Smart phones, unknown destination

We haven’t begun to understand how our lives will change after Israel’s attack on Hezbollah, killing scores and injuring thousands of the organization’s members in their homes, offices and cars in Lebanon last month.

When, 23 years ago, Al Qaeda terrorists turned passenger jets into deadly missiles, the security measures at airports and elsewhere became infinitely stricter, and they keep getting stricter. Now, turning low-tech pagers and walkie-talkies into explosive devices through a single signal leads us to a new level of dangers, insecurity and paranoia. If low-tech objects can be weaponized in this way, it is certain that “smart phones,” computers, tablets and other electronic features of ourselves lend themselves to even more sophisticated operations. We will be exposed to ever greater dangers and obliged to accept ever more strict and intrusive security measures.

If we didn’t get it at the start, when we grabbed at the beads and mirrors of our smart devices (but also at the unbelievable riches that they offer through our immediate ties with everything and everyone), for some years now we have understood that this technology brings many dangers. From violations of privacy to the risk of our being victims of cyber attacks and fraud, we now realize that our very lives may be in danger, and those of people close to us.

We know that in 1996 Israel’s secret agents killed a Hamas bomb maker by triggering explosives that had been placed in his phone when he had sent it for servicing. But priming thousands of devices to explode at the same time is another level of operations. It is worth noting that Hezbollah had checked the devices and tested (successfully) whether they would get through airline security checks, Reuters reported. If this is so, then the explosives were of a kind that did not trigger airport alarms (the report did not say which airports were involved).

Could our phones be manipulated similarly, somewhere along the chain of production and distribution, and get through security checks? We have moved beyond science fiction – if anyone wants to make use of our phones to do more than spy on us, to turn them into bombs, perhaps, they have the know-how and (obviously) the opportunity to do so.

Now we will see what public security officials, and each citizen, will do to manage the danger. What new security measures will we have to deal with? How will our personal relationship develop with these mysterious, sleepless, uncontrollable objects who have become an extension of our bodies, an inseparable part of our lives? Especially now that Artificial Intelligence is being breathed into them?