Airlines in some parts of the world are banning passengers from flying with pagers and walkie talkies after Israel took out much of Hezbollah’s command structure by supplying booby trapped devices. Soon in the U.S., though, we may no longer be able to travel with personal massagers – or other personal electronic devices.
That’s because intelligence officials have determined that Russia has undertaken a covert operation to place incendiary devices aboard cargo or passenger planes heading for the U.S. and Canada, and a dry run over the summer involved placing explosives inside massagers that were being shipped DHL. In July 2024 initial attempts failed, igniting at logistics hubs in Leipzig, Germany, and Birmingham, England.
Well, that prediction didn’t take long to come true. So much for “oh, this is a one time thing and it’ll never happen again”.
It has always been the case that electronic devices, and not just they, could be built with concealed explosives. Interesting that they let lithium batteries on planes at all. What, if anything, is supposed to have changed?
The day you prayed would never come.
What changed is that Israel decided to use them as a state-backed terror weapon with no concern for the consequences. Something any nation could have done for decades but didn’t because of the predictable long term results. But now the genies is out of the bottle.
Uh… but the article says that the Russians tried to send explosive dildos in July, whereas Israel blew up Hezbollah in Lebanon with payers and walkie talkies in September …
If anything it is Russia who did it first!
This topic is buzzing all over the place now - how do you make it stop?
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as noted, the Russians did this way back in July, according to the article.
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are you really expecting us to believe that if Israel hadn’t done this Russia wouldn’t dare to?
Ok. Color me dumb.
Why do people carry these devices in luggage?
They can’t manage another way on a trip?
There’s a store everywhere.
Israel at least had a point to their operation: try to injure or kill as many Hezbollah operatives as they could. What’s the point of Russia’s operation?
The fancy internet-enabled ones sell for $100 to $250. You don’t just go pick up another one of those at the store. And it’s kinda inconvenient to hit a store if you’re traveling overseas or getting on a cruise ship. Can you tell the taxi driver “Please take me to the sex toy store” in Spanish or Thai or German or whatever? Will you?
Well played!
You laugh, but a rather common scenario is the baggage handlers detect some buzzing luggage before or during airplane loading. The bag gets pulled aside and the passenger is summoned up front to talk to the agent about it. As Captain I got to participate in several of these delicate, embarrassing, and simultaneously very funny convos.
We can’t let the bag on until it quits buzzing. And if it turns out the gizmo is powered by a lithium battery (which all the modern ones with internal batteries are), then once we know about it, we can’t let it into the cargo hold. Anything with a built-in lithium battery has to go in carry-on baggage, purse, laptop bag, etc., or the trash. (Yes, we know people sneak stuff on all the time without telling the airline as they should. But once we know it’s in there, it’s too late for that.)
So picture the scene of a mystified traveler, usually female and young-ish, PAed to leave her seat and come to the front of the jet. Where she, I, a gate agent (about 75% female) and some burly galoot who tosses luggage for a living (abut 95% male) all converge just off the airplane to have a private convo that results in the customer needing to open her suitcase, find, show us, and turn off the buzzing whatever-it-is. And if it’s got a built-in battery, bring it back to her seat somehow without dying of embarrassment during the walk down the aisle.
You can imagine how well these convos go. Either belligerent denial, or big “OMG I’m gonna die of embarrassment!” eyes followed by crying. Some gals are the jaded “Oh yeah, that thing again” and we get right to the business of disarming this dire threat to aviation security / safety. 
FYI, most modern vibes with built-in batteries have an “airplane” mode you can set which makes it almost impossible to be turned on by random jostling or pressure on the on/off button from other stuff in your bag. If only you read the instruction manual (yes, beck they have instruction manuals now) and remember not only to do it, but how to do it. And how to undo it once you get to the hotel / cruise ship w your BF. 
My bottom line professionally speaking: vibes in luggage are funny. Exploding vibes are not, whether than happens in an airplane or in a person.
Just like the efforts a few years ago with exploding laser printer toner cartridges:
Hey, I read instructions on everything I buy. Just how I roll.
Look if you’re gonna go vacay with SO and toys are needed, I’d say leave the fancy/$$ one home. Go to CVS or Walmart buy a cheapy. Toss it out before you fly home.
They are no officially as annoying as actual men.
Nitpick but a dildo is different from a vibrator/massager.
Do tell.
Despite the humor, the point of course is to put explosives in ordinary consumer products where the x-ray / CT / [whatever scanner] tech will see nothing out of the ordinary between the explosives and the unadulterated product.
Then you ship the adulterated products in the same supply chain as the real ones and wait for the inevitable ka-boom.
I thought there were bomb sniffers that scanned for the most common explosives, usually based on nitrated hydrocarbons.
Destoying? Is that de-sex-toying?
There are such devices. Whether every container or package of cargo in every sea- or air-port port gets opened and sniffed in detail by such devices is a different question.
As well, careful design of the explosives and the sealed container they’re cast into may well produce less than detectable levels of leakage. Embedding a cylinder of explosive inside a 0.5" thick wrapper of silicone rubber may produce negligible fume leakage. I know I don’t know, but it may well be possible.
Trained dogs seem able to sniff out contraband despite heroic efforts on the part of smugglers to seal and sanitize containers.