Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Andrey Musalov
[REGNUM] While many were afraid of nuclear war and nuclear explosions that would radically change life on Earth, other explosions happened - much smaller in scale. But they will certainly change our usual life, forcing us to take a different look at ordinary smartphones and other technology around us.
On September 17, panic gripped Lebanon. A wave of explosions of pagers, seemingly long-forgotten communication devices popular before the advent of smartphones, swept through parts of the country, including the capital Beirut.
In some places the explosions resembled machine gun fire - there were so many of them.
By evening, the country's hospitals were filled with maimed people with mine-blast injuries to their legs, arms, stomachs and chests. Many had their eyes gouged out and their faces mangled. Iran's ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was also wounded.
Hezbollah's leadership forbade party members from using mobile phones for fear of Israeli interception, so they used pagers that were not connected to the Internet.
Before the explosion, a message in Arabic was sent to the device. People tried to read it by holding the device to their faces. In total, more than 2.3 thousand people were injured on September 17, about 500 lost their sight. 16 people died.
Western media, including the British The Guardian, were quick to state that the attack targeted the leadership and members of the militant wing of the Hezbollah party. However, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry, only nine of the victims were members of the party. The victims were mostly random people, including four children.
It quickly became clear that the pagers that exploded were the Gold AP-900 model, manufactured by the Taiwanese firm Gold Apollo. They were sold in Lebanon for $180.
EVERYTHING EXPLODED
The shock of what had happened had not yet passed, when another blow followed. Already on September 18, a second wave of explosions rolled in. This time, not only pagers began to explode in Lebanon, but also laptops, smartphones, door locks with fingerprint devices, car radios, solar panels, household appliances and even scooters.
| Goodness — those Mossad and Unit 8200 types sure are thorough. |
But the devices that exploded most often were portable radios from the Japanese company ICOM, which served as backup communications devices for Hezbollah members. One of the explosions occurred at the funeral of the son of Hezbollah MP Ali Ammar, who had died the day before.
According to the Lebanese Health Ministry, up to 25 people were killed and 708 were injured as a result of the second wave of explosions. The total number of victims of the sabotage, according to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nusrallah, exceeded 4,000, of whom up to 40 people were killed.
Israel's national intelligence service, Mossad, planted a small amount of explosives in 5,000 devices ordered by Hezbollah members several months before the blasts, a Reuters source said.
Israeli intelligence services have carried out similar terrorist attacks before. A number of Palestinian and Iranian leaders were killed by explosions of miniature devices embedded in mobile phones. Similar assassinations were also organized by Ukrainian intelligence services. In particular, the former head of the LPR customs committee, Yuri Afanasyevsky, was wounded with a mined smartphone.
But this time the action was much larger-scale. At the same time, the cynicism of the organizers of the terrorist attack is striking: in order to hit several dozen real targets, they easily resorted to "collateral damage", killing and maiming thousands of civilians, including children.
WE WAITED FOR OUR MOMENT FOR 15 YEARS
With its actions, Israel is opening Pandora's box. Apparently, the idea of using gadgets to attack the enemy en masse will spread.
| The idea is easy. The execution is much more difficult. |
Something similar has already happened with drones. At first, they were a funny device used for video shooting from above, but soon someone decided to try dropping a grenade from a drone. It worked. In a few years, it became a mass military technology.
But, in addition to purely military ones, the explosions in Lebanon also highlighted a simple everyday question: are the numerous household devices that we surround ourselves with in everyday life safe? Is it possible to remotely blow up, for example, a smartphone? Yes, it is quite possible, answers the general designer of the company "Voenform-design" Yaroslav Safonov to the IA Regnum.
According to him, the features of the most common batteries - lithium-ion batteries - can be used for this purpose. During the first charge at the manufacturing plant, a protective ion-conducting layer formed from decomposed electrolyte is formed on the batteries. The barrier protects the electrodes from unacceptable reactions with the electrolyte. But if the barrier is broken, a fairly violent thermal reaction can occur. Simply put, the battery will catch fire.
"Most often, such a reaction can occur in the case of mechanical damage. For example, if you pierce the battery with a sharp object, " says Safonov. "But you can also achieve a similar effect by heating the battery by sending a specific command to the device."
At the same time, judging by the footage from Lebanon, a more powerful detonation occurred there, the interlocutor of IA Regnum continues. According to him, with a normal bang of such a device, the most that can happen is a burn of the hand or thigh, if the device was in the pocket. Here, however, we see much more serious damage, which usually occurs when explosives are detonated, for example, plastic explosives.
"I can assume that the organizers of the sabotage in Lebanon did exactly that. They placed a small amount of plastic explosive (or other similar explosive) in the area of the device's board in factory conditions. They didn't need much - 20-30 grams would have been enough. And at the right moment, a signal was sent to the device, which led to the explosion."
Many experts in the field of electronic devices are inclined to the same conclusion. In turn, the ABC-News publication, citing a source in American intelligence, reported that large-scale sabotage in Lebanon began to be prepared by Israeli special services after the end of the unsuccessful operation against Hezbollah in 2006. This idea is suggested by the simultaneous detonation in Lebanon of five hundred portable radio stations icom v82 of the Japanese company ICOM, long out of production. Presumably, the devices were mined in factory conditions at least 15 years ago. All this time they were waiting for their time, regularly performing their basic functions.
BOMB NEAR THE HEAD
However, it does not matter how exactly the explosives were placed in the devices. The main thing is that they have not been detected for many years. Apparently, the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, who was injured in the explosion, has undergone many times the control of scanning explosives, but the control did not reveal anything. This means that there is already a technology for the production and "packaging" of explosives that bypasses the means of control. And this threatens many processes in modern life.
The most obvious area is civil aviation. Potential terrorists could theoretically bring mined gadgets onto planes and blow them up. To prevent this, all equipment will be carefully inspected and, if there is any suspicion, confiscated. The same thing could happen in any crowded places.
But even if a person does not plan terrorist attacks, can he be sure of the reliability of his gadgets? Obviously not. It is enough to look at how many smartphones and other equipment are sold on the secondary market. But what if a second-hand phone was intended for a person who was to be liquidated? How can you find out what batch it is from and where exactly it was manufactured?
But it's not just smartphones that can explode. After the explosions in Lebanon, experts advise being very careful with electronic cigarettes and vapes. Firstly, they have batteries. Secondly, the liquid for them can be poisoned in advance if you really want to. Thirdly, when smoking ("vaping"), the device is near your head.
After what happened in Lebanon, any technology becomes a source of threat. Consequently, control measures over it will be tightened, new restrictions and prohibitions will appear. And people, it seems, will stop laughing at those who are cautious about new technologies and do not hang themselves in “smart” devices from head to toe — from electronic watches and “smart rings” to virtual reality helmets.
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