Possible to trigger at battery explosions in pagers ?

[Bloch]

It wild all the pagers that exploded at the same time in Lebanon

Do you think it possible to trigger at battery explosions in the pagers.

Or was they made with that option ?

[daqq]

Either they were incredibly poorly designed, or well designed in a certain very specific way, or severely modified with some additional "features".

The consumer stuff we design has to be designed in such a way that no matter what you do to the software, you are physically unable to mess up the battery to such a degree.

[madires]

Context:
Dozens wounded after pagers detonate in Lebanon, security officials say (https://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/national/24590999.dozens-wounded-pagers-detonate-lebanon-security-officials-say/)

Presumably they (Hezbollah members) got the Mossad edition with an extra bang for the buck.

[tom66]

I suspect someone intercepted a delivery or broke into the room keeping the pagers on charge overnight and swapped them for new units with a bit of added C4.

There is no way to make an ordinary consumer pager explode without an external source.  I suppose you could get a Li-Po battery to get firey, but that is only likely to happen if the battery is charged with an external source beyond safe limits, not really possible to do that when contained within the pager itself.

[electronx]

Two years ago, I conducted a study on whether devices containing lipo batteries could start a controlled fire with charging units. However, I never published the study paper. It all comes down to smart digital  controlled  battery charging topologies.

It is definitely possible(start a fire).

However, you will not see a rapid explosion in lipo batteries. These are mostly gases such as lithium fluoride (LiF), carbon dioxide (CO2), and potentially toxic gases like hydrogen fluoride (HF). Generally, when batteries are produced, they are intended to be designed to release gas to the outside.These cannot explode directly. At first, you will see a gas that glows with fire. Considering that it is in a plastic part, there will most likely be no explosion. This may be possible in devices containing metal enclosure (if the gas is sufficiently compressed). if the enclosures are not designed to withstand pressurized water like flight recorders(These usually contain gasket type adhesives to prevent leakage.) (if it is a portable device outdoors), they will allow significant amounts of gas to escape.

Most user-friendly devices protect themselves from overheating.

However, the explosion in the videos looks very violent. I think a trace amount of explosives was placed inside the devices.5-10 psi with a 3 gram explosive is more than enough to kill someone. (10-15 grams fits easily into this device.)(This can certainly fit into small enclosures.)The lethal effect will be directly proportional to the area of ​​the body where the shrapnel hits.(groin and neck area.) For such a device carried in a pocket, when all explosions are considered, it can cause deaths of approximately 5% to 10%.
The evil thought here is the call message. As far as I can see in the video, there is a call message before the explosion and the aim here is to remove the device from the pocket. Thus, the effect percentage will increase.


 They could have been placed there to be destroyed remotely if the pagers fall into enemy hands or if the device is lost. (What would happen if it fell into the hands of children in terms of ethics) (ah ı forget ,war has no ethics)

If not, all that's left is the supplier network (modified pagers )(High probability)

[nctnico]

I've read the news as well and saw a video. My theory is that the pagers (which presumably used end-to-end encryption) are equiped with an explosive self-destruct mechanism to protect the encryption keys. I guess this somehow got hacked and they all got set to self-destruct. From the video it looks like a small explosive detonates. I don't see how this would be possible with batteries.

Kinda reminds me of the man who had put a shotgun booby-trap in his toilet. That went well until he had a spicy Chinese meal and felt so much urge that he forgot to disarm...

[DimitriP]

This doesn't sound like a good subject for public discussion.

The ones that have/know/can come up with answers  probably can't talk about it or should not , and the ones that don't know the answers, well, let their unsatisfied curiosity be sacrificed instead of "other "smart people" getting ideas.

My two cents;and if this thread got locked  (hint-hint),it wouldn't hurt my feelings at all whatsoever.







 

[bd139]

To any potential fuckwits coming up with all sorts of hypothetical bullshit, these were Apollo Gold AL-A25 which take 1x AA battery with about as much energy in it as a cat's fart. And they blew holes clean through tables.

These things clearly were modified with high explosive. There, thread finished.

[ataradov]

Why would not you discuss this? If the pagers were modified from their stock version, then there is really nothing to talk about apart from the possible supply chain issues.

If they were not modified and there is some way to blow up the consumer devices remotely, then public needs to know and the issue should be addressed. But realistic chances of that are 0.

[ebastler]

I would expect that the large majority of mobile communication users carry mobile phones today, not pagers -- also in Lebanon. But:

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah previously warned the group’s members not to carry mobile phones, saying that they could be used by Israel to track their movements and to carry out targeted strikes.

Attacking pagers (by modifying a batch of them somewhere along the supply chain) sounds like a way to target a certain group without even knowing who is a member. If one is willing to accept injuries of unfortunate non-members of the group who also use pagers for other reasons, that is.

[globoy]

It's not like this is the first time this has been done.  In 1995 Mossad arranged for a rigged cell phone to be delivered to Hamas' chief bomb maker and remotely detonated it to kill him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahya_Ayyash

A reuters article claims the pagers used in this recent attack were Taiwanese.  https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/what-we-know-so-far-about-deadly-pager-blasts-lebanon-2024-09-17/

There are videos and in the one I saw it definitely sounds like a small explosion (a loud pop).

[Sal Ammoniac]

If this thread got locked  (hint-hint),it wouldn't hurt my feelings at all whatsoever.

Why? "Security by obscurity" doesn't work. Never has.

[mikeselectricstuff]

I've read the news as well and saw a video. My theory is that the pagers (which presumably used end-to-end encryption) are equiped with an explosive self-destruct mechanism to protect the encryption keys.

Why would you go the the trouble of doing that when keys can easily be erased electronically? If you can trigger an explosive charge, you can fry a chip way more easily.

[helius]

The IFF (Identification, Friend or Foe) transponders used by the US Air Force and Navy were designed with self-destruct mechanisms to keep the coding secret. A number of thermite plugs installed in the unit were electrically triggered (manually, or by a crash sensor) and the heat generated would melt the coder into an undifferentiated mass of metal and glass. It should not need to be explained why you don't use high explosives to secure an electronic element.

That was 1950s technology; in the 1990s, tamper-resistant devices like the Mykotronix "Fortezza" were just special IC packages. If the gate implementation itself is the protected secret, this will be a means to destroy some part of the silicon. If all you care about is a secret key, you don't need to destroy anything, just erase the key (or stop a feedback chain that continually regenerates it, etc).

[nctnico]

I've read the news as well and saw a video. My theory is that the pagers (which presumably used end-to-end encryption) are equiped with an explosive self-destruct mechanism to protect the encryption keys.

Why would you go the the trouble of doing that when keys can easily be erased electronically? If you can trigger an explosive charge, you can fry a chip way more easily.

Probably because the person who decided / designed the self destruct method is an idiot? Frying a chip is easier indeed and there are other less violent substances which can render a chip useless compared to blowing the entire circuit to bits.

If some agency had access to the pagers, it would have made much more sense to include a GPS tracker compared to adding a bomb. With a GPS tracker the agency would have been able to secretly track enemy movements gaining intel on locations, cell members, weapon stashes, etc. IMHO that would gain a far greater tactical advantage compared to setting off a one-time event the enemy can recover from quickly.

[mikeselectricstuff]

If some agency had access to the pagers, it would have made much more sense to include a GPS tracker compared to adding a bomb. With a GPS tracker the agency would have been able to secretly track enemy movements gaining intel on locations, cell members, weapon stashes, etc. IMHO that would gain a far greater tactical advantage compared to setting off a one-time event the enemy can recover from quickly.

I doubt you could do useful GPS tracking, let alone reporting, on the power budget of a pager

[ajb]

If some agency had access to the pagers, it would have made much more sense to include a GPS tracker compared to adding a bomb. With a GPS tracker the agency would have been able to secretly track enemy movements gaining intel on locations, cell members, weapon stashes, etc. IMHO that would gain a far greater tactical advantage compared to setting off a one-time event the enemy can recover from quickly.

On the other hand, demonstrating that you can intercept an adversary's supply chain to covertly weaponize otherwise entirely innocuous mass-market goods, to then individually fuck up said adversary's personnel at a time of your choosing sends a pretty powerful message.  It's possible that intelligence was a secondary objective to that messaging, or vice versa, and they figured they already had enough of that before triggering the explosions -- or it's possible they're allowing the explosions themselves are sufficient to expose the targeted personnel.  Or even further into tinfoil hat territory, they may claim that the explosions tie people to the organization as cover for having already identified those individuals through other means they would prefer to keep secret. 

[MT]

I most videos on can hear the instant pop and the typical smoke that comes from a tiny explosive. The current story on the web goes that Hezzbolla some month ago ordered a batch of batteries which was intercepted by israeli intel who modified the battery to include C3-C4 explosives called quiscal 3 , kiskal 3, newer heard about that one before, and a tiny receiver chip that activated the explosion.
Military explosive experts say as tiny as 10 to 20 grams of modern high explosives is enough and conforms to what seen on videos.

[Shay]

It is not the battery, in my opinion.
I assume that the Mossad knew Hizbollah was ordering a batch of pagers from somewhere, intercepted the order, and placed some RDX or a similar explosive inside. They likely modified the pagers so that, once they received the correct signal via RF, a small resistor would heat up, burn, and trigger the explosion. Then, they sent the pagers to Hizbollah, who assumed it was just their typical order and began distributing them locally.

Another possibility is that Hizbollah bought special pagers equipped with a self-destruct feature, in case they fell into enemy hands.