Context
Indian-born entrepreneur ‘linked’ to deadly pager blasts in Lebanon
About Pagers:
- Wireless devices, also known as beepers, used to receive and display messages.
- Usage: Popular in the 1980s and 1990s; still used in healthcare and emergency services due to reliability in low-signal areas.
- Working Mechanism
- Radio Signals: Operate through radio signals from towers, capable of penetrating areas with weak cellular signals.
- Battery: Can last weeks on a single charge.
- Types of Pagers
- One-way pagers: Receive messages from a central transmitter; cannot reply; alert via beeps or vibrations.
- Two-way pagers: Can send and receive messages, though less functional than smartphones.
- Applications in Covert Operations
- Low Surveillance Risk: No GPS or internet, making location tracking difficult.
- Hard to Intercept: Use of radio frequencies makes monitoring challenging.
- Covert Modifications: Can be modified for remote detonation or discreet signaling.
About RCIED (Radio-Controlled Improvised Explosive Devices)
- RCIED: Uses pagers and consumer electronics to trigger explosives via radio frequencies.
- Explosive material integrated with a wireless radio or device that triggers upon receipt of a signal from a second wireless handheld device.
- Application: Employed by armed groups for targeting using weak signals to avoid detection.
Source:
TH
Previous Year Question
With reference to ‘LiFi’, recently in the news, which of the following statements is/are correct?
1. It uses light as the medium for high-speed data transmission.
2. It is a wireless technology and is several times faster than ‘WiFi’.
Select the correct answer using the code given below:
[UPSC Civil Services Exam – 2016 Prelims]
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) Neither 1 nor 2
Answer: (c)
