If you carry a sharp screwdriver or stable hard knife around to puncture the battery rapidly, you may have something sort of resembling explosives, just very, VERY inefficient and unpredictably to set off. You'd be a lot better off using that screwdriver or knife instead to do whatever you'd wanna do with an exploding phone.
this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2024
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This seems like a very unreliable way to check that.
You should understand that what happened in Lebanon involved the government of Isreal physically modifying the pagers (and walkies) in question by adding explosives to them, turning them into remote-triggerable bombs.
(The term "supplychain attack" has been used a lot to describe this attack. Isreal intercepted the order of pagers between when the order was placed and when the pagers were delivered. And either physically altered the pagers ordered or replaced them with altered/tampered-with pagers.)
This is true, I'm Lebanese and the pagers of yesterday and the talkie walkie of today are primarly used by Hezbollah members and probably were acquired illegaly and rigged.
Now the only thing on my mind is this: can they do that to phones, without the phones being rigged? I'm only asking this because me and my family all own Samsungs and I remember the Note 7 exploding.
Batteries catch fire. Very large ones, or many cells together can mean a very hot, very dangerous fire, with the occasional violence of a cell bursting.
Being in close contact with something like a phone when that happens would cause burns, but they don't "explode" with very much force. (Relatively speaking. You wouldn't get lethal fragmentation for example, I don't think)
The note 7 batteries didn't really go boom in the way an actual explosive does, though the reaction is a sudden and fast release of thermal energy, its not that much energy in terms of explosive devices.
So no. You can't "hack" a phone and turn it into a bomb using just the hardware that is already inside. You could start a fire, and that could be deadly, but as an explosive device the battery in most phones is not that potent.
Please see current state of politics in US where sheriffs are taking names of those with opposing views. These people are playing a long game. Donβt fool yourself it couldnβt easily happen here in US or is not already set up to do so. I am not a conspiratorial type but just looking at the facts.
Not really saying otherwise. What I am saying is that for your electronic devices to have "explosives" in them would require that a supplychain attack of a similar sort.
It's almost definitely not the case that any electronics manufacturers are systematically putting explosives in every smartphone or whatever that they manufacture and supplychain attacks are much more likely to be a targeted thing rather than "all Samsung phones" or whatever. If they weren't targeted, it's pretty certain that the presence of explosives in devices would be noticed even just by regular end-users with a bit of a tinkering proclivity within weeks. So if your devices are more than a couple of months old have been in reasonably normal use for most of that time and you haven't been specifically targeted by any particular government or anyone who might have the ability to tamper with the supplychain, you're almost certainly safe specifically from explosive-laced consumer electronics devices.
Also, it seems unlikely that a state police agency (like the "sheriffs" you're talking about) could leverage enough power to compel an electronics company to allow such a thing without the FBI or DHS involved. I'd imagine state police folks would more likely resort to more low-tech approaches like the Tulsa race massacre air firebombing.
Again, I'm not saying it's impossible that your phone contains explosives. And as I said in another comment, it might be possible to remotely get a device to cause its battery to catch fire. Maybe.
Also, I am in the U.S., but what made you think that was the case?
More of a βwhat ifβ.
Ah yes, being heavily criticized for encouraging people to send illegal immigrants to Democrats' houses is the same thing as setting up an explosive front
See Holocaust and Kristallnacht https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht
It's not like we have an authoritarian and something-phobic head of state that has cultured a rabid paramilitary and youth program.
See charter schools.
Are you guys agreeing with one another?
Are you Hezbollah and did you buy a phone from Israel? Did you piss off the mob, or a government? Then maybe. Otherwise, unlikely. Phones have been known to catch fire, though.
Yes
If you bought a pager or walkie talkie that was part of a batch of pagers ordered specifically by Hezbollah through a Mossad front, then yes. Be careful if you bought a second device of that kind from Lebanon recently.
Otherwise, probably not.
As for phones, the whole reason the Mossad bugged pagers was because Hezbollah told their members to get rid of their phones because they believed Israel could track them (which, given the many espionage and offensive hacking companies in Israel, is probably true). Unless the terrorists also ordered phones through this Mossad front, I don't expect any phones to explode.
Well I didnβt expect to see where pagers, radios and walkie-talkies were going to explode. It is a whole new world.
It's not that new, actually.
Mossad killed Mahmoud Hamshari, a leader of the terrorist cell that kidnapped and killed Israeli athletes during the Munich Olympics with a bomb in his (non mobile) phone. They called him, confirmed he was on the phone and blew him up.
Yahya Ayyash the chief bomb maker of the Hamas was also killed by an exploding mobile phone in 1996.
The size of the operation here is truly impressive,but it's hardly new - and nothing another bad faith state level actor couldn't do. There is a good reason proper governments control incoming shipments of communication devices for their officials and security services very closely.
Very interesting. Thanks
Depends on the brand. If it was secretly manufactured by any particular nation's secret military service, then Maybe.
Was wondering about possibility of this after Lebanon pager explosions.
~~That happened ten years ago.~~
My bad I was mixing it up with a different article
If you are asking if they do, probably not. If you are asking if they can, definitely. It is likely they can even make a functional phone, loaded with plastic explosives. The phone would be super low spec but might be enough to fool someone, especially one who isn't very tech literate.
This is a pretty fucking reasonable question right now.
In the strictest sense, no.
In the abstract, yes. Lithium ion batteries can be pretty violent if abused. Remember the Samsung Note phones?
Israel just made it impossible to get through security...
Mehhh. Most if it is theater. You're just as safe as you always have been.
Phone, yes: your battery can explode / light an intense fire. Watch, depends on the watch.
This. Not so explosive unless sufficiently confined, but still dangerous. Just Google: lithium ion battery knife.
If you cobsider the battery as an explosive then yes
Technically, yes, but only in that your battery can be explosive, given the right circumstances. Really, theyβre more highly combustible than explosive. They can burn very very hot and very quickly, but they wonβt detonate.