Turning Everyday Gadgets into Bombs is a Bad Idea « bunnie's blog
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edit: after 20 comments, i’m adding a post description here, since most of the commenters so far appear not to be reading the article:

This is about how surprisingly cheap it is (eg $15,000) to buy a complete production line to be able to manufacture batteries with a layer of nearly-undetectable explosives inside of them, which can be triggered by off-the-shelf devices with only their firmware modified.

screenshot of paragraph from the article saying "The process to build such batteries is well understood and documented. Here is an excerpt from one vendor’s site promising to sell the equipment to build batteries in limited quantities (tens-to-hundreds per batch) for as little as $15,000:" followed by a screenshot of "Flow-chart of Pouch Cell Lab-scale Fabrication" showing a 20 step process

  • IlovethebombEnglish
    668·
    2 months ago

    Just to be clear, the pager thing wasn’t exploding batteries, they had apparently been modified at the production level to have explosives in them, which could be triggered by the pager system itself.

      • breadsmasher@lemmy.worldEnglish
        417·
        2 months ago

        Did you read it?

        The article literally talks about inserting an explosive layer inside the battery at production. Just like the comment said.

        It isn’t “any batteries can explode”.

        Reports indicate the explosive payload in the cells is made of PETN.

        Such a sheet could be inserted into the battery fold-and-stack process, after the first fold is made (or, with some effort, perhaps PETN could be incorporated into the spacer polymer itself – but let’s assume for now it’s just a drop-in sheet, which is easy to execute and likely effective)

        • Arthur Besse@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
          632·
          2 months ago

          Just to be clear, the pager thing wasn’t exploding batteries, they had apparently been modified at the production level to have explosives in them, which could be triggered by the pager system itself.

          What? 🤦 The comment I replied to said:

          Just to be clear, the pager thing wasn’t exploding batteries, they had apparently been modified at the production level to have explosives in them, which could be triggered by the pager system itself.

          It seems clear that “they had apparently been modified at the production level” is referring to the pagers, rather than their batteries. But the article is explaining how it could have been that the batteries were the part of the pager that had the explosives (in which case it was the battery that was exploding).

          • breadsmasher@lemmy.worldEnglish
            302·
            2 months ago

            You are inferring what someone meant, and then applying some super pedantic reasoning.

            When manufacturing pagers, that includes the pager electronics, the case, and the battery.

            Wasn’t exploding batteries

            The batteries themselves unmodified, standard batteries were not somehow hacked to explode. At some point in the manufacturing of the pagers which includes the battery, explosives were included.

            • Arthur Besse@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
              426·
              2 months ago

              You are inferring what someone meant, and then applying some super pedantic reasoning.

              I think I am inferring correctly, especially since the person you’re talking about replied “of course not” to my question about if they read the article.

      • ContrarianTrailEnglish
        111·
        2 months ago

        Most other people wont be reading it either so I don’t see an issue with pointing out the obvious misconception people could make based on the headline that talks about exploding batteries.