from Hacker News

Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

by shmatt on 9/18/24, 2:34 PM with 982 comments

  • by Arch485 on 9/18/24, 3:48 PM

    I'm genuinely curious: how is this not considered terrorism on Israel's part? (or is it considered terrorism?)

    From a tactical standpoint, this is very similar, and the only big difference I see is that this is technologically more advanced/more complex than just planting a bomb or something.

    If it's not terrorism, what is the differentiating factor(s)?

    *side note: I'm quite sure other western countries have used tactics that I would call terrorism as well. This isn't meant to be a callout or anti-anything post. I'm genuinely curious where the line is drawn.

  • by mrtksn on 9/18/24, 3:28 PM

    Ha, maybe this will be the turning point for international corporations becoming national-only? Or maybe make the big brands like Apple/Samsung the only trusted device manufacturers and completely wipe out the small ones?

    No iPhones exploded so far but I wouldn't be surprised if the paranoia takes over everywhere and local supply chains and local producers become a thing. "Foreign social media platforms" was already a concern but this is "foreign hardware is booby trapped as you can see". Another nail for the globalized world, united humanity, citizens of the world etc. If a big brand has a supply chain is infiltrated too, then its all over.

    Also, are those people blind? Don't they see that booby trapping large number of devices rhymes with poisoning the well? It wouldn't help with antisemitism but that's another discussion.

  • by steventhedev on 9/18/24, 2:53 PM

    Please note that this is distinct from yesterday's incident - these are for a different set of communication devices - from what I can see, they went off at 16:58 local time - notably 2 minutes prior to Nasrallah's planned speech on the first incident.

  • by ordinaryradical on 9/18/24, 6:19 PM

    There’s a “live by the sword, die by the sword” reaction that I have to this.

    I think we expect better of democracies, which is why these kinds of attacks shock us. But it is interesting that we are unsurprised when Lebanon/Hezbollah uses terror tactics but it quickly becomes a news event when Israel responds in kind.

    Ironic because drone bombings like we did in Afghanistan would probably have a much more terrible collateral damage effect but be less newsworthy. But somehow boobytrapping radios and pagers pricks our conscience. Maybe because it feels more personal, intimate, and therefore retributive?

  • by rdtsc on 9/18/24, 3:39 PM

    The only way we'd find out how they did it is if some pagers didn't explode and at least one would get into the hands of someone willing to do a public tear-down.

    In this video, we'll be cutting the explosive battery. Hit the like and subscribe buttons, and let us know what kind of explosive you think this is in the comments. Also, don't try this at home kids, we're what you'd call "professionals".

  • by janmo on 9/18/24, 3:33 PM

    If the mossad was able to plant explosives without being caught, I wouldn't be surprised if they also planted bugs (indiscriminately) in many electronic devices delivered to Lebanon such as TVs, computers, phones etc...

    Similar to the spy chips implants within the Supermicro server motherboards.

  • by Qem on 9/18/24, 3:08 PM

    The original pager attack was triggered in the anniversary of World War II hero Folke Bernadotte assassination by Zionists, on September 17. See https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-...

    I wonder if this was meaningful choice, or just a coincidence.

  • by knlam on 9/18/24, 3:36 PM

    In the other thread, HN said Israel can only pull this trick only once and they just did it the second time

  • by kotaKat on 9/18/24, 3:18 PM

    At this point someone needs to run an SDR and start capturing as much RF spectrum as possible, especially on any communications device that has a 'selective calling' feature.

    The pagers could have been set off with a page sent to a 'group' capcode in a hidden slot with a unique beep pattern that a little tiny MCU picked up and set off the detonator.

    Radios -- same thing. Possibly a group calling feature of a signalling system was used with a "secret" group hidden away in the radio programming?

  • by IG_Semmelweiss on 9/18/24, 10:10 PM

    For the first time ever since the beginning of conflict (pre-Hezbollah in fact) , native lebanese had been talking opening about partitioning the country into 2, and letting the Hezbollah group have their own fiefdom. This is because Hezbollah is a defacto government in the south.

    This was before these surprise IDF attacks - i wonder how the conversation evolves.

  • by datameta on 9/18/24, 2:57 PM

    If it walks like terrorism, and quacks like terrorism...

    I struggle to understand how they're imagining they're obviating the optics of this, unless they don't care what the dissenting population in Israel thinks (or the world for that matter) until "it is done".

  • by gherard5555 on 9/18/24, 2:50 PM

    If i understood correctly they were rigged with explosive. There is no way that a regular battery would explode like this right ?

  • by ineedasername on 9/18/24, 3:36 PM

    I'd be eyeballing for anything that could still function with a couple cm^3 carved out & filled with HE. Next come the potatoes.

  • by themingus on 9/18/24, 3:32 PM

    I'll be curious about what details emerge concerning connections between the hand-held radios and the pagers. Any overlap in the manufacturers? Were the radios new/recently replaced like the pagers? How was the explosive triggered?

  • by vksixyb on 9/18/24, 3:14 PM

    These sorts of attacks are going to hurt a lot of innocent people. How do they control the munitions and ensure they limit civilian casualties? (I suspect they do not.)

    It also seems to be lionized in the media as something "impressive" and not "contemptible". I'm not saying it cannot be both! It could be contemptible and impressive, but the media seems comfortable just being impressed.

    If North Korea or Iran or Russia pulled this off against another military, would we all still be here discussing only the technical parts of the attack? I suspect not. Maybe I'm wrong, but I suspect there'd be a lot more condemnation.

  • by elpepo on 9/18/24, 4:32 PM

    Does anyone know, assuming this was a radio-triggered signal to detonate the booby trap, what range the originating signal or radio station could have?

    I'm curious if this type of remote activation could be achieved with just a single radio tower, or if it would require a network of geographically distributed radio towers to transmit the signal to the affected area. How would isolation conditions, like being inside a building or in a garage, affect it? Also, what kind of radio towers would be needed? Could it be disguised as a regular HAM radio antenna on a building?

  • by anonu on 9/18/24, 2:44 PM

    You would think all devices would be checked ASAP after yesterday's incident.

  • by daemonologist on 9/18/24, 4:46 PM

    Interesting that they chose to carry out this attack in two waves - presumably the thinking was that Hezbollah would assume only the pagers were compromised (single source/shipment) and thus increase their use of other communication devices. I suspect some did the opposite as well though (stopped carrying/using any devices).

  • by madcadmium on 9/18/24, 6:36 PM

    I wonder how many of their telecom devices like routers, switches, etc. have bombs implanted in their power supplies

  • by mmastrac on 9/18/24, 3:34 PM

    I guess they are taking a victory lap around yesterday's major embarrassment. I never thought that you could dismantle a terrorist organization so surgically by just booby-trapping comms devices.

    This will certainly be made into a blockbuster movie in ten years.

    I'll re-iterate my previous comment on this matter: this is an impressive supply-chain hack with absolutely oversized results, and you gotta hand it to them for pulling it off.

    I think this will go down as being significantly more impressive than Stuxnet.

  • by clueless on 9/18/24, 3:20 PM

    so how does one verify that the battery in their iphone doesn't contain explosives?

  • by obnauticus on 9/18/24, 3:42 PM

  • by salex89 on 9/18/24, 3:30 PM

    It's probably much more interesting to see what else is happening while everyone is paying attention on communication devices and tending wounded.

  • by lr1970 on 9/19/24, 11:21 AM

    Several thousands of "modified" portable communication devices were distributed in Lebanon about half a year ago. I am curios how many of those explosive gadgets the unsuspecting owners were bringing to the airplanes through airport security without explosives being detected? Another proof that the airport security is a theater (at least in the Middle East).

  • by csense on 9/18/24, 5:38 PM

    Is this making anyone else really nervous about how much of our tech comes from China?

    I'm thinking a scenario like this:

    - China makes a rule that all cellphones leaving the country must go through an "inspection facility" (where the explosive hardware and the backdoor trigger chip will be installed)

    - A year after the next big iPhone release, China sends a huge convoy of warships and troop transports toward Taiwan, telegraphing a major assault

    - The US says "Stop!"

    - China presses a button and a few thousand iPhones blow up in the US

    - China says "That is just a small taste of our capability, we just pressed the small red button. If you tell us to un-hand Taiwan again, we'll press the big red button and un-hand a few million of your citizens"

    Now that this kind of attack is frontpage news, every country in the world is by now aware it's possible -- and it appears to be super effective. So it seems entirely reasonable that some countries will start planning to do the same sort of attack against their enemies.

    What I'm saying is, now that everyone's become aware this sort of thing is possible and effective, China might realize it has the means, opportunity, and possibly motive to attack the US this way on a large scale.

    As I'd very much prefer not to be maimed or killed by my electronics, I hope the US government is actively looking into effective defenses against China or anyone who would try this sort of attack on US soil.

  • by tamimio on 9/18/24, 3:33 PM

    Probably after the pagers yesterday, these Icom walkie-talkies were going to be discovered soon, leading to this subsequent trigger. Regardless, this is probably the first big worldwide event to bring the spotlight on supply chain attacks, and finally when we -nerds- talk about the possibility of bugging devices before delivering them or worse, detonating them remotely, it isn’t some sci-fi or conspiracy theory anymore.

  • by legitster on 9/18/24, 4:05 PM

    It's interesting that both targets have been against non-cellular forms of communication.

    I suspect for Israel they have advanced ways of intercepting text and calls and (probably) even MITM encrypted communications over cellular networks. And this could just as easily be about seeding fear about using anything besides a cell phone.

  • by themingus on 9/18/24, 3:35 PM

    I'll be curious about what details emerge concerning connections between the hand-held radios and the pagers. Any overlap in the manufacturers? Were the radios new/recently replaced like the pagers? How was the explosive triggered?

  • by lxchase on 9/18/24, 3:26 PM

    Anyone know how these devices may have been triggered that would be different from pagers? I imagine these radios would have to be modified to listen to multiple channels in case a radio was on a different channel than planned.

  • by stevenalowe on 9/18/24, 7:22 PM

    I have questions:

    - why not a larger charge intended to kill/destroy? restraint? or some technical limitation?

    - why now, and twice? seems like a one-shot tactic, so what happened to make now seem like the right time?

  • by guytv on 9/18/24, 3:45 PM

    while blowing up a one-way comm device might make sense to intel agencies and countries, I am curious about the decision to blow up hand-helds instead of listening in on them undetected.

  • by elfbargpt on 9/18/24, 3:43 PM

    I imagine there has to be hundreds of unexploded devices in Lebanon. I would expect to see some of those surface over the next few weeks, or someone get stopped at an airport with one

  • by hnpolicestate on 9/18/24, 2:53 PM

    Remember the "end of history"? How times have changed.

  • by negativeonehalf on 9/18/24, 10:04 PM

    'U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. called for a "full accounting" of the attacks to Congress to determine "whether any US assistance went into the development or deployment of this technology."'

    Are there any public records indicating the CIA is capable of pulling off something like this?

    I wish the US had been involved, but I seriously doubt it, if only because the opsec requirements are so high. If anyone in Hezbollah had even a whiff of concern that this could happen, the whole operation would have been a bust.

  • by mjiyed on 9/19/24, 11:26 AM

    Let’s put the question other way around If Hezbollah had chance to make similar trigers in Israeli reservists soldiers, and launched same exploding attacks on reservists israeli soldiers while not in homes and not engaged, knowingly all israely reservists are linked to IDF apps for in case call of duty

    Should a triger to explode 50000 mobile devices in these hands considered terrorism? In time of engaged war from israeli side!!

  • by madcadmium on 9/18/24, 6:37 PM

    I wonder how many of their telecom devices like routers, switches, etc. have bombs implanted in their power supplies

  • by Log_out_ on 9/18/24, 6:28 PM

    "The hand that giveth taketh.." feelings. Planing atracks on the fab on a laptop whose core was made in that fab, should make one aware og consequences.

    Hezbollah and iran do not seem to have somebody sampling hardware ordered for defects and alterations. Basic military and state ability . You couldn't do such attacks on functional organisations.

  • by fortran77 on 9/18/24, 3:33 PM

    I've seen photos posted on X and Telegram (of course I can't verify) of what look like Baofeng and Icom UHF hand-helds that have detonated. Not sure how they can get them to all blow up in unison--these aren't devices that can receive a digital message--as they apparently did at a funeral today.

  • by OutOfHere on 9/18/24, 7:04 PM

    War and terrorism aside, for the rest of us, in practical terms, Israel can now never be trusted commercially for its software or hardware. Not only are they backdoored and exploited, but they also blow up and kill the user.

  • by Jordanpomeroy on 9/18/24, 3:02 PM

    I have to admit that, as a hack, the amount of planning, technical integration, and apparently flawless execution must have required an awesome amount of effort by very intelligent people.

    As a human being though, this is revolting. A new avenue of mass destruction. I sure hope I am never around someone a Mossad-like organization wants to kill.

  • by tptacek on 9/18/24, 2:52 PM

    Saying this "further heightened tensions" between Israel and Hezbollah is like saying Jason "further heightened tensions" with the campers at Camp Crystal Lake.

    Can you imagine what must be like to be a rank-and-file Hezbollah soldier at this point? What the fuck is going to happen tomorrow? I'd throw away my socks.

  • by GenerocUsername on 9/18/24, 4:52 PM

    GTA V did it first

  • by skc on 9/18/24, 3:47 PM

    Imagine the paranoia that must be flooding Hezbollah right now. You can't function without your electronics...but you can't trust them at all now.

    You don't even know how many or which of your gadgets have been compromised to spy on you and for how long.

    Massive, massive L.

  • by technics256 on 9/18/24, 2:53 PM

    A second day!

    I can't believe the full up and down owning of the communications supply chain.

    Makes Hezbollah look like a clown show.

  • by 1oooqooq on 9/18/24, 3:38 PM

    I guess we now know what intelligence org had the know how for supply chain attacks we we're thinking impossible a few years ago... Thank god they are our allies. :)

  • by JodieBenitez on 9/18/24, 3:40 PM

    Impressive... but any collateral victim ?

  • by paulnpace on 9/18/24, 3:17 PM

    I see a lot of comments here that seem to imply there is knowledge that victims were exclusively members of Hezbollah.

  • by econner on 9/18/24, 3:57 PM

    It makes me wonder how Israel can achieve something like this while simultaneously not being aware of the Oct 7 attacks.

  • by minkles on 9/18/24, 4:09 PM

    [flagged]

  • by icar on 9/18/24, 9:38 PM

    A US forum talking about people they pre-consider terrorists of a country they surely can't pin point in a map. What can go wrong...

  • by trallnag on 9/18/24, 3:34 PM

    Very impressive. A months long operation culminating in an early new year's eve celebration with a bunch of firecrackers. I guess it's time to go back to pigeons