[bguebert]

Hezbollah has been warning its members not to use cell phones because they get targeted by using them too. Seems like the pagers were supposed to be the workaround for that.

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/sya00qlswa

[s1artibartfast]

Not having a Hezbollah issued phone is very different from never using a phone.

The idea that Hezbollah members have and had no means of communication other than pagers in a country full of cellphones and landlines is a farce.

[hindsightbias]

Now that their pager-wielding C&C is wiped out, all that cell phone traffic isn't dark anymore.

Two birds with one pager.

[londons_explore]

Which is dumb, because pagers are just as trackable as phones.

[vel0city]

Lots of pagers operate in one-way only mode. Towers transmit messages without expecting acknowledgement a few times, pager is configured to filter out and only alert on messages routed to its ID.

Sure, theoretically one can detect a receive-only radio, but its massively more difficult than detecting something which actively transmits.

[tonyarkles]

Many pagers are receive only. The tower has no idea who's listening; it just broadcasts out the messages that it's told to. Pagers are much less trackable than phones.

[toyg]

They might have watched The Wire: you page Alice, and she uses a public phone to call you. Undetectable unless you wire all public phones in the city, or someone is dumb enough to always use the same phone (which is what happens in the series; they eventually switch to burner mobiles).

[tptacek]

Apparently not these ones.