On: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in ...

[hollerith]

>Are smartphones, for example, also vulnerable to it?

Yes if Israeli intelligence gets their hands on your smartphone (probably before you buy it) and installs an explosive and a software-hardware back door.

[menomatter → hollerith]

even that is not far fetched. This is a typical supply chain attack.

[hollerith → menomatter]

I never said it was far fetched.

[mandmandam → hollerith]

I've seen laptop and phone batteries explode with significant force on YouTube. It's called thermal runaway.

As much as I'd love to believe this couldn't happen without physical tampering, I see no good reason to.

[megous → mandmandam]

They usuall burst with fire. You'd have to have hardshell battery with no venting, and likely no protection circuit, and a way to cause sustained load on the battery, without the user noticing the heat first. Eh.

A short on a battery with protection circuit installed basically does absolutely nothing to the battery.

I'm yet to see a video with fire and a lot of smoke at minimum.