  ``Remote triggering" refers to the inducement of earthquakes by weak
perturbations that emanate from far away sources, typically intense earthquakes
that happen at much larger distances than their nearby aftershocks, sometimes
even around the globe. Here, we propose a mechanism for this phenomenon; the
proposed mechanism is generic, resulting from the breaking of Hamiltonian
symmetry due to the existence of friction. We allow a transition from static to
dynamic friction. {\em Linearly stable} stressed systems display giant
sensitivity to small perturbations of arbitrary frequency (without a need for
resonance), which trigger an instability with exponential oscillatory growth.
Once nonlinear effects kick in, the blow up in mean-square displacements can
reach 15-20 orders of magnitude. Analytic and numerical results of the proposed
model are presented and discussed.

Geophysics;Soft Condensed Matter;Statistical Mechanics