Pagers batteries blasts

[Original]

How did the Israelis pull off the concurrent blasting of the pagers batteries of (allegedly) Hezbollah members?
Schrödinger's cat scenario?

Ideas?

Source: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/hezbollah-official-israel-behind-coordinated-attack-pagers-lithium-batteries-apparently-exploded/

[Andy Chee]

I will assume much of the pager motherboard and display boards must remain intact, in order to have an ostensibly fully functional pager.

The vibrator motor can be removed and substituted with explosive.

60-80% of the battery mass could also probably be removed and substituted with explosive, battery longevity wasn't necessarily going to be a selling feature for this model of pager!

Finally, the plastic case itself may not be ordinary ABS plastic, and substituted with plastic impregnated with explosive.

(reminds me of the B-grade Stephen Segal movie "Under Siege 2", where he makeshifts an explosive triggered by a pager)

[xrunner]

They got into the supply chain before the pagers were sold to the country and modded them to explode upon receiving a certain code. But I don't know if innocent people bought any or if the lot of pagers were delivered to a certain group in the country.

[Bud]

Stop giving people ideas.

[globoy]

Stop giving people ideas.

Supply-chain attacks, at least as practiced by technologically sophisticated nation states, have been going on for a long time.  This is certainly going to elevate knowledge of that practice though.

I read that Hezbollah moved to pagers because they didn't trust cell phones.

No doubt there will be a lot of conversations about how groups can secure their communication in light of this.

It would definitely be interesting to learn more about what modifications were made to the pagers.  Hopefully that will come out somewhere.

[alank2]

My first question here is:

(1) Would this be possible to do with a regular device (assuming it has some sort of protection IC for the battery)

or is this a situation of:

(2) These pagers HAD to be tampered with ahead of time.

[Overspeed]

Stop giving people ideas.

Hello

Who still use pager in 2024 ? and that not a ''new mean'' check Jan 6 1996

Regards
OS

[DimitriP]

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

[Overspeed]

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

Hello
I share your opinion on this subject .

Regards
OS

[AVGresponding]

Why not? Should we ignore it, pretend it didn't happen? Whether it's a suitable subject for the forum is another matter; that's down to the mods/admin to determine.

[Original]

Could it be that the pagers were original, but the "Tadiran" battery was locally installed?

[Overspeed]

Why not? Should we ignore it, pretend it didn't happen? Whether it's a suitable subject for the forum is another matter; that's down to the mods/admin to determine.

Hello

I think that a bit of self control of the opened subjects is a good thing , for example I dont a speed control to respect speed limit .... a lot of electronic domains or devices can be diverted to do illegal things I don t see a valid reason to as we say in french : provide the rope to be hanged.

Regards
OS

[Xena E]

I don t see a valid reason to as we say in french : provide the rope to be hanged.

Regards
OS

Well said OS.

But, perhaps the moderators could comment if the topic is OK to discuss.

However, the story itself sounds far fetched, has it been confirmed, or is it some kind of propaganda being spread by the Biased news media ?

Regards,
X

[alank2]

I have a simple question, that the answer to, shouldn't put anyone in harms way.

Do we have an entire world full of devices that could go rogue like this at the first sign of malfunction, virus, or malware?

Or were these devices only able to do this because they were intentionally sabotaged by someone.

The first question is a very serious one because if that is a possibility, there are a lot larger implications than today's news that need to be known and prevented.

[Overspeed]

Hello

I have more interest for this kind of work , a real US genius scientist who have been forgotten

Donald Hornig and the X-Unit I link a picture of the system , the only one which have survived

I agree on moderator higher level assessment on this particular subject .

That will be great to open a ''historic and vintage electronic ''

Regards
OS

[David Hess]

How did the Israelis pull off the concurrent blasting of the pagers batteries of (allegedly) Hezbollah members?
Schrödinger's cat scenario?

They did not make the batteries explode, but this makes for a convenient piece of misdirection.

As suggested here by others, this had to be a supply chain attack where they replaced the pagers with ones that included explosives.  Israel apparently did something like this to assassinate Yahya Ayyash in 1996 and Samih Malabi in 2000 using cell phones.

[David Hess]

Who still use pager in 2024 ? and that not a ''new mean'' check Jan 6 1996

Pagers are still used, although I suspect most pagers operate off of the cell phone system now.  The reports indicate that they switched to using pagers because of concerns about cell phone security.

[David Hess]

I have more interest for this kind of work , a real US genius scientist who have been forgotten

Donald Hornig and the X-Unit I link a picture of the system , the only one which have survived

I originally wondered why Krytron switches had to be used.  If you investigate why a transmission line divider could not be used, then you will find the answer.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Hard to tell much without more info on the model etc. but the battery would be a good place to conceal explosives (and a smaller battery) due to its bulk and sealed nature, which could probably get it past a cursory x-ray and explosives sniffer.
If it weren't for the need to act on a specific number, you could do it all in the battery by detecting the current draw from the motor. Maybe trigger on specific relative or absolute timing of messages?

[helius]

Hard to tell much without more info on the model etc. but the battery would be a good place to conceal explosives (and a smaller battery) due to its bulk and sealed nature, which could probably get it past a cursory x-ray and explosives sniffer.

The key word is "cursory". The recipient(s) or their org did not think it was necessary to take the devices to pieces, or subject them to any kind of careful scanning. Of course, there may have been "inside men" as well to smooth any suspicions.

The battery idea would need some kind of MCU exploit to cause a heavy current draw. If you have control over the supply chain you could reprogram the MCU at the same time.

This kind of information is already out in the public domain, so discussion of it is not "giving anyone ideas." Most of the technology behind ICBMs is also public.

[linux-works]

my guess:

batteries were replaced with active batteries that watch the vcc line for a signature 'load'.

when the page comes in, something about the pattern is seen by the voltage sensor (or current sensor) and that wave similarity is what would trigger the explosive.

explosive is inside the battery and the battery just watches the load attached.

[Halcyon]

There is already an active discussion here: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/possible-to-trigger-at-battery-explosions-in-pagers/
Feel free to continue the discussion there.

Locking this one only because it has the hallmarks of a supply chain attack as opposed to dodgy technology. I suspect this topic will be discussed greatly as further developments are made public. We just don't need multiple simultaneous threads about the same thing.