But Moscow has ways of avoiding bans – as does Iran – and could have found a way to build Starlink-equipped kit that only becomes active once it crosses the border into Ukraine where SpaceX's service is allowed.
this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2024
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As much as I hate Elon for all the shit he says and does, but it also shows the sanctioning for stuff like this is not waterproof. These units can be bought by company X in country X and sells it to company Y in country Y who is friendly with Russia. Also depending where they get launched from (for example from occupied Ukraine) it makes it also difficult to tell "friend" from "foe". Can that be prevented ? Probably, but it's not as straightforward as armchair generals may make it sound.
Now, could spaceX do something more about this ? Most likely. But that is resources you need to put on this, which is not profitable. So long story short. It's more than Elon bad here.
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Didnt we already know that elon opened starlink to the russians? I thought he announced after that call with putin?
Isn't that a massive security risk?
Like, what if the U.S was using Roscosmos satellite links in drones? I'd certainly be raising an eyebrow.
Yeah, but it's not a government satellite system, it's an independent Internet provider. It is always possible that the US government/military has access on the back end, but that's not guaranteed. And since Ukraine is using Starlink, they can't exactly just disable all access in the region.
Kind of makes sense for Russia to try and use Starlink at least a bit to test the waters and see what sort of Intel the US has access to directly through it.
It is guaranteed, actually. US law imposes requirements on telecoms providers to support wire taps
A wiretap is different than having something like backdoor access at will for military use.
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If the item is indeed Starlink hardware, it should be possible to prove its origins – perhaps even where it was bought, and by whom.
sheeeeeeeeeeeit. Starlink isn't going to say shit, maybe someone else controls the database of serial numbers?
Has Tesla even identified that TX CyberFuck that killed it's unidentified (?) driver in early August? I can't find any followup on that, except that the wreck was going to be auctioned at the end of August. It's the one truck that has gone dark in all of TX that month... easy to figure it out on Tesla's end.
Remember they fired their corporate communications and even municipalities mid-project can’t get anyone on the phone. It’s burning down.
That said, I would not be shocked at all to find Elmo with his fascist oligarch mitts on this. That fucker needs a serious regulatory beatdown. (Not an actual, like, punching him in the head beatdown.)
(Not an actual, like, punching him in the head beatdown.)
Look, let's not be picky here
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DOJ and Pentagon are you listening?
It is almost like Elon is a really bad person.
It's almost like the Oligarchs of the world are all on the same team.
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It's one thing to be a capitalistic shitbag, it's another to be a traitor. Governments like capitalistic shitbags
Seem like governments also love traitors, look at amount of deals and collaborations between starlink and the US government
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink#Military_applications
Corrupt governments like capitalistic shitbags.
Is it possible to be a traitor when you're a capitalist shitbag?
They only have loyalty to themselves and their bank account. Quite literally the world could burn (due to their business) for all they care.
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they could also have stolen it though. gotta wait what an investigation of the serial numbers finds
They are most likely stolen or imported through a third party.
Shouldn't they be capable of detecting where the connection is going and disconnect/block it for specific regions or something? I have no clue how any of that stuff works but this one thing feels like it should be the case.
The Starlink probably only works once the drone enters Ukraine. Disabling Starlink in that area would cut off the Ukrainian military too. The internet traffic could easily be routed through a VPN in another country, so blocking Russian IP addresses on Starlink wouldn't work either.
Whitelist/allowlist for this region comes to my mind. But probably some other specific problems would arise from this too. Hmm...
If Starlink is the internet provider, aren't they providing the IP address? If they are how would a VPN trick Starlink since the equipment has to connect to Starlink first?
They do, but Ukraine uses Starlink, so they can't really disable usage entirely in the contested areas. They could disable the individual terminals, but that would require knowing which ones the Russians were using in the first place.
Well, given that they have access to Internet via starlink, all they would have to do is set up a website and list the IDs, then block everything that's not there.
They got me shipment? Add them to the list? No longer own the device? Remove it.
The problem is that not all of those terminals are being purchased by Ukraine, or supplied through official channels. There are tons of equipment being donated from third parties not directly affiliated, including Starlink terminals.
That's great if the Ukraine military were the only users in the region, but they aren't. Regular Starlink service is available in the country, outside military use. Even though the Ukraine military is using it, Starlink is not designed to be a military network. It is a civilian network that just happens to be available and extremely useful in this case, even with the Russian attempts to interfere with signals in the region.
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