Special services remotely detonate pagers and walkie-talkies. Can they destroy ordinary smartphones of Russians?

"The tape.<url>": it is almost impossible to remotely detonate pagers without explosives

At the moment, about 4,500 people have been injured as a result of explosions of communication devices in Lebanon. If initially the pagers of representatives of the Shiite organization Hezbollah exploded, recently there have been more and more reports of detonation of radio stations, laptops, tape recorders, smartphones, fingerprint devices and solar-powered devices.

Israel was not the first state to use remote detonation of communication devices, and a description of such a possibility can be found in Pentagon documents half a century ago. Also, we must not forget that Israel has already used remotely detonated communication devices, for example, in 1996 against one of the leaders of the Palestinian Hamas movement Yahya Ayyash, who was delivered a booby—trapped phone.

The devices that exploded in Lebanon were from a new batch

One thing unites these and other cases — only those devices in which explosives were previously installed exploded. At the same time, the type of device did not play a role and the explosives were activated remotely.

Explosions of communication devices in Lebanon.
Source: Houssam Shbaro / Anadolu / Getty Images

Reuters and other publications write that the exploded pagers were from a new batch that arrived in the country about six months ago. According to sources, the devices were purchased after the order of the Hezbollah leader to abandon smartphones.

"This is most likely a planted explosive, not a break-in. Why? There are too many consecutive, very serious injuries. If these were explosions of overheated batteries, one would expect many more minor fires and misfires," former CIA officer Edward Snowden wrote on the social network X (former Twitter).

The Arabic channel Al-Mayadeen directly indicates that an explosive substance was placed in the devices, which cannot be tracked by scanners either at customs or at the airport. The source said that it was specially designed for this operation.

It is practically impossible to detonate a communication device without explosives

Most cases of explosion of communication devices that did not contain explosives are associated with the ignition of their batteries, which were outdated or defective, physicist Alexander Shirokorad believes . Often such explosions are not dangerous, but anything can ignite in this way, including a refrigerator and a microwave.

In his opinion, the danger of mobile devices lies not in the fact that they can explode, but in the possibility of using them to track geolocation and transmitted information.

Modern smartphones are protected from self-detonation

According to Eldar Murtazin, a leading analyst at Mobile Research Group, batteries used in modern gadgets — iPhone or Android smartphones - have a high degree of reliability, so their spontaneous detonation is unlikely.

According to him, in order to eliminate a situation similar to the one that occurred in Lebanon, mobile devices must be purchased from trusted suppliers and given to certified services for repair.