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Is the optimism about being able to bypass censorship really valid? SpaceX may be resistant to the censorship demands of some governments, but a lot of other th

Is the optimism about being able to bypass censorship really valid? SpaceX may be resistant to the censorship demands of some governments, but a lot of other things need to happen to get someone online. To begin with you need to acquire Starlink's receiver, which probably makes it inaccessible to North Koreans for example, and difficult to acquire for citizens of any country that has efficient import controls. Then you have to use it without being detected. I have no idea whether that is easy or hard -- can you put the receiver in a covert location? Can the government drive a van around your neighborhood and detect signals going to and from the receiver, or triangulate it in some other way? If it bypasses existing censorship infrastructure in a given country and Starlink refuses to comply with censorship, you can guarantee that country will make it illegal, and in some cases introduce some scary penalties for using it (i.e. prison).

tachyonbeam 7y ago
So, I think you're mostly right, but not for these reasons. People have been sneaking forbidden things past borders for a long time. Think of the drug trade. Every country has a chemical drug trade it seems, even countries where the penalty is death such as Thailand. Then you also have to think that countries like China... Will be the countries making those Starlink receivers, so Chinese people looking to bypass the firewall may not have to get the equipment around any borders. They might be able to pick them up at the back of the factory, or when they "fall off a truck". I also think it might be somewhat difficult to detect and track receivers down. You need specialized equipment to triangulate receivers, multiple vehicles. AFAIK Starling satellites use phased array antennas, which, if I understand correctly, might mean that they can sort of direct a beam towards you, and your dish will be pointed at the sky, not wasting power directing waves in every direction. That makes triangulation significantly harder than it would be for a cellphone. That being said, Elon Musk can't just enable Starlink everywhere. China has enormous political leverage and a powerful military, and Tesla just finished building a new factory there. He can't just give them the middle finger. The official policy will be to either comply with the Chinese filtering rules, or not offer Starlink in China. Still, if Elon does care about censorship, maybe he will leave some kind of backdoor... Maybe it will be surprisingly easy to "crack" your Starlink receiver and set it to a fake country code, and suddenly have access to unfiltered US-region internet from anywhere (think mod chips). Then, China and other countries may not care enough to crack down. People routinely bypass the Chinese firewall using VPNs, and as far as I know, they're not going to prison for it. Hopefully it remains that way.
- esjeon 7y ago
  > You need specialized equipment to triangulate receivers, multiple vehicles It's not "specialized", more like just dedicated, because those devices are pretty simple to create. Also, mathematically, one "running" vehicle is enough, but two is minimum for the sake of precision and efficiency. > AFAIK Starling satellites use phased array antennas, Phased arrays do leak signals all over the place ("side lobe"). If transmit power is high enough, this can be detected miles away. Say, during military exercise, activating phased-array based FCR randomly rings RWRs of nearby jets (if the signal is not whitelisted beforehand). > maybe he will leave some kind of backdoor... Maybe it will be surprisingly easy to "crack" your Starlink receiver and set it to a fake country code, and suddenly have access to unfiltered US-region internet from anywhere I don't get where people get this kind of blind optimism. The reality is that traffic control can be imposed based on physical location of satellite. Plus, VPN is cheap and works just okay, except occasional take downs. This new internet won't cause any kind of paradigm shift that some people desperately try to push.
  - tachyonbeam 7y ago
    > Phased arrays do leak signals all over the place ("side lobe") I would expect the intensity of those signals to be constantly varying, given that multiple satellites are moving in the sky on different orbital planes. I'm also assuming that said "side lobes" are not equal in intensity in every direction. That has to be significantly more difficult to triangulate than a cellphone or an AM radio emitter. In other words, you would need trained crews specifically trying to locate Starlink users. > The reality is that traffic control can be imposed based on physical location of satellite. Satellites don't have enough fuel to constantly dodge specific countries. We're talking about low earth orbit satellites, that's one orbit every 1.6 hour. You could adjust your orbital planes to optimize coverage for some countries and not others, but once the whole Starlink fleet is up there, you will still have coverage basically everywhere. > This new internet won't cause any kind of paradigm shift that some people desperately try to push. Probably not, but it will be one more means of global communication, with more coverage than anything we've seen before.
    - 7y ago
rkangel 7y ago
I agree, but for yet another reason - you legally need permission from the country to transmit in its spectrum. This is normally handled by the ITU so that there is global consistency, but that doesn't mean that a country can't withdraw its permission in some way, e.g. by leaving the ITU. There may even be less nuclear options - I'm waiting for the expert to return to the office to consult...

tachyonbeam 7y ago

So, I think you're mostly right, but not for these reasons. People have been sneaking forbidden things past borders for a long time. Think of the drug trade. Every country has a chemical drug trade it seems, even countries where the penalty is death such as Thailand. Then you also have to think that countries like China... Will be the countries making those Starlink receivers, so Chinese people looking to bypass the firewall may not have to get the equipment around any borders. They might be able to pick them up at the back of the factory, or when they "fall off a truck". I also think it might be somewhat difficult to detect and track receivers down. You need specialized equipment to triangulate receivers, multiple vehicles. AFAIK Starling satellites use phased array antennas, which, if I understand correctly, might mean that they can sort of direct a beam towards you, and your dish will be pointed at the sky, not wasting power directing waves in every direction. That makes triangulation significantly harder than it would be for a cellphone. That being said, Elon Musk can't just enable Starlink everywhere. China has enormous political leverage and a powerful military, and Tesla just finished building a new factory there. He can't just give them the middle finger. The official policy will be to either comply with the Chinese filtering rules, or not offer Starlink in China. Still, if Elon does care about censorship, maybe he will leave some kind of backdoor... Maybe it will be surprisingly easy to "crack" your Starlink receiver and set it to a fake country code, and suddenly have access to unfiltered US-region internet from anywhere (think mod chips). Then, China and other countries may not care enough to crack down. People routinely bypass the Chinese firewall using VPNs, and as far as I know, they're not going to prison for it. Hopefully it remains that way.

esjeon 7y ago
> You need specialized equipment to triangulate receivers, multiple vehicles It's not "specialized", more like just dedicated, because those devices are pretty simple to create. Also, mathematically, one "running" vehicle is enough, but two is minimum for the sake of precision and efficiency. > AFAIK Starling satellites use phased array antennas, Phased arrays do leak signals all over the place ("side lobe"). If transmit power is high enough, this can be detected miles away. Say, during military exercise, activating phased-array based FCR randomly rings RWRs of nearby jets (if the signal is not whitelisted beforehand). > maybe he will leave some kind of backdoor... Maybe it will be surprisingly easy to "crack" your Starlink receiver and set it to a fake country code, and suddenly have access to unfiltered US-region internet from anywhere I don't get where people get this kind of blind optimism. The reality is that traffic control can be imposed based on physical location of satellite. Plus, VPN is cheap and works just okay, except occasional take downs. This new internet won't cause any kind of paradigm shift that some people desperately try to push.
- tachyonbeam 7y ago
  > Phased arrays do leak signals all over the place ("side lobe") I would expect the intensity of those signals to be constantly varying, given that multiple satellites are moving in the sky on different orbital planes. I'm also assuming that said "side lobes" are not equal in intensity in every direction. That has to be significantly more difficult to triangulate than a cellphone or an AM radio emitter. In other words, you would need trained crews specifically trying to locate Starlink users. > The reality is that traffic control can be imposed based on physical location of satellite. Satellites don't have enough fuel to constantly dodge specific countries. We're talking about low earth orbit satellites, that's one orbit every 1.6 hour. You could adjust your orbital planes to optimize coverage for some countries and not others, but once the whole Starlink fleet is up there, you will still have coverage basically everywhere. > This new internet won't cause any kind of paradigm shift that some people desperately try to push. Probably not, but it will be one more means of global communication, with more coverage than anything we've seen before.
  - 7y ago

rkangel 7y ago

I agree, but for yet another reason - you legally need permission from the country to transmit in its spectrum. This is normally handled by the ITU so that there is global consistency, but that doesn't mean that a country can't withdraw its permission in some way, e.g. by leaving the ITU. There may even be less nuclear options - I'm waiting for the expert to return to the office to consult...