TOKYO/SHANGHAI/TAIPEI ¨C The lethal hack of Hezbollah¡¯s Asian-branded pagers and walkie-talkies has sparked an intense search for the devices¡¯ path, revealing a murky market for older technologies where buyers may have few assurances about what they are getting.
While supply chains and distribution channels for higher-margin and newer products are tightly managed, that¡¯s not the case for older electronics from Asia where counterfeiting, surplus inventories and complex contract manufacturing deals can sometimes make it impossible to identify the source of a product, analysts and consultants say.
The response from the companies at the center of the booby-trapped gadgets that killed 37 people and wounded about 3,000 in Lebanon this week has underlined difficulties in discerning how and when they were weaponised.
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