Most governments find bad guys that way.