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My Google history from today legit makes me look like a straight up terrorist. There was speculation that the pager explosions were triggered by overheating the batteries (which is what lead to the whole "it was malware" insane speculation).

It's pretty much widely accepted at this point that the pagers were intercepted and implanted with PETN, but that doesn't actually answer the question. PETN is a secondary explosive (i.e. it's fairly stable and highly resistant to detonation from force or ignition). So the (IMO) most interesting question, which is currently still unanswered, is how did they detonated the PETN, and how did they build a detonator that would not be discovered by inspection, explosive detectors, etc.

While malware is 100% out of the question, custom lithium batteries could be made with a mechanism designed to reliably cause thermal runaway via an internal short circuit. So, I was curious if theoretically you could use a maliciously modified LiPo battery as a detonator PETN.

What I can gather from my research, is that PETN can't reliably be detonated by an open flame, and the heat produced by thermal runaway from a LiPo battery would be so hot that it would actually cause the PETN to undergo chemical decomposition and become inactive.

So, basically, the result of my entire Google history now looking like "hello, yes, CIA, I am doing a terrorism" is thermal runaway as a trigger is unlikely.