5 ms·

Starlink transmissions become beacons for airstrikes

44 points by Sami_Lehtinen 5y ago

Terry_Roll 5y ago
So are the Ukrainian's trying to get US targets involved, namely Starlink? Is this a modern day pearl harbour?
- 4gotunameagain 5y ago
  mate the starlink is a device. by that reasoning in every single war chinese targets are involved
  - Terry_Roll 5y ago
    I'm really surprised there are not more robots being used and shown in the media. Where has all this AI/robotic military equipment gone?
    - allisdust 5y ago
      They are limited to funky YouTube videos. The only robots that are worth it are the unmanned drones remotely piloted (so not really robotic).
- nest0r 5y ago
  They attacked satellite dishes designed in the US and made in China. It’s the Ukrainians trying to force American boots on the ground. /s
  - dgellow 5y ago
    Imagine Biden announcing US involvement on the ground to protect Starlink devices xD
XorNot 5y ago
While this is advisable for civilians, it's been basic radio doctrine for decades that you setup antennas and communications by hardlink well away from where you're physically based. Starlink and wifi make this even easier since the dish can be literally kilometers away from local repeaters who can and should use small scale parabolic antennas to talk to it. Not to mention this isn't asymmetric warfare yet: Russia does not have air superiority. If they start reliably tasking aircraft to attack Starlink dishes, then they're also reliably tasking aircraft into MANPAD and SAM kill zones - to hit a target which has no direct military value.
senectus1 5y ago
would be fairly easy to camouflage the "dish" I should think... especial in a place that is currently having snow...
- squarefoot 5y ago
  Camouflage does nothing if a drone flying above the dish detects the transmission and reports its location. However, using a dish is still much better than other antennas since the radiation is very directional and the drone/plane has to be near the line of sight between the dish and the satellite to detect it.
  - LinuxBender 5y ago
    Not to mention wasting expensive munitions on what would likely be one of many $700 transceivers coupled with repeaters would be an entertaining and expensive game of whack-a-mole.
- mhh__ 5y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-radiation_missile https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-radiation_missile The British one "ALARM" will even loiter in the air using a parachute and wait for new trasmissions before resuming normal flight.
  - senectus1 5y ago
    huh. was not aware of that.
anovikov 5y ago
If this happens it means asymmetrical use of resources: a sortie in a contested sky vs something of zero military value. Plus probably just a honeypot to attract a plane closer to a guy with a Stinger.
daqhris 5y ago
The article has diverse undertones of overthinking. Looks like someone who has not lived in a conflict zone found a neat opportunity to do self-promotion. No one fighting off an invasion has time/energy to listen to anyone's smug opinions on Twitter. They voiced their needs, those wishes were granted. They said thank you to the benefactors. Let's hope it goes as smooth as possible! This kind of posts are gonna come up a lot, wish there was a way to filter or circle out stuff that waists attention or spreads unproven information about an ongoing war.
- StanislavPetrov 5y ago
  >wish there was a way to filter or circle out stuff that waists attention or spreads unproven information about an ongoing war. If you filtered out unproven information about an ongoing war there would be virtually no information available at all. The Fog of War is a real thing and very little that comes out of an active war zone can be confirmed, which is why its always advisable to maintain a healthy dose of skepticism no matter what you are hearing.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  The author is a senior researcher at CitizenLab and is the author of this[1] case study for USNWC titled "Revolutionary Risks: Cyber Technology and Threats in the 2011 Libyan Revolution". They also posted plenty of evidence of radio transmissions being targeted in war. He also has tomes of interesting research published in this field[2]. [1] https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1012&context=ciwag-case-studies https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?refere... [2] https://www.johnscottrailton.com/comms-research/ https://www.johnscottrailton.com/comms-research/
- rvz 5y ago
  Given the number of over-night armchair field marshals appearing all over Twitter sharing their strategic plans and opinions with captain obvious, I wonder if there was anyone who foresaw the US Afghanistan withdrawal disaster being an enabler of this whole war unfolding. > This kind of posts are gonna come up a lot, wish there was a way to filter or circle out stuff that waists attention or spreads unproven information about an ongoing war. You might need to filter out the majority of social media since that is infested with 'disinformation' and misleading posts and since lots of users get their news from social media, they are easily tricked and manipulated even from these sources which get shared and spread faster than they can get 'verified'. First these 'sources' said that these Russian forces were 'slowing down', and now it turns out that less than a day later the are already in Kyiv and have taken another city. It seems that it is better to wait and use multiple direct sources beyond social media, rather than to completely rely on mainstream media, since they can also can get manipulated via their own sources which the majority are from social media.
alkonaut 5y ago
Why would transmitter locations be targets? They are civilian targets (most likely) and if one wants to target civilians in urban conflict there is surely no lack of targets. I wouldn’t use a starlink dish at a military command post trying to hide in a forest, but no one would do that.
- yodon 5y ago
  Putin did not expect the first 24 hours of war to result in the unification of global public opinion against him, a unification which gives world leaders broad latitude to oppose him and which was made possible by the tweets and TikToks and YouTube videos coming out of Ukraine. Ukrainians need connectivity to transmit video out of their country in real time. Starlink dishes are going to be an increasingly important fraction of the bandwidth in and out of Ukraine as the conflict continues and Russia gains control of the physical network. Targeting starlink dishes greatly increases the perceived risk of operating one of the dishes, even if the actual increase in risk is small. Based on the pre-war intelligence the US shared, it appears Putin hoped to sway world opinions with his own faked and false flag videos. There is no way his studios could produce as much content with as much power as an entire nation of citizens carrying cell phones in a war zone can produce. Connectivity during wartime is going to be the new air combat superiority - in any future war it will be perceived as the most important battle for the invader to win first. Fortunately for defenders, among the focuses for the DarpaNet research effort that morphed into our modern Internet, communications survivability under attack was an explicit systems design goal, and some of those original research concepts still remain in our modern Internet. Ukraine is using bandwidth as a strategic weapon against Putin, and Putin is trying to neutralize that opposing weapon. The increase in risk to dish operators doesn't need to be that large to disproportionately increase the odds that individual dishes are kept off-line. The more that are kept off-line, the easier it is for Putin to concentrate forces on the dishes that are online, greatly increasing the actual risk to the dish operators who are online.
- jka 5y ago
  First question: what could some of the consequences be if civilian installations of these transmitters did become targets? Second question: would sales of these transmitters increase or decrease based on the outcomes you've presented in your first answer? (there's plenty of potential for benefits from additional and redundant access to data; it's important to balance the risks and rewards appropriately)
freemint 5y ago
Thread on Twitter discussing the same thing. IMHO not an issue yet.
cosmotic 5y ago
I'm no expert so correct me if I'm wrong: For an omnidirectional antenna, targeting is certainly possible. For a direct hyper-focused antenna like what I believe starlink uses, this would mean having to intersect a super thin column between the starliink receiver and the starlink satellite at multiple elevations to establish where the receiver is, like flying through a net of threads connecting the dishes to the satellites. The chances of hitting a thread are slim, and the chances of hitting it again are even slimmer. It seems like a very difficult task. Simply move the dish every evening and you've made the task even harder.
- alamortsubite 5y ago
  Even more difficult considering a dish only needs to be switched on intermittently to be extremely useful.

44 points by Sami_Lehtinen 5y ago

Terry_Roll 5y ago

So are the Ukrainian's trying to get US targets involved, namely Starlink? Is this a modern day pearl harbour?

4gotunameagain 5y ago
mate the starlink is a device. by that reasoning in every single war chinese targets are involved
- Terry_Roll 5y ago
  I'm really surprised there are not more robots being used and shown in the media. Where has all this AI/robotic military equipment gone?
  - allisdust 5y ago
    They are limited to funky YouTube videos. The only robots that are worth it are the unmanned drones remotely piloted (so not really robotic).
nest0r 5y ago
They attacked satellite dishes designed in the US and made in China. It’s the Ukrainians trying to force American boots on the ground. /s
- dgellow 5y ago
  Imagine Biden announcing US involvement on the ground to protect Starlink devices xD

XorNot 5y ago

While this is advisable for civilians, it's been basic radio doctrine for decades that you setup antennas and communications by hardlink well away from where you're physically based. Starlink and wifi make this even easier since the dish can be literally kilometers away from local repeaters who can and should use small scale parabolic antennas to talk to it. Not to mention this isn't asymmetric warfare yet: Russia does not have air superiority. If they start reliably tasking aircraft to attack Starlink dishes, then they're also reliably tasking aircraft into MANPAD and SAM kill zones - to hit a target which has no direct military value.

senectus1 5y ago

would be fairly easy to camouflage the "dish" I should think... especial in a place that is currently having snow...

squarefoot 5y ago
Camouflage does nothing if a drone flying above the dish detects the transmission and reports its location. However, using a dish is still much better than other antennas since the radiation is very directional and the drone/plane has to be near the line of sight between the dish and the satellite to detect it.
- LinuxBender 5y ago
  Not to mention wasting expensive munitions on what would likely be one of many $700 transceivers coupled with repeaters would be an entertaining and expensive game of whack-a-mole.
mhh__ 5y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-radiation_missile https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-radiation_missile The British one "ALARM" will even loiter in the air using a parachute and wait for new trasmissions before resuming normal flight.
- senectus1 5y ago
  huh. was not aware of that.

anovikov 5y ago

If this happens it means asymmetrical use of resources: a sortie in a contested sky vs something of zero military value. Plus probably just a honeypot to attract a plane closer to a guy with a Stinger.

daqhris 5y ago

The article has diverse undertones of overthinking. Looks like someone who has not lived in a conflict zone found a neat opportunity to do self-promotion. No one fighting off an invasion has time/energy to listen to anyone's smug opinions on Twitter. They voiced their needs, those wishes were granted. They said thank you to the benefactors. Let's hope it goes as smooth as possible! This kind of posts are gonna come up a lot, wish there was a way to filter or circle out stuff that waists attention or spreads unproven information about an ongoing war.

StanislavPetrov 5y ago
>wish there was a way to filter or circle out stuff that waists attention or spreads unproven information about an ongoing war. If you filtered out unproven information about an ongoing war there would be virtually no information available at all. The Fog of War is a real thing and very little that comes out of an active war zone can be confirmed, which is why its always advisable to maintain a healthy dose of skepticism no matter what you are hearing.
heavyset_go 5y ago
The author is a senior researcher at CitizenLab and is the author of this[1] case study for USNWC titled "Revolutionary Risks: Cyber Technology and Threats in the 2011 Libyan Revolution". They also posted plenty of evidence of radio transmissions being targeted in war. He also has tomes of interesting research published in this field[2]. [1] https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1012&context=ciwag-case-studies https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?refere... [2] https://www.johnscottrailton.com/comms-research/ https://www.johnscottrailton.com/comms-research/
rvz 5y ago
Given the number of over-night armchair field marshals appearing all over Twitter sharing their strategic plans and opinions with captain obvious, I wonder if there was anyone who foresaw the US Afghanistan withdrawal disaster being an enabler of this whole war unfolding. > This kind of posts are gonna come up a lot, wish there was a way to filter or circle out stuff that waists attention or spreads unproven information about an ongoing war. You might need to filter out the majority of social media since that is infested with 'disinformation' and misleading posts and since lots of users get their news from social media, they are easily tricked and manipulated even from these sources which get shared and spread faster than they can get 'verified'. First these 'sources' said that these Russian forces were 'slowing down', and now it turns out that less than a day later the are already in Kyiv and have taken another city. It seems that it is better to wait and use multiple direct sources beyond social media, rather than to completely rely on mainstream media, since they can also can get manipulated via their own sources which the majority are from social media.

alkonaut 5y ago

Why would transmitter locations be targets? They are civilian targets (most likely) and if one wants to target civilians in urban conflict there is surely no lack of targets. I wouldn’t use a starlink dish at a military command post trying to hide in a forest, but no one would do that.

yodon 5y ago
Putin did not expect the first 24 hours of war to result in the unification of global public opinion against him, a unification which gives world leaders broad latitude to oppose him and which was made possible by the tweets and TikToks and YouTube videos coming out of Ukraine. Ukrainians need connectivity to transmit video out of their country in real time. Starlink dishes are going to be an increasingly important fraction of the bandwidth in and out of Ukraine as the conflict continues and Russia gains control of the physical network. Targeting starlink dishes greatly increases the perceived risk of operating one of the dishes, even if the actual increase in risk is small. Based on the pre-war intelligence the US shared, it appears Putin hoped to sway world opinions with his own faked and false flag videos. There is no way his studios could produce as much content with as much power as an entire nation of citizens carrying cell phones in a war zone can produce. Connectivity during wartime is going to be the new air combat superiority - in any future war it will be perceived as the most important battle for the invader to win first. Fortunately for defenders, among the focuses for the DarpaNet research effort that morphed into our modern Internet, communications survivability under attack was an explicit systems design goal, and some of those original research concepts still remain in our modern Internet. Ukraine is using bandwidth as a strategic weapon against Putin, and Putin is trying to neutralize that opposing weapon. The increase in risk to dish operators doesn't need to be that large to disproportionately increase the odds that individual dishes are kept off-line. The more that are kept off-line, the easier it is for Putin to concentrate forces on the dishes that are online, greatly increasing the actual risk to the dish operators who are online.
jka 5y ago
First question: what could some of the consequences be if civilian installations of these transmitters did become targets? Second question: would sales of these transmitters increase or decrease based on the outcomes you've presented in your first answer? (there's plenty of potential for benefits from additional and redundant access to data; it's important to balance the risks and rewards appropriately)

freemint 5y ago

Thread on Twitter discussing the same thing. IMHO not an issue yet.

cosmotic 5y ago

I'm no expert so correct me if I'm wrong: For an omnidirectional antenna, targeting is certainly possible. For a direct hyper-focused antenna like what I believe starlink uses, this would mean having to intersect a super thin column between the starliink receiver and the starlink satellite at multiple elevations to establish where the receiver is, like flying through a net of threads connecting the dishes to the satellites. The chances of hitting a thread are slim, and the chances of hitting it again are even slimmer. It seems like a very difficult task. Simply move the dish every evening and you've made the task even harder.

alamortsubite 5y ago
Even more difficult considering a dish only needs to be switched on intermittently to be extremely useful.