Pagers Explode Across Lebanon | Israel commences military strikes in Lebanon

I don't know what's inside pagers and I am also not an engineer of any sort but the smartphones many of us hold have lithium ion batteries. To my knowledge, those absolutely can explode. I don't know that there is a way you could use software to trigger it to explode but it's not outside the realm of possibility to me.
 
Rock said:
I don't know what's inside pagers and I am also not an engineer of any sort but the smartphones many of us hold have lithium ion batteries. To my knowledge, those absolutely can explode. I don't know that there is a way you could use software to trigger it to explode but it's not outside the realm of possibility to me.
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Lithium ion batteries in cell phones put out a lot of flames when they explode. The videos I've seen from Lebanon today suggest a more kinetic and less thermal type of energy. Almost like a firecracker rather than a firework, if that makes any sense.
 
With 2800 pagers, I would be absolutely shocked if all of the folks who had these pagers are Hezbollah.

It certainly leaves a lot of questions open about (A) were the pagers somehow tampered with to make them explosive or (B) did they figure out a way to make a normal pager explode?

Either way, that's a lot of pagers to set off.
 
Rock said:
I don't know what's inside pagers and I am also not an engineer of any sort but the smartphones many of us hold have lithium ion batteries. To my knowledge, those absolutely can explode. I don't know that there is a way you could use software to trigger it to explode but it's not outside the realm of possibility to me.
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If you put the pagers on a cycle where they just send messages non-stop, the system absolutely could explode.
 
superrific said:
That was my first instinct. But it's possible that they put something in some software. My guess is that the pagers have some sort of encryption bolted-on to the regular software. Get someone to insert a flash drive into a computer somewhere, take over the computer, and put a trojan horse in the encryption. This is basically how Stuxnet worked. It's a hardware hack in the sense that the system is air-gapped and so physical contact is required, but it works with a computer virus.

It's entirely possible that Israel and the CIA STILL have hooks inside Iranian agencies from Stuxnet. Or they've got other operatives in there. It's also possible that those operatives hooked up the machines to the internet to let the Israelis inside.

Also, Stuxnet was a Mossad/CIA joint. Could be the CIA was involved here as well, though the MO is more Israel. US isn't big into mass bombings.
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Wow, looking at the size/impact of the explosion from those videos makes it seem impossible to me to overheat a phone enough to explode like that. But you clearly have better insights than me on the topic. All I'm really going on is my imagination... which is apparently lacking. Or maybe I just don't want to believe somebody could do that to my cell phone...
 
I'm betting on a software exploit on stock pagers. Either overwhelm with messages, or use a buffer overflow in a single message to send in malicious code to fry the battery.
 
uncmba said:
From the NY TImes:

Hezbollah said wireless devices belonging to its members had exploded, and the health minister said more than 2,700 people had been injured. Hezbollah blamed Israel, but the Israeli military declined to comment.
Hundreds of pagers blew up at the same time across Lebanon on Tuesday in an apparently coordinated attack that killed eight people and injured more than 2,700, health officials said on Tuesday.

The attack came a day after Israeli leaders had warned that they were considering stepping up their military campaign against Hezbollah.

Hezbollah said that pagers belonging to its members had exploded and accused Israel of being behind the attack. The Israeli military declined to comment.

The wave of explosions left many people in Beirut in a state of confusion and shock. Witnesses reported seeing smoke coming from people’s pockets, followed by a small blasts that sounded like fireworks or gunshots. Amateur footage broadcast on Lebanese television showed chaotic scenes at hospitals, as wounded patients with mangled hands and burn injuries sought treatment. Sirens blared throughout the city as the day ended.

Lebanon’s health minister, Firass Abiad, said that at least eight people had been killed and more than 2,700 others injured, including 200 who were in critical condition. Dr. Abiad said many of the victims had injuries to their faces, particularly the eyes, as well as to their hands and stomachs. One of those killed was an 8-year-old girl, he said.

www.nytimes.com

Pagers Explode Across Lebanon in Attack on Hezbollah: Israel-Gaza War Live Updates

Hezbollah said wireless devices belonging to its members had exploded, and the health minister said more than 2,700 people had been injured. Hezbollah blamed Israel, but the Israeli military declined to comment.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
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8008135
 
mpaer said:
I kind of hope not
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Uh... history says otherwise. The US is estimated to have dropped 2.7 million tons of bombs on Cambodia alone (a country we have never been at war with). To put that in perspective we dropped just over 2 million tons in all of WWII (source).

TBH, my first instinct was to qualify it and say the US is not big into *secret* bombings, but then I remembered that the Cambodia bombings were all *secret* at the time, so that went out the window.

EDIT: And if you're properly horrified at that then, for the love of God (and this is one of those rare times when "for the love of God" gets used in it's literal sense) PLEASE STOP ELECTING REPUBLICANS!
 
2ManyBlueCups said:
Lithium ion batteries in cell phones put out a lot of flames when they explode. The videos I've seen from Lebanon today suggest a more kinetic and less thermal type of energy. Almost like a firecracker rather than a firework, if that makes any sense.
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Nah. The flames aren't from the lithium. They are from gases formed when the battery overheats.

So a cell phone battery has lots and lots of individual cells. If one cell overheats, it causes a chain reaction with the other cells, but the chain reaction isn't immediate. It's like row houses catching on fire -- it takes a bit of time for the fire to keep reaching each next house but they all burn. In any event, when the heat reaches a cell, it explodes, releasing flammable gas that ignites, and so forth. That's the fire that you see.

If there are few cells (because, say, the batteries are far lower tech and have many fewer demands placed on them), then it will burn out very quickly. You might not see a fire at all. Also, if these things are kept in pockets or inside fabrics, whatever fire that results could be immediately extinguished by the fabric and a lack of oxygen.
 
Ddseddse said:
Uh... history says otherwise. The US is estimated to have dropped 2.7 million tons of bombs on Cambodia alone (a country we have never been at war with). To put that in perspective we dropped just over 2 million tons in all of WWII (source).

TBH, my first instinct was to qualify it and say the US is not big into *secret* bombings, but then I remembered that the Cambodia bombings were all *secret* at the time, so that went out the window.
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Cambodia was a sleepy , pretty little jungle kingdom We just blew it the Fu%6 up
 
NCK9 said:
I'm betting on a software exploit on stock pagers. Either overwhelm with messages, or use a buffer overflow in a single message to send in malicious code to fry the battery.
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Maybe, but that would be incredibly reckless for Israel to do. Could hurt a lot of innocents that way, including Israelis. In fairness to you, they seem all out of fucks to give so who knows?

I think the software exploit would be embedded in encryption, which means it could very easily be an inside job within Iran if, as I suspect (but do not know), the encryption was customized.
 
Ddseddse said:
Uh... history says otherwise. The US is estimated to have dropped 2.7 million tons of bombs on Cambodia alone (a country we have never been at war with). To put that in perspective we dropped just over 2 million tons in all of WWII (source).

TBH, my first instinct was to qualify it and say the US is not big into *secret* bombings, but then I remembered that the Cambodia bombings were all *secret* at the time, so that went out the window.

EDIT: And if you're properly horrified at that then, for the love of God (and this is one of those rare times when "for the love of God" gets used in it's literal sense) PLEASE STOP ELECTING REPUBLICANS!
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Well, let me rephrase my observation.

1. Obviously the US military has dropped lots and lots of bombs on civilians. But that's the military, not the CIA -- and during an actual US war. Bombing Cambodia just isn't the same thing from a strategic perspective. First, it was secret because there wasn't a lot of surveillance equipment in or around Cambodia at the time. It wasn't hard to keep under wraps -- at least not compared to today. Second, it was in war. An unjust war, to be sure, but the fact that it was war localized the conflict. It wasn't as if random people in China or the Soviet Union had to be worried about suddenly being hit by a explosive device (except for the constant low-level fear of WWIII).

2. The CIA has done nasty deeds, but I can't imagine the CIA is cool with mass explosions in markets and such. Even if you go with a keys of power approach, and think of CIA decision makers as ruthless actors willing to kill if required, it doesn't make strategic sense. The CIA is supposed to be secret. Its job is not to spread fear or panic, as that undermines American interests. True, it has supported dictators who use fear and panic, but from a political/PR perspective, it's long been understood that the CIA propping up dictators isn't really the same as the dictators' own torture and terror. In part that's because the CIA only had limited control over the dictators it supported.

3. Cambodia was a long time ago. The American armed forces and intelligence community has learned lessons. As importantly, Cambodia was desperation. It didn't really start, I think, until after the war was looking dire for the U.S. I won't say it was a last gasp, but it was a product of the war effort going poorly.
 
superrific said:
If you put the pagers on a cycle where they just send messages non-stop, the system absolutely could explode.
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I'm not saying you're wrong, more trying to think through the process...what would make it explode rather than simply melt down?

When most electronics fail from overuse, they don't go boom, instead at least one component overheats (sometimes dramatically) and it just quits working. Heck, it may even catch fire. But it seems pretty rare to me that things literally explode.
 
SnoopRob said:
With 2800 pagers, I would be absolutely shocked if all of the folks who had these pagers are Hezbollah.
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My first thought was that I can’t imagine there was much precision in an attack like this. So Hezbollah are using pagers, but who else might be using pagers? That sounds funny to people who are used to upgrading to the latest iPhone as soon as it’s available… but Lebanon is a very different place.

Not to mention bystanders, babies being held or kids playing with dad’s pager, etc.

Israel has shown they DGAF as much as Hezbollah/Hamas DGAF. Their moral high ground is an imagined one and that’s becoming more and more clear to the western world.
 
duluoz said:
My first thought was that I can’t imagine there was much precision in an attack like this. So Hezbollah are using pagers, but who else might be using pagers? That sounds funny to people who are used to upgrading to the latest iPhone as soon as it’s available… but Lebanon is a very different place.

Not to mention bystanders, babies being held or kids playing with dad’s pager, etc.

Israel has shown they DGAF as much as Hezbollah/Hamas DGAF. Their moral high ground is an imagined one and that’s becoming more and more clear to the western world.
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There's incredible precision in an attack like this. Hezbollah uses pagers because they know that the IDF has compromised their cell phone communication systems. The pagers are used to send one-way messages to their fighters. The average Lebanese person doesn't have that problem and has no use for a pager, just like the average American no longer has use for one. Israel took out thousands of Hezbollah fighters in seconds with very little collateral damage. That's about as clean as warfare gets.
 
2ManyBlueCups said:
There's incredible precision in an attack like this. Hezbollah uses pagers because they know that the IDF has compromised their cell phone communication systems. The pagers are used to send one-way messages to their fighters. The average Lebanese person doesn't have that problem and has no use for a pager, just like the average American no longer has use for one. Israel took out thousands of Hezbollah fighters in seconds with very little collateral damage. That's about as clean as warfare gets.
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Took out? Sounds like it only killed a couple.
 
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