this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2024
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[–] apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world 346 points 1 month ago (3 children)

It is almost like Elon is a really bad person.

[–] RedditWanderer@lemmy.world 121 points 1 month ago (4 children)

It's one thing to be a capitalistic shitbag, it's another to be a traitor. Governments like capitalistic shitbags

[–] Asafum@feddit.nl 30 points 1 month ago (2 children)

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.

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 16 points 1 month ago

People keep making the mistake of thinking the super rich have loyalty to a country.

[–] GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 month ago

Most people don't feel loyalty to the country they betray. It isn't a requirement to be a traitor.

[–] j4yt33 12 points 1 month ago

Some, like Donny, are both. Or the right wing AfD cunts in Germany. Or any other country

[–] index@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 month ago

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

[–] Zorque@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

Corrupt governments like capitalistic shitbags.

[–] lurch@sh.itjust.works 50 points 1 month ago (1 children)

they could also have stolen it though. gotta wait what an investigation of the serial numbers finds

[–] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 50 points 1 month ago (1 children)

They are most likely stolen or imported through a third party.

[–] Martineski@lemmy.dbzer0.com 35 points 1 month ago (2 children)

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.

[–] halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world 41 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] takeda@lemmy.world 20 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world 19 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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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[–] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 1 month ago (2 children)

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.

[–] IllNess@infosec.pub 8 points 1 month ago

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?

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[–] psycho_driver@lemmy.world 43 points 1 month ago (10 children)

It's almost like the Oligarchs of the world are all on the same team.

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[–] LEDZeppelin@lemmy.world 158 points 1 month ago

DOJ and Pentagon are you listening?

[–] piecat@lemmy.world 134 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] TheEighthDoctor@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I had this idea that the US was very hard on treason especially after Snowden but apparently it's selective treason

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[–] Hegar@fedia.io 84 points 1 month ago

Didnt we already know that elon opened starlink to the russians? I thought he announced after that call with putin?

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 73 points 1 month ago (2 children)

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.

[–] halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world 22 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] MartianSands@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It is guaranteed, actually. US law imposes requirements on telecoms providers to support wire taps

[–] halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

A wiretap is different than having something like backdoor access at will for military use.

[–] Dioxid3@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Don me a tinfoil hat, but I think it is absolutely within the realm of possible that half my networked electronics has a backdoor to one or another governmentsl agency. Or that my ”encrypted” WhatsApp conversations are available to US officials if need be.

Luckily I am as interesting as a slice of bread gone stale

[–] halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

Oh I'm sure that's the case for nearly all large social media and network systems based on the US. I'm also willing to bet that for some of these companies, almost no one even knows it's there, either because a 3 letter agency put it there themselves without being noticed, or an employee implemented it for them without corporate approval.

The US is worried about other countries doing this because we 100% are doing it ourselves. From a national security perspective, it's basically common sense. Ensure you have access to everything, even if you don't use it now, you might in the future and it will save time.

[–] todd_bonzalez@lemm.ee 5 points 1 month ago

Yeah, sure, if it was an adversary like the U.S. government and not a Russian ally like Elon Musk...

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 73 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 27 points 1 month ago (1 children)

This article was amended on 14 September 2023 to add an update to the subheading. As the Guardian reported on 12 September 2023, following the publication of this article, Walter Isaacson retracted the claim in his biography of Elon Musk that the SpaceX CEO had secretly told engineers to switch off Starlink coverage of the Crimean coast.

IIRC Musk didn't switch it off, it wasn't turned on in the first place and Musk refused to turn it on when the Ukrainian military reqeusted it.

Musk is a shithead but not for this reason.

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[–] rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works 37 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 20 points 1 month ago (4 children)

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.)

[–] zkfcfbzr@lemmy.world 19 points 1 month ago

(Not an actual, like, punching him in the head beatdown.)

Look, let's not be picky here

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[–] Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com 26 points 1 month ago

Elon is probably proud of it.

[–] resetbypeer@lemmy.world 20 points 1 month ago (3 children)

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.

[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 36 points 1 month ago (2 children)

They could probably prevent 99.999% of this with a list of starlink devices in ukraine, a list devices geolocated to the vicinity, and a single part time employee.

[–] Passerby6497@lemmy.world 18 points 1 month ago

Sure, but then he wouldn't have an excuse to hide behind while supporting Russia.

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[–] piecat@lemmy.world 32 points 1 month ago (13 children)

Look at this article from March 2024: https://robertgarcia.house.gov/media/in-the-news/cnbc-house-democrats-probe-spacex-over-alleged-illegal-export-and-use-starlink

In a statement on Thursday, the congressmen wrote, “Russia’s use of Starlink satellite terminals would be in contravention of U.S. export controls that prohibit Russia from acquiring and utilizing U.S.-produced technology.”

So the equipment has to fall into the wrong hands, through a somehow compromised supply chain. Maybe that could happen without starlink knowing, but they really should have figured that out in march. They should have very easily identified the units that were potentially compromised by auditing shipping logs.

Not only did the supply chain have to be compromised, but also the subscription and payments system... How did they not catch it on the subscription payment side? Now in addition to a compromised supply chain, a financial institution was compromised? At the least, they didn't do their due dilligance in customer verification.

How could russia have set up the equipment without some level of development and testing? Geolocation should have given that development away.

Now, could spaceX do something more about this ? Most likely. But that is resources you need to put on this, which is not profitable.

Yeah good point, that's called "negligence". Not doing due dilligance or taking the necessary steps to avoid breaking the law, because it isn't profitable, isn't a valid legal defense.

It really would have been as simple as geofencing against devices that weren't preauthorized or whitelisted.

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[–] SLVRDRGN@lemmy.world 13 points 1 month ago

Ukraine has been an enthusiastic adopter of Starlink after Elon Musk responded to Russia's invasion by shipping antennas valued at over $80 million to the country

For some reason, I'm reminded of the Trojan Horse.

[–] Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Typical dual-use problem. The best you can do is try and close any black import routes you find, and try to disable or disconnect base stations moving faster than 150 km/h.

Similar to how commercial civilian GPS clients shut off when moving at high speeds, except even better if you can do it from the satellite, so the client can't be modded as a workaround.

[–] IndustryStandard@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

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.

They could have, but that doesn't mean that Starlink couldn't do a lot more to catch them at it. You're making excuses for a fascist.

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[–] Mobiledecay@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

With my extensive knowledge about starlink satellites I uh... Ooh look at the pretty bird! 😍

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