this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2024
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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.
Wow. Jeez. I'm sorry this is so close to you.
I'm not any kind of expert. But as others in this post have said, theoretically... possibly technically yes. If the firmware can be modified remotely to cause the phone to allow, for instance, overcharging the battery, then it's possible the phone could be made to explode without physical access to the phone.
How likely it is that you or your family specifically would be targeted, I couldn't say. It seems unlikely...? And we don't have specific knowledge that Isreal has tried any such attacks that didn't involve direct physical access to the devices which later exploded. (And also no indication they've targeted any Samsung devices.)
Again, I'm no expert, but if you wanted to take precautions, I'm thinking the precautions to take would be to put any mobile devices that contain rechargeable batteries and have wireless connectivity far away from your house and your family and stick to devices with no batteries (and preferably ones you've had for a "long time") for a while.
I'm sorry you're in a situation where you're having to weigh these risks. Again, it seems unlikely that you and your family could be in danger regarding ostensibly-stock Samsung phones that you've had for a while.
Also, no condemnation is strong enough for this indiscriminate attack by Isreal on the people of Lebanon. Netanyahu must really be heartless to have authorized this. I hope this results in real pressure on Isreal to stop its indiscriminate terrorist acts.
Good luck and stay safe.
Edit: Hmm. Not sure why I'm getting downvoted so much. Maybe the downvoters think I'm making it sound more likely than is realistic that there's a threat to Peepo specifically?
I agree that malicious firmware could cause the battery to combust, but I don't think it would be lethal except in the rarest of circumstances. When li-ion batteries fail, they usually don't explode so much as rapidly catch fire and spew toxic fumes. As an attack on a person, I don't think you'd achieve much more than some burns and maybe respiratory irritation. It would probably be more successful to use it to start a house fire when no one is looking.
But also, the agencies capable of doing this aren't spending the resources to do it on some random person. They were targeting very specific people.
I'm pretty sure I've heard of at least two deaths from exploding smartphone batteries. Here's a source for one of them. I'm fairly sure I remember hearing of another where the victim had the phone in their breast pocket, but I'm not finding sources for that one now.
And those were just from faulty devices, not from specifically sabotaged/rigged devices.
Yeah, exactly. Very rare.