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The response from Starlink[0] was pretty amazing. I love this quote: "we want to congratulate Lennert Wouters on his security research into the Starlink user te

The response from Starlink[0] was pretty amazing. I love this quote: "we want to congratulate Lennert Wouters on his security research into the Starlink user terminal – his findings are likely why you're reading this, and help us create the best product possible." A lot better than companies that would try to prosecute him.. [0]: https://api.starlink.com/public-files/StarlinkWelcomesSecurityResearchersBringOnTheBugs.pdf https://api.starlink.com/public-files/StarlinkWelcomesSecuri...

LeifCarrotson 4y ago
Full of good sense. They do try to control the terminal to do a secure boot: > We want our devices to only run software that we wrote. This isn't like a personal computer where the user can install apps or save files – the only software we want to run on our devices is software that we've explicitly built, tested, and signed off on. > The same concepts that go into secure boot on our satellites are also useful on the Starlink user terminals. Even though we know that an attacker with persistent and invasive physical access will eventually be able to defeat secure boot on their own device, the protections of secure boot are still valuable for protecting against remote attacks over the Internet (or over wifi). There is a big difference between being able to take your own device off your roof and attack it, vs. someone else being able to compromise your device without you noticing. But recognize that it's not foolproof: > We expect attackers with invasive physical access to be able to take malicious actions on behalf of a single Starlink kit using its identity, so we rely on the design principle of "least privilege" to constrain the effects in the broader system. We treat Starlink user terminals as inherently untrusted and only expose the minimal necessary information and capabilities to each specific client. The article talks about the researcher "exploring the Starlink network" as if there's a screen on the satellites that will suddenly display "Access Granted" with a blinking cursor now that he's achieved root on his own dish. Getting access to the dish is an important step if the former is to be achieved, but it's by far the easier of the two steps.
unsupp0rted 4y ago
> Wouters revealed the vulnerability to SpaceX in a responsible way through its bug bounty program before publicly presenting on the issue.
throwaway2037 4y ago
Step 1: Why does Google Chrome on KDE/GNU/Linux refuse to allow me to copy text from this PDF??? So f-in annoying! That PR says: <<from embedded Linux running hundreds of thousands of computers in space>> Are these "computers" strictly controlled/owned by SpaceX? If yes, are there multiple computers per satellite? Please help me to understand this claim. In 2022, I assume when someone says "computers" they mean kernel count.
- drewg123 4y ago
  It works fine using the pdf viewer builtin to Linux firefox (running on FreeBSD-current).
- mynameisvlad 4y ago
  There's 2700 satellites currently deployed, so even at 1 per satellite it's still in the "thousands".
  - throwaway2037 4y ago
    Hmm... When I read "hundreds of thousands" I assume more than 100,000. Is that incorrect understanding of English?
    - thereddaikon 4y ago
      Satellites definitely have multiple computers onboard. Their design philosophy evolved from aircraft which tend to use discrete computer for different tasks. Communications, navigation, data logging etc. That's not counting the computers providing whatever the satellite's mission is and they almost always have redundant hardware to make up for failures which are common in space. So there are definitely far more "computers" in space than there are total satellites. Are there "hundreds of thousands"? I'm not sure.
      - nine_k 4y ago
        Yes, triple redundancy for critical systems is typical for space applications. With small computers being relatively cheap and lightweight, I suppose a satellite has a highly available internal computing configuration, with large level of redundancy, capable of functioning even after serious hardware degradation.
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LeifCarrotson 4y ago

Full of good sense. They do try to control the terminal to do a secure boot: > We want our devices to only run software that we wrote. This isn't like a personal computer where the user can install apps or save files – the only software we want to run on our devices is software that we've explicitly built, tested, and signed off on. > The same concepts that go into secure boot on our satellites are also useful on the Starlink user terminals. Even though we know that an attacker with persistent and invasive physical access will eventually be able to defeat secure boot on their own device, the protections of secure boot are still valuable for protecting against remote attacks over the Internet (or over wifi). There is a big difference between being able to take your own device off your roof and attack it, vs. someone else being able to compromise your device without you noticing. But recognize that it's not foolproof: > We expect attackers with invasive physical access to be able to take malicious actions on behalf of a single Starlink kit using its identity, so we rely on the design principle of "least privilege" to constrain the effects in the broader system. We treat Starlink user terminals as inherently untrusted and only expose the minimal necessary information and capabilities to each specific client. The article talks about the researcher "exploring the Starlink network" as if there's a screen on the satellites that will suddenly display "Access Granted" with a blinking cursor now that he's achieved root on his own dish. Getting access to the dish is an important step if the former is to be achieved, but it's by far the easier of the two steps.

unsupp0rted 4y ago

> Wouters revealed the vulnerability to SpaceX in a responsible way through its bug bounty program before publicly presenting on the issue.

throwaway2037 4y ago

Step 1: Why does Google Chrome on KDE/GNU/Linux refuse to allow me to copy text from this PDF??? So f-in annoying! That PR says: <<from embedded Linux running hundreds of thousands of computers in space>> Are these "computers" strictly controlled/owned by SpaceX? If yes, are there multiple computers per satellite? Please help me to understand this claim. In 2022, I assume when someone says "computers" they mean kernel count.

drewg123 4y ago
It works fine using the pdf viewer builtin to Linux firefox (running on FreeBSD-current).
mynameisvlad 4y ago
There's 2700 satellites currently deployed, so even at 1 per satellite it's still in the "thousands".
- throwaway2037 4y ago
  Hmm... When I read "hundreds of thousands" I assume more than 100,000. Is that incorrect understanding of English?
  - thereddaikon 4y ago
    Satellites definitely have multiple computers onboard. Their design philosophy evolved from aircraft which tend to use discrete computer for different tasks. Communications, navigation, data logging etc. That's not counting the computers providing whatever the satellite's mission is and they almost always have redundant hardware to make up for failures which are common in space. So there are definitely far more "computers" in space than there are total satellites. Are there "hundreds of thousands"? I'm not sure.
    - nine_k 4y ago
      Yes, triple redundancy for critical systems is typical for space applications. With small computers being relatively cheap and lightweight, I suppose a satellite has a highly available internal computing configuration, with large level of redundancy, capable of functioning even after serious hardware degradation.

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