It is a huge technical operation to intercept an order and replace it with modified devices without the target knowing. Particularly when the target has to be extra careful in ordering things in the first place to avoid sanctions.
In contrast sending out an “execute order 66” message is pretty trivial to trigger them
Not a ton is known, by from what I understand the explosives were part of a secondary board added to the pagers, which would also have the ability to listen for a separate signal or look for a specific one the pager received.
Well, they had to make room inside for the high explosive charge, so it was never going to be a slight change to an off-the-shelf product. There’s not typically a lot of dead space in a pager.
This wasn’t an interception. The devices were designed and manufactured by Israeli intelligence. They just licensed out brandnames through shell companies, and convinced Hezbollah to buy models from their agents by conventional spycraft.
There are videos capturing lots of explosions going off simulataneously. Since pagers already can recieve messages and these devices were deeply infiltrated, they likely added a special trigger message to set them off. THis could also allow other scenarios, like only setting off one (for whatever reason).
If they can plant explosives they can 100% tap into the circuit or maybe reprogram the board. The CIA is known to be able to do this to specific devices by plucking them from the mail. Mossad could likely do their own production run and ship that to Hezbollah.
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It is a huge technical operation to intercept an order and replace it with modified devices without the target knowing. Particularly when the target has to be extra careful in ordering things in the first place to avoid sanctions.
In contrast sending out an “execute order 66” message is pretty trivial to trigger them
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Not a ton is known, by from what I understand the explosives were part of a secondary board added to the pagers, which would also have the ability to listen for a separate signal or look for a specific one the pager received.
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Well, they had to make room inside for the high explosive charge, so it was never going to be a slight change to an off-the-shelf product. There’s not typically a lot of dead space in a pager.
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Is there data on what the payload actually was?
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This wasn’t an interception. The devices were designed and manufactured by Israeli intelligence. They just licensed out brandnames through shell companies, and convinced Hezbollah to buy models from their agents by conventional spycraft.
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I believe they triggers a cell in the LIPO batteries to overheat causing the explosive material to explode.
May have been done at the source of the manufacturing.
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There are videos capturing lots of explosions going off simulataneously. Since pagers already can recieve messages and these devices were deeply infiltrated, they likely added a special trigger message to set them off. THis could also allow other scenarios, like only setting off one (for whatever reason).
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If they can plant explosives they can 100% tap into the circuit or maybe reprogram the board. The CIA is known to be able to do this to specific devices by plucking them from the mail. Mossad could likely do their own production run and ship that to Hezbollah.
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If they can intercept the message where it isn’t encrypted, they can simply sniff the messages coming on the page and wait for their signal.
Then, they can trigger the explosive to a specific message.
That’s a wild guess though.