I wonder how long they sat on this capability until the perfect day? These are old pagers!
https://youtube.com/shorts/qrLcU-pFEYM?si=UB_Bp1H-yYy23KqP
Mark from Serbu Arms. (A fairly well known gun maker.) Had some interesting hypothesis.
https://youtu.be/kASWorhoqpo?si=IOudoielDIC8m9eT
Quote from: Moab on September 18, 2024, 06:32:27 AMMark from Serbu Arms. (A fairly well known gun maker.) Had some interesting hypothesis.
https://youtu.be/kASWorhoqpo?si=IOudoielDIC8m9eT
Reuploaded
Because YouTube is gonna YouTube. :rolleyes1:
news i see says they planted explosives in from the factory. I was trying to think of how else they could make them explode, overcharging a lithium ion battery was the only other way I could think of but the devices would be in peoples homes plugged into chargers
Like I said in the other thread, remind me to never piss off the Israelis. :eek1:
My sources are saying two different things but I think both could be correct. One source says the pager company licensed their name to a company in Hungary. Speculation is that it was an Israeli-operated front. Source number two says the shipment was intercepted in Jordan and tampered with there.
Here's why I think both are correct:
The operation in Hungary was for the pagers, which would need a lot of work, too much to be done on a one or two-day intercept.
The intercept in Jordan was to swap battery packs on the radios that blew in the second phase. I saw pictures of several of the radios afterward and in every case, damage to the radio was minimal but the battery was destroyed.
Quote from: 12_Gauge_Chimp on September 18, 2024, 01:15:12 PMLike I said in the other thread, remind me to never piss off the Israelis. :eek1:
Quote from: Moab on September 17, 2024, 05:36:16 PMI wonder how long they sat on this capability until the perfect day? These are old pagers!
That bomb in Iran was there for months and they didn't even have a target, it was just a known VIP guesthouse.
The Mossad has been blowing up phones for decades. Home phones. Payphones. And pagers.
And NT2C is right the amount of tech to do this would take a while. Chances are they intercepted them between the manufacturer and users. Changed the tech and planted the explosives.
But image the intelligence network to have 5000 names and recipients of the pagers who are your enemy?! That's deep.
It's also a one time thing. Because your not gonna get away with it again. So genius to do 5000 of them at once. Crazy.
Imagine where you keep your page too? Front pocket? Right next to you're femural artery. Soft tissue. Way easier than a cellphone on your ear. And trying to blast someone's skull.
Whoever did it was genius. And very very patient.
Now it's two ways.
https://youtu.be/Sdng8IMmU-o?si=i9vkbTt0OpsYay48
https://youtube.com/shorts/XUGO4PvgEyY?si=MwqHJ0hv9AFyuVre
If I were Hezbollah, I'd be afraid to pick up a plastic spoon at this point.
Quote from: majorhavoc on September 18, 2024, 06:44:01 PMIf I were Hezbollah, I'd be afraid to pick up a plastic spoon at this point.
"It's just a spoon."
"Yeah, but it could be a
plastic explosive spoon!"
Quote from: Moab on September 18, 2024, 04:26:24 PMAnd NT2C is right the amount of tech to do this would take a while. Chances are they intercepted them between the manufacturer and users. Changed the tech and planted the explosives.
As I said, the pager brand name was licensed to a company in Hungary that was likely an Israeli front. That company contracted with the bad guys to supply the pagers. More than likely the front company already had a large quantity of the pagers previously made and packaged, just waiting to be shipped.
With the radios, they were supposedly intercepted in Jordan. Looking at photos of what was left of the radios I see Icom business radios with very little damage but the battery blown off. That makes me think the batteries were swapped during the intercept with a supply of batteries already on hand with explosives embedded. That would have been a fast way to rig them during a 24-hour or less intercept.
I'm now imagining a Hezbollah member warily using a microwave oven right now.
Like they're hiding behind their couch with a long stick to press the 'start' button.
Something occurred to me in the midst of all this. Assuming that Hezbollah works in cells and not everyone knows each other, this is also an opportunity for Israel to do some additional infiltration due to the chaos and disruption of existing communication networks.
Essentially a more practiced / trained version of, "I can't contact my commander after my pager blew up. *shows minor injury to hand* I just moved to the area and I don't know anyone else. Oh, and uh 'Death to Israel' and all that jazz. Can I hang out with you guys now?"
I don't think it costs that much to train a dog to sniff out explosives. But aren't dogs dirty or something in their faith?
Seems like someone dropped the ball. If you've accepted 5000 pagers and who knows how many Icoms full of explosives.
Quote from: Moab on September 18, 2024, 10:43:50 PMI don't think it costs that much to train a dog to sniff out explosives. But aren't dogs dirty or something in their faith?
Seems like someone dropped the ball. If you've accepted 5000 pagers and who knows how many Icoms full of explosives.
Sure, you could train a dog for that, but let's think about the environment the dog would have to work in and the wide variety of explosives the dog would need to identify. The way the latter is done in the US is with multiple dogs, each trained on a particular subset of explosives classifications. They also tend to work in mostly "sterile" environments (eg: areas where explosives or explosives reside normally would not be found) so that any scent stands out. Contrast that with a working dog or dogs trying to sniff out explosives in an environment where those are going to be semi-common, and the residue might be commonly found on the handler or associates of the handler. That's a much harder task for dogs if it can be done at all.
Quote from: NT2C on September 18, 2024, 11:03:35 PMQuote from: Moab on September 18, 2024, 10:43:50 PMI don't think it costs that much to train a dog to sniff out explosives. But aren't dogs dirty or something in their faith?
Seems like someone dropped the ball. If you've accepted 5000 pagers and who knows how many Icoms full of explosives.
Sure, you could train a dog for that, but let's think about the environment the dog would have to work in and the wide variety of explosives the dog would need to identify. The way the latter is done in the US is with multiple dogs, each trained on a particular subset of explosives classifications. They also tend to work in mostly "sterile" environments (eg: areas where explosives or explosives reside normally would not be found) so that any scent stands out. Contrast that with a working dog or dogs trying to sniff out explosives in an environment where those are going to be semi-common, and the residue might be commonly found on the handler or associates of the handler. That's a much harder task for dogs if it can be done at all.
I didn't so much mean that. As I meant, even if they could, doesn't their religion preclude the use of dogs? I'm sure Mossad has dogs to do anything. I've never heard of a terrorist org using them. And even if they couldn't train them. I assume there are plenty of countries around the world where they could get them.
Just seems like a major security lapse. Mossad or any other intelligence org would be capable of inspecting devices for explosives or other tampering issues. For sure. It just seems amateurish for a terrorist org as well funded as Hezbollah to fall so short, that 5000 of their pagers could be outfitted with explosives. Not to mention Massad probably knows exactly who each user is. And every msg that's come across those pagers.
Major fail. But also a majorly impressive operation on the part of whoever did this. It's not people have never been killed by an exploding electronic device going back many decades. Even a pimp has a burner phone. Lol He's not using whatever known communication device he bought at the mall.
Quote from: NT2C on September 18, 2024, 07:42:45 PMQuote from: Moab on September 18, 2024, 04:26:24 PMAnd NT2C is right the amount of tech to do this would take a while. Chances are they intercepted them between the manufacturer and users. Changed the tech and planted the explosives.
As I said, the pager brand name was licensed to a company in Hungary that was likely an Israeli front. That company contracted with the bad guys to supply the pagers. More than likely the front company already had a large quantity of the pagers previously made and packaged, just waiting to be shipped.
With the radios, they were supposedly intercepted in Jordan. Looking at photos of what was left of the radios I see Icom business radios with very little damage but the battery blown off. That makes me think the batteries were swapped during the intercept with a supply of batteries already on hand with explosives embedded. That would have been a fast way to rig them during a 24-hour or less intercept.
The ICOM radios probably came from AliBaba or something, because the company stopped making them over a decade ago. They (ICOM) say that the radios on the market now are all mostly counterfeit. The Lebanon comms agency said " The IC-V82 radios were not supplied by a recognized agent, were not officially licensed and had not been vetted by the security services". Very dumb.
As for the pagers, this is getting more interesting. BAC Consulting, the owner of the license from Gold Apollo, was incorporated in 2022, and only has one shareholder listed in the paperwork: a Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono. Her LinkedIn profile lists affiliations with organizations that haven't heard of her or only met in passing. NBC got ahold of her and she's claiming to be nothing more than a broker. There's no records of the company moving any kind of inventory or receiving deliveries. Hungary is denying BAC Consulting has ANY manufacturing capability. Definitely feels like a front company to me.
Quote from: DarkAxel on September 19, 2024, 11:10:06 AMQuote from: NT2C on September 18, 2024, 07:42:45 PMQuote from: Moab on September 18, 2024, 04:26:24 PMAnd NT2C is right the amount of tech to do this would take a while. Chances are they intercepted them between the manufacturer and users. Changed the tech and planted the explosives.
As I said, the pager brand name was licensed to a company in Hungary that was likely an Israeli front. That company contracted with the bad guys to supply the pagers. More than likely the front company already had a large quantity of the pagers previously made and packaged, just waiting to be shipped.
With the radios, they were supposedly intercepted in Jordan. Looking at photos of what was left of the radios I see Icom business radios with very little damage but the battery blown off. That makes me think the batteries were swapped during the intercept with a supply of batteries already on hand with explosives embedded. That would have been a fast way to rig them during a 24-hour or less intercept.
The ICOM radios probably came from AliBaba or something, because the company stopped making them over a decade ago. They (ICOM) say that the radios on the market now are all mostly counterfeit. The Lebanon comms agency said " The IC-V82 radios were not supplied by a recognized agent, were not officially licensed and had not been vetted by the security services". Very dumb.
As for the pagers, this is getting more interesting. BAC Consulting, the owner of the license from Gold Apollo, was incorporated in 2022, and only has one shareholder listed in the paperwork: a Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono. Her LinkedIn profile lists affiliations with organizations that haven't heard of her or only met in passing. NBC got ahold of her and she's claiming to be nothing more than a broker. There's no records of the company moving any kind of inventory or receiving deliveries. Hungary is denying BAC Consulting has ANY manufacturing capability. Definitely feels like a front company to me.
I saw pics of the icoms. The entire radios were blown up not just the battery.
I keep thinking about where you carry pagers and radios. All normal locations on the body would take very little explosive to cause catastrophic damage. And plenty of shrapnel in the radio itself. If they didn't add some. Which I suspect they might of if they could have kept the weight down.
It really is a fascinating operation. Just from an espionage standpoint. And technically. Anything can be swapped out during shipment. And any product can be perfectly faked these days. I saw one video trying to show how they grabbed the equipment in shipment and modified them. I call bs. They for sure intercepted a few to make exact copies, modified those copies, and probably had packaged replacements already modified that they could simply swap out - faked shipping box and all. For a seamless, quick swap during shipment.
But to know who they were going too. Is a coup. And the decision to set 5000 of them off at once. Not to mention whatever monitoring they had put in place technically.
Trojan horses like this must exist all over the Arab world. Toasters, washing machines, hair dryers, bombs in walls, normal devices with cellular and location based capabilites. Anything could be set up like this. There must be hundreds of operations around the world like this. Just passive devices, sitting, waiting for the day an operative sends a code. And boom. Or the massive amount of monitoring they must be doing with these or similar devices.
I always thought it was weird that every cable company wants you to name, label and refer to each of their devices by the room in your house it resides in. Back in the day I often wondered if a normal person would even notice a microphone on a circuit board? Or a pin camera. And with the known room location of the device you could locate that source within a given home. Of course tech is far beyond that now. Every room has a tv. And every tv goes to great lengths to listen to your voice for commands. 1984. We're living it. Lol
"Allah smiles upon us, Hassan my Hezbollah brother! Look what I have found on this sketchy, totally unregulated Chinese retail website! A company claiming to be ICOM is selling a model of radio they stopped manufacturing 10 years ago! And in lots of 1000 for a pauper's sum! Hmmm, the delivery time seems suspiciously long, even by Chinese standards .... no matter! Long is our memory and infinite is our patience for vengeance against the heathen dogs who are our enemies!
Allah ahkbar as I click "buy now"!"
Quote from: Moab on September 19, 2024, 02:33:28 PMQuote from: DarkAxel on September 19, 2024, 11:10:06 AMQuote from: NT2C on September 18, 2024, 07:42:45 PMQuote from: Moab on September 18, 2024, 04:26:24 PMAnd NT2C is right the amount of tech to do this would take a while. Chances are they intercepted them between the manufacturer and users. Changed the tech and planted the explosives.
As I said, the pager brand name was licensed to a company in Hungary that was likely an Israeli front. That company contracted with the bad guys to supply the pagers. More than likely the front company already had a large quantity of the pagers previously made and packaged, just waiting to be shipped.
With the radios, they were supposedly intercepted in Jordan. Looking at photos of what was left of the radios I see Icom business radios with very little damage but the battery blown off. That makes me think the batteries were swapped during the intercept with a supply of batteries already on hand with explosives embedded. That would have been a fast way to rig them during a 24-hour or less intercept.
The ICOM radios probably came from AliBaba or something, because the company stopped making them over a decade ago. They (ICOM) say that the radios on the market now are all mostly counterfeit. The Lebanon comms agency said " The IC-V82 radios were not supplied by a recognized agent, were not officially licensed and had not been vetted by the security services". Very dumb.
As for the pagers, this is getting more interesting. BAC Consulting, the owner of the license from Gold Apollo, was incorporated in 2022, and only has one shareholder listed in the paperwork: a Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono. Her LinkedIn profile lists affiliations with organizations that haven't heard of her or only met in passing. NBC got ahold of her and she's claiming to be nothing more than a broker. There's no records of the company moving any kind of inventory or receiving deliveries. Hungary is denying BAC Consulting has ANY manufacturing capability. Definitely feels like a front company to me.
I saw pics of the icoms. The entire radios were blown up not just the battery.
(https://collive.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/whatsapp-image-2024-09-18-at-10.26.25-am.jpg)
Radio is fine, battery is destroyed.
(https://e3.365dm.com/24/09/800x600/skynews-lebanon-middle-east_6689430.png)
Radio is mostly undamaged, battery missing
https://youtu.be/HkFshPKzGiM?si=jhf50ddnTjx3R3NU
There's a bunch of other stuff there besides the radio
Here's an in-depth look at the situation. Apparently these pagers were either purchased or supplied to Hezbollah by Iran. The Iranian diplomat to Lebonan was carrying one. And suffered great injury to his face. You have to ask yourself why he was carrying one? ;)
He also states how much explosive was in each one. Apparently Israel has such a deep operation going on they were able to find out that 2 members of Hezbollah figured out the pagers were no good. So Israel decided to detonate them. Before anyone else was tipped off. The detonation method was they were able to send out like three messages that appeared to come from Hezbollah high command. So everyone got their pagers out. Those that lost eyes were most likely looking at their pagers. The explosive was placed behind one of the batteries. They overheated the battery. And that detonated the explosives.
He shows a couple videos of the pagers exploding in like a supermarket and a store. But apparently there are many more very graphic videos of detonations.
https://youtu.be/oJSi67emPvs?si=jtshtogDPBBED3r2
This all reminded me of a Mossad guy I used to work with. He did bug sweeps for a company I worked for. Super smart, very religious dude. Who had become disinfranchised with Mossad. Left. And immigrated to the US. As apparently the sexual and other morals within the organized he highly disagreed with. I have no proof he was who he said he was. But he knew his job very well. Had a very heavy accent. And very much appeared to be who he said he was. I had alot of conversations with him. And I was very impressed with what I perceived as the mind of a highly specialized foreign intelligence person. The Mossad are on another level.
Quote from: majorhavoc on September 19, 2024, 02:39:18 PM"Allah smiles upon us, Hassan my Hezbollah brother! Look what I have found on this sketchy, totally unregulated Chinese retail website! A company claiming to be ICOM is selling a model of radio they stopped manufacturing 10 years ago! And in lots of 1000 for a pauper's sum! Hmmm, the delivery time seems suspiciously long, even by Chinese standards .... no matter! Long is our memory and infinite is our patience for vengeance against the heathen dogs who are our enemies!
Allah ahkbar as I click "buy now"!"
:zomg: :smiley_clap: :smiley_clap: :smiley_clap:
Brilliant!
I really would not want to be the purchasing department employee who signed the purchase order.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/27/middleeast/israel-pager-attack-hezbollah-lebanon-invs-intl/index.html (https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/27/middleeast/israel-pager-attack-hezbollah-lebanon-invs-intl/index.html)
Hezbollah had some of those pagers that didn't go off during the attack because they were turned off. Turns out Israel figured out how to hide explosives inside the Li-ion batteries. Yup, they turned a lithium battery into an explosive device. If I got this figured out right it's absolutely brilliant.
Lithium batteries need overcharge protection and voltage control to keep from shorting out, and it can be hacked. Add some kind of boom juice to the lithium and you've got a functional battery/bomb that can be set off at command, and is undetectable if x-rayed. I bet Hezbollah is looking at anything with a lithium battery as a potential threat now. If it can't be detected by a bomb sniffer, well, that capability is frankly quite frightening.
Also, there's a bit more info on who made the pagers. Looks like someone who used to work at Gold Apollo had the rights to the pager and opened a company named Apollo Systems HK. They have a Youtube channel:
watching that video is like watching a N64 unboxing video. Yep some people still use that tech too. Mine still works and is hooked up.
Hope its really difficult to make a Li bomb. Cause this opens a new chapter in airline security.
I said from the start that the charges were in the batteries: https://www.reuters.com/graphics/ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS/HEZBOLLAH-PAGERS/mopawkkwjpa/ (https://www.reuters.com/graphics/ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS/HEZBOLLAH-PAGERS/mopawkkwjpa/)
Battery pack internals
Two lithium-ion cells sandwich a sheet of plastic explosive and a strip of highly inflammable material
(https://www.reuters.com/graphics/ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS/HEZBOLLAH-PAGERS/mopawkkwjpa/cdn/images/graphics/battery-xl.png)
(https://www.reuters.com/graphics/ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS/HEZBOLLAH-PAGERS/mopawkkwjpa/cdn/images/battery.jpg)
(https://www.reuters.com/graphics/ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS/HEZBOLLAH-PAGERS/mopawkkwjpa/cdn/images/pager.jpg)
PETN is nasty stuff. I got to play with some during my Gunner's Mate training. It almost doesn't need a detonator. The stuff just wants to explode.