War between Hamas and Israel

[Dave_LF]

It must have taken a ton of time and preparation to set that up, and they only get to pull the trigger on it once. Was it really worth it?

Hez will be afraid to use phones for a while, and maybe that will be helpful if there's another phase queued up.

[Frelga]

Do you seriously doubt that the Mossad was responsible for this?

How would I know? Mossad would probably imply that they did even if they didn't.

Equally, Hezbollah would say that a child was killed even if one wasn't.

I do seriously doubt that it went the way Hezbollah is spinning it. They initially said two fighters were killed, which is why I wondered if there was something else on them that exploded.

Edit, Reuters from July
How Hezbollah used pagers and couriers to counter Israel's high tech surveillance

The title was as linked when I went to the page, but I've seen a screenshot that removed the reference to pagers

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I agree with this assessment.

[Frelga]

I'm not sure how reliable NEXTA is, but I haven't seen them caught out yet.

More than 3,000 Hezbollah terrorists have been wounded in explosions of communication devices

Dozens have been killed and another 500 are dying, Lebanese media reported.

The devices that exploded were from a new shipment that Hezbollah received in recent days, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Haven't tried to look for WSJ article, but it seems more likely that someone sabotaged a shipment of pagers than that Mossad somehow made random devices explode.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

That someone being Mossad.

[Frelga]

If it is, then it's their most successful operating since Stuxnet.

20240917_112640.jpg (27.78 KiB) Viewed 458 times

[N.E. Brigand]

One observer notes that this operation has implications for, e.g., U.S. decisions about what Chinese equipment to allow into the country.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

According to CNN.

Israel behind Lebanon pager attack in joint Mossad-IDF operation

[River]

I heard on NPR that an unnamed US official confirmed that Israel is responsible for the pager explosions.

My husband got this joke off a friend of his (warning: very dark humor): Why did Hezbollah to buy those pagers? They were promised 72 iPhones later.

In all seriousness, if this were a work of fiction I'd roll my eyes. Since it's reality, I can only gawk and flinch. Clearly this pager manufacturer has a security problem if their product could be so compromised. I can only imagine what our security trainings are going to look like in years to come. Stuxnet is a case study in why you shouldn't just trust a random USB key. This...holy cats.

ETA: x-posted with Voronwë.

[Frelga]

In all seriousness, looking at what Israel is capable of, and what Ukraine is doing with drones, and hacker attacks, and robot dogs with flamethrowers, we need to drastically reconsider our defense strategy. We need to be prepared for both old-fashioned battlefield, and high tech warfare, because we can't assume that our enemies won't learn things that our allies already do.

PS I keep meaning to start a thread about how we already are at war with Russia, but it's depressing to think about.

[N.E. Brigand]

If it is, then it's their most successful operating since Stuxnet.

It does seem significant (as the cartoon you shared noted) that Iran's ambassador to Lebanon -- who lost one eye and was severely damaged in the other by this attack -- was in possession of a pager purchased by Hezbollah, which is a terrorist organization.

This is rather as if a prominent Republican had a pager purchased by, say, the KKK or the Proud Boys.

[Dave_LF]

One observer notes that this operation has implications for, e.g., U.S. decisions about what Chinese equipment to allow into the country.

I was thinking more along the lines of, where might Russian explosives be hidden, just waiting for some FSB agent to dial them up in early November?

But that's a paranoid thought. Making one remotely-detonated exploding pager? That's very possible. Making hundreds or thousands, and then getting them into the willing hands of hundreds of targets, all without anyone catching on? I would have said it couldn't be done. It probably couldn't be, again.

Also, why does Hezbollah use pagers? (I can probably guess, but it's still surprising)

[Dave_LF]

Wikipedia says that a New York Times article I can't read without subscribing says that Israel intercepted a shipment of pagers meant for Hezbollah and rigged them without anyone noticing. I suppose that's the way you'd have to do it (lucky they buy in bulk, I guess), but still about a million ways it could have failed.

Possible reasons given for detonating now include: to instill paranoia, in preparation for an offensive, and because there was likely only a narrow time window before someone noticed.

[Frelga]

Also, why does Hezbollah use pagers? (I can probably guess, but it's still surprising)

They stopped using cell phones at some point to avoid Israeli surveillance.

[RoseMorninStar]

Also, why does Hezbollah use pagers? (I can probably guess, but it's still surprising)

They are hard to track. They can last 85 days on a charge. They do not rely on cellular service but on radio waves. They are waterproof. Radio waves penetrate steel and concrete, where cell coverage or Wi-Fi may not.

[Frelga]

AP reports

The AR-924 pagers used in Tuesday’s attack were manufactured by BAC Consulting KFT, which is based in the Hungarian capital of Budapest, according to a statement released by Gold Apollo, a Taiwanese firm that authorized the use of its brand on the pagers.

Theres some opacity around this company, but I don't know if that's anything unusual.

[River]

Making hundreds or thousands, and then getting them into the willing hands of hundreds of targets, all without anyone catching on? I would have said it couldn't be done. It probably couldn't be, again.

Oh I'm pretty sure every logistics director, manager and lead everywhere is currently soiling their pants and re-evaluating their security measures. It doesn't matter that it was Mossad on a mission (though I'm not sure who else would have the chutzpah). Product tampering on this scale is the sum of all fears for anyone who manufactures, distributes, and ships goods. I wonder where the breakdown they exploited was. It was probably something so obvious everyone overlooks it. Kinda like how they got Stuxnet into the Iranian nuclear facility by dropping a USB key near a door...

[Dave_LF]

That's kinda what I meant; the vulnerability will presumably be found and patched now, making a repeat difficult. That's also why I was wondering earlier whether they really got enough benefit out of this for it to be worth spending their single shot... Probably they just saw a rare opportunity and it was now or never.

(apologies for the mixed metaphors)

[River]

Well, we'll see.

They kind of caused a public health crisis in Lebanon. And if they were as close to 100% certain as they could possibly get that these pagers were only going to go to Hezbollah members, they've marked thousands of them now. Including the Iranian ambassador. Which was interesting.

[Frelga]

I don't think there's a generic vulnerability. I think they somehow got into the company (or even started one) that was making pagers for Hezbollah and modified a specific shipment(s) of them with a bit of extra explosive. Lithium batteries can catch fire, but as far as I know, they don't blow off your limbs.


Jerusalem post:

"19 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) members were killed after their pagers had exploded in Deir ez-Zur in eastern Syria, Saudi news source Al-Hadath reported Wednesday afternoon. An additional 150 IRCG members were also wounded in the explosions"

They had a day to check and didn't.