this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2024
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Pagers explode across Lebanon in attack targeting Hezbollah members (www.cnn.com)
submitted 2 months ago by yogthos@lemmy.ml to c/worldnews@lemmy.ml
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This is a terrorist attack by Israel on a massive scale. They blew up countless numbers of people driving, meaning that cars lost control, shopping around children, etc.

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[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 12 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Interestingly, given just how compromised smart phones are at this point, a pager has now become a far safer means of communication.

[–] krolden@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 months ago

Well apparently not anymore

[–] wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Traditionally pagers use either FLEX or POCSAG protocols, both of which are fully unencrypted and have to broadcast everywhere with relatively high power... So safer is maybe a bit of a misnomer... But they also don't transmit anything so in terms of remote listening and location tracking, yes they are safer.

[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Right, I meant safer in terms of the device doing what you expect it to be doing. Also, pagers that support encryption are absolutely a thing.

[–] wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I meant safer in terms of the device doing what you expect it to be doing

Absolutely, I'm just putting some nuance into it for people who don't know anything about pagers.

Also, pagers that support encryption are absolutely a thing.

Fair, but it appears these were Apollo Gold A25, an off the shelf FLEX system.

[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 months ago

Yeah, in this case I'm guessing they'd just use coded messages when communicating. Ultimately, that's even more effective since those are indistinguishable from regular messages unless you know the special meaning of the words used. So, they're even less likely to attract attention.