Killer Mobile Phone Virus

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/forums/viewthread/3598/

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the stephen king book "cell" featured an evil mobile phone-transmitted virus that essentially turned people into zombies. he himself doesn't use a mobile, apparently, so he's safe from such dangers

I wonder if in the case of Afghanistan and Pakistan, the fear originates in an assassination fear. A cellphone booby-trapped with explosives by a secret service agent is one way to get rid of an adversary. The Mossad used this tactic at least once (I've been trying to find some info on the net with details but couldn't so far, I remember it being in the news ta that time however).

If they have your number, they call you and let the missile home in on your phone.
No booby trap. It

Yes, that's been done too, but there has also been at least one case where they actually hid an explosive charge in a cellphone, and triggered it while the target took a call (and hence had the phone against his head).

This proves it!! Technology is EVIL!! Everyone, abandon technology and return to the primitive lifestyle of our ancestors who used simple clubs and spears to hund and fish, who gathered simple nuts and berries in season and who died before age thirty.

The way I heard LaMa's story, the assassination was done via a home phone before cell phones became popular. The agents first tapped the phone line and introduced heavy static. When the target called the company to complain, the call was intercepted and the agents sent their own man in as a repairman. He planted a radio-controlled explosive in the phone and left. Then a call was made asking for the target. When he came on line, the explosive was detonated.

Booby-trapping a cell phone might be harder.

LaMa, where did the assassins find room in a cell phone to put an explosive? Granted, early ones were larger but the components were larger as well. Then or now, the goal was to make the cell phone as small as possible to make them easy for the customers to use.

I think all this is based upon the use of cell phones to trigger IEDs in Iraq.

Very good Phred22. BTW it was one of the revenge assasinations after Munich (Olympic Games).

The Alex rider book Stormbreaker's(my son has read it)plot rotates around a transmission triggered virus in computers(smallpox I think).
But in a phone it is just plain impossible.

You could, I suppose, in a big bulky mobile phone (an old brick type or a satellite phone) rig a small vial of a disease like legionella to spray, or even just apply a sample of a disease that passes through touch to the earpiece. But the logistics are much harder than just, you know, killing someone. Normally.

Beasjt, Phred22 etc.: no, the case I remember was not after Munich but much more recent (somewhere around 2000, maybe 2 years either before or after that) and definitely included a cellphone. If my memory serves me plastic explosives were used. Note that you do not need a very large charge, a small hollow charge (a charge which has its's force focussed on one point) would do if the phone is next to the victim's head.

LaMa, a shaped charge would take up more space per weight in the direction that the charge is to go. The phones today do not have enough space in them to have any amount of explosive that could do harm. First of all, the plastique would have to be in the receiver section where any extra weight would be extremely obvious, then the charge ould have to be long enough to allow the jet to form, which would make the receiver larger and bulkier, then it would have to be strong enough to blast through the wall of the cell phone (whhich may not be much) and then through the skull. You couldn't be sure that the person answering the phone will have the phone placed exactly properly. My guess is that it would take about an ounce of plastique and maybe a third of an inch to form hte jet. You might have to have multiple jets just to be sure at least one of them hits the ear hole so that it bypasses the bones int he skull. However, I've never worked with explosives so if someone else has sure knowledge of what it would take I will bow to their expertiese.

How much extra space is there in a cell phone, with all the electronics? How much of it could you pull out of the thing, yet still have the phone at least appear to be functional? To have an explosive in one, you'd need room for the explosive charge, the detonator, plus whatever sort of wiring you'd decide to use. At least you'd have an advantage in that you wouldn't need to include a receiver since you're basically building the bomb in the middle of one already. Plus you'd have a power source already there.

All in all, though, you wouldn't be able to have both a functioning cell phone and a worthwhile explosive device unless it was a very bulky phone model. It would still be unpleasant to have a small explosive charge go off in your hand as you held it up to your ear, but it would be unlikely (although possible) to actually be killed that way. It wouldn't be a worthwhile method to try to assassinate somebody, since the person would probably survive and would be warned.

Only use of cell phones in bomb making I know is as part of the detenator. You call, phone auto-answers and boom.

Still, it happened. It took me some time to find the sources, as it was way back (in internet terms) in 1996 it turns out. It concerned the assassination on 5 Jan 1996 of Yehiya Ayyash, "the engineer", at that time the leading Hamas bomb expert and believed to be responsible for at least 150 deaths. And he really was assassinated by means of explosives hidden in a cell phone:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yehiya_Ayyash

Also, I think all my Googling on "Hamas, bombs, assassination" etc. to retrieve information on the story probably has logged my IP and captured the interest already at certain places... ;-p

I don't see the point! If you can get hold of a person's cell phone long enough to modify the electronics & rig it with explosives, then you probably also have the resources and the closeness to the victim neccessary to kill him in simpler, less bondesque ways.

Sandefjord, the only point I can think of is that you owuld want an alibi. But even then it's lame. Maybe too many people have been conditioned by Hollywood movies.

The real cell-phone virus doesn't kill you, it just turns you into a blithering idiot with no manners who yaks constantly to your imaginary firends while ignoring those around you and causing traffic accidents all over the place. I think I'd rather be dead.

Eovti, it wouldn't make much sense if all you wanted to do was kill a person, but if you also wanted to keep your surviving enemies worried, it would be useful. If your own cell phone might be used against you, what other ordinary everyday object might be as well? And perhaps you'd even give up cell phones altogether, thus denying yourself of a useful tool? At least 99% of terrorism or counter-terrorism is psychological warfare.

erm...i just heard from my mum about this mobile phone exploding that badly injured some of the people that live in my neighbourhood, it's happened here too in cambodia i just dont understand how can a mobile phone explode when u answer a certain numbers..kanna weird, i dont really believe it,its sound like in some horror movie.

A new movie came out about when you pick up your phone you die within a certain amount of time. I'm wondering if this movie is loosely based on this rumor. Does anyone know?

Yes, the review was true.Everybody should be aware with this spreading cell phone viruses.It is true that today, cell phone has been playing a vital role in everyone's life. Talking about cell phone, one of the largest cell phones carrying in the nation is the Sprint. Sprint does not take kindly to their database being hacked, and that's what Gary Morrow and Timothy Flowers (who worked in Sprint's billing department) did. The two said that they would eliminate cell phone bills for them, hacking into the database and messing with payment records so they didn

I hate virus very much ! I t destroys badly !

virus is destroyable , we must get rid of it !

Yes, the review was true. cell phone has been playing a vital role in everyone's life. Everybody should be aware with this spreading cell phone viruses. Technology is EVIL!! Everyone, abandon technology and return to the primitive lifestyle of our ancestors who used simple clubs and spears to hund and fish, who gathered simple nuts and berries in season and who died before age thirty.

ya that's right,in many sim free mobile phones people are right to be concern about spread of mobile phone viruses,in mobile phones there is "hidden" or "undiscoverable" properties are available which protect your mobile phones for virus problem.

I think virus mania again hits the world in 2010. I have already formatted my cell phone thrice in this year itself. Every time situation was more critical and serious. Don

hey...im living in northern india right now, and we have a similar rumor spreading around. i teach at an english medium school and all the children were talking about it. in all the local schools every one is talking. i live on a campus and one college student recieved a call from her village saying that 25 ppl alone had already died. they say its a virus from underground terrorists and that if the number on ur screen shows in the color red its got the virus. if u answer the phone sum kind of noise will hurt ur body so much that it will actually kill you...lame