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From: Phil Hobbs <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Subject: Re: Exploding pagers
Date: Fri, 20 Sep 2024 17:10:45 -0000 (UTC)
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Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Sep 2024 23:51:38 +0200, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
> 
>> On 9/19/24 23:01, Cursitor Doom wrote:
>>> On Wed, 18 Sep 2024 06:37:13 GMT, Jan Panteltje wrote:
>>> 
>>>> On a sunny day (Tue, 17 Sep 2024 15:39:17 -0700) it happened john
>>>> larkin <jl@650pot.com> wrote in
>>>> <rv0kejddm69cioik17oeujstlfig16jn4o@4ax.com>:
>>>> 
>>>>> 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.
>>>> 
>>>> They used batteries filled with an explosive that would trigger when
>>>> temperature rised above some point They could heat your smartphone
>>>> battery by hacking or even some sucking website or email.
>>>> So be carefull what batteries you use, same for the equipment you
>>>> make. Simple heat up test in safety chamber would be a good idea?
>>> 
>>> Is there such an explosive? High explosives - as it appears were used
>>> here - generally need a significant *shock* to set them off. Heat alone
>>> isn't normally enough and even if it were, the temp required would have
>>> necessitated the rapid discarding of the pager before it got
>>> sufficiently hot.
>> 
>> There are high explosives that can be set off by a feather and others
>> that wouldn't go even when dropped down from a plane.
>> 
>> Jeroen Belleman
> 
> Yes, I know. But *name one* which could be used in a pager that explodes 
> from raising its temperature.
> 

Um…. This is an electronics design group.  Is it really that hard to
imagine how to make a temperature-triggered detonator?

Cheers 

Phil Hobbs