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I'm afraid it's mostly the opposite, a death rate improvement. I can't find the publication with the official soldier death toll numbers - not that you can trus

I'm afraid it's mostly the opposite, a death rate improvement. I can't find the publication with the official soldier death toll numbers - not that you can trust any wartime publication - but the second highest death toll was for Ukrainian drone operators. The highest still is for Starlink terminal operators, mostly soldiers too. I spoke with a few while they where under fire and we both where scared as hell that they would target the Starlink dish (it has two very unique radio signatures) while we where video conferencing with it. Now its worse, the Russians also use them [1]. [1] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/11/ukraine-intelligence-confirms-russian-forces-using-starlink https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/11/ukraine-intelligenc...

inemesitaffia 3y ago
They've been warned to stop using Wi-Fi especially the stock router. Russia has publicly mentioned having 2.4 and 5 Ghz truck mounted scanners (Tobol)
dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
I'm probably clueless, but wouldn't it be of benefit to run long cables to place transmitting antennas at a safe distance from the operator? I'm thinking something like 100m but maybe that doesn't make much difference under shelling.
- morphle 3y ago
  Firstly, Starlink cables are 1 Gbps ethernet with PoE [1]. This means 53V DC power over thin twisted pair cables, after a few meters the voltage drops below 48V DC and the cables start showing up in infrared because they are heated by the electrical resistance. Standard Starlink cables can't reach further than +/- 30 meters reliably. Those 30 meters run to the wifi router where your power supply must be. You certainly can't be mobile anymore with this setup. We use optical fiber instead but this requires a very large, heavy and warm battery to stay very close to the Starlink dish while the operator can now be kilometers away. You can now disable the Starlink Wifi router but only if you patch the encrypted firmware and spoof the account credentials. SpaceX calls that illegal and will disable and brick your hardware as soon as they find out. Doing this extensive conversion is only for very capable hackers and has been done by only three people on our planet, as far as I am aware [2][3]. If you need similar patching and optical wireing, we will be happy to eductate you, for a small fee. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_over_Ethernet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_over_Ethernet [2] https://hackaday.com/2023/08/31/diving-into-starlinks-user-terminal-firmware/ https://hackaday.com/2023/08/31/diving-into-starlinks-user-t... [3] https://www.wired.com/story/starlink-internet-dish-hack/ https://www.wired.com/story/starlink-internet-dish-hack/
  - inemesitaffia 3y ago
    Use a Yaosheng injector
  - throwaway-571 3y ago
    I’m surprised that opening the router and physically disabling the wifi antenna is not a solution. I would understand that running the router in a faraday cage is not viable as the ethernet cable has to get from the router to the dish.
    - sneak 3y ago
      A faraday cage with a hole only big enough for an ethernet cable would almost certainly still block enough wifi that the signal would only be detectable for a few meters. Probably not very much would leak through the cable. It would be dwarfed by the emanations from the, you know, space transmitter co-located with it. Locating the dish isn’t the issue, the proposal was using fiber to make the dish (detectable) and the operator (vulnerable) separated by distance.
      - throwaway-571 3y ago
        They seemed to say that a special software hack was required to block the wifi, so i was wondering why the obvious physical hacks were not worth it.
        morphle 3y ago
        There is more to it. For example, do you trust SpaceX to not relay your location to your enemy? Do you want to broadcast your identity at all if there can be a man-in-the-middle-attack? A dozen other reasons....
        lxgr 3y ago
        If you don't, should you be using a highly directional (Starlink achieves the capacity it does through spatial reuse allowed by directional antennas on both ends, so the satellites do need to know where you are pretty precisely), proprietary-hardware-requiring, inherently authenticated (for billing purposes), and generally very civilian focused satellite service? A military service would probably use wider beams coming from the satellite, as well as different encryption (making it impossible to distinguish which terminal is being transmitted to on which beam and not using correlatable identifiers on unencrypted protocol layers at all). Using civilian communications technology like cell phones has been a bad idea, as evidenced in the same conflict.
dalore 3y ago
The source for that is the "Ministry of Defence’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR)" so I would take that with a huge grain of salt. They are a bit upset that Musk refused to allow them an offensive use of Starlink which would have, in his opinion, escalated the war. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/musk-says-he-refused-kyiv-request-use-starlink-attack-russia-2023-09-08/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/musk-says-he-refused-ky...
- morphle 3y ago
  Things chance quickly in a war, the situation is now (29 Februari 2024) very different. Starlinks mounted on drones by both sides, for example. Nato and US militairy paying for special Starlink. Jamming at 10Ghz-60Ghz.
  - ackbar03 3y ago
    Wait, they're mounting starlink on drones? Is that actually a thing?
    - morphle 3y ago
      At least one sea drone had one? [2]. "The first casualty when war comes is truth" [1] https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=starlink+on+sea+drone&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=starlin... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFhADRYXi_8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFhADRYXi_8
    - inemesitaffia 3y ago
      Baba Yaga and boat drones
  - zug_zug 3y ago
    Could you share a source for that if we wanted to learn more?
    - morphle 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

inemesitaffia 3y ago

They've been warned to stop using Wi-Fi especially the stock router. Russia has publicly mentioned having 2.4 and 5 Ghz truck mounted scanners (Tobol)

dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago

I'm probably clueless, but wouldn't it be of benefit to run long cables to place transmitting antennas at a safe distance from the operator? I'm thinking something like 100m but maybe that doesn't make much difference under shelling.

morphle 3y ago
Firstly, Starlink cables are 1 Gbps ethernet with PoE [1]. This means 53V DC power over thin twisted pair cables, after a few meters the voltage drops below 48V DC and the cables start showing up in infrared because they are heated by the electrical resistance. Standard Starlink cables can't reach further than +/- 30 meters reliably. Those 30 meters run to the wifi router where your power supply must be. You certainly can't be mobile anymore with this setup. We use optical fiber instead but this requires a very large, heavy and warm battery to stay very close to the Starlink dish while the operator can now be kilometers away. You can now disable the Starlink Wifi router but only if you patch the encrypted firmware and spoof the account credentials. SpaceX calls that illegal and will disable and brick your hardware as soon as they find out. Doing this extensive conversion is only for very capable hackers and has been done by only three people on our planet, as far as I am aware [2][3]. If you need similar patching and optical wireing, we will be happy to eductate you, for a small fee. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_over_Ethernet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_over_Ethernet [2] https://hackaday.com/2023/08/31/diving-into-starlinks-user-terminal-firmware/ https://hackaday.com/2023/08/31/diving-into-starlinks-user-t... [3] https://www.wired.com/story/starlink-internet-dish-hack/ https://www.wired.com/story/starlink-internet-dish-hack/
- inemesitaffia 3y ago
  Use a Yaosheng injector
- throwaway-571 3y ago
  I’m surprised that opening the router and physically disabling the wifi antenna is not a solution. I would understand that running the router in a faraday cage is not viable as the ethernet cable has to get from the router to the dish.
  - sneak 3y ago
    A faraday cage with a hole only big enough for an ethernet cable would almost certainly still block enough wifi that the signal would only be detectable for a few meters. Probably not very much would leak through the cable. It would be dwarfed by the emanations from the, you know, space transmitter co-located with it. Locating the dish isn’t the issue, the proposal was using fiber to make the dish (detectable) and the operator (vulnerable) separated by distance.
    - throwaway-571 3y ago
      They seemed to say that a special software hack was required to block the wifi, so i was wondering why the obvious physical hacks were not worth it.
      - morphle 3y ago
        There is more to it. For example, do you trust SpaceX to not relay your location to your enemy? Do you want to broadcast your identity at all if there can be a man-in-the-middle-attack? A dozen other reasons....
        lxgr 3y ago
        If you don't, should you be using a highly directional (Starlink achieves the capacity it does through spatial reuse allowed by directional antennas on both ends, so the satellites do need to know where you are pretty precisely), proprietary-hardware-requiring, inherently authenticated (for billing purposes), and generally very civilian focused satellite service? A military service would probably use wider beams coming from the satellite, as well as different encryption (making it impossible to distinguish which terminal is being transmitted to on which beam and not using correlatable identifiers on unencrypted protocol layers at all). Using civilian communications technology like cell phones has been a bad idea, as evidenced in the same conflict.

dalore 3y ago

The source for that is the "Ministry of Defence’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR)" so I would take that with a huge grain of salt. They are a bit upset that Musk refused to allow them an offensive use of Starlink which would have, in his opinion, escalated the war. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/musk-says-he-refused-kyiv-request-use-starlink-attack-russia-2023-09-08/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/musk-says-he-refused-ky...

morphle 3y ago
Things chance quickly in a war, the situation is now (29 Februari 2024) very different. Starlinks mounted on drones by both sides, for example. Nato and US militairy paying for special Starlink. Jamming at 10Ghz-60Ghz.
- ackbar03 3y ago
  Wait, they're mounting starlink on drones? Is that actually a thing?
  - morphle 3y ago
    At least one sea drone had one? [2]. "The first casualty when war comes is truth" [1] https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=starlink+on+sea+drone&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=starlin... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFhADRYXi_8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFhADRYXi_8
  - inemesitaffia 3y ago
    Baba Yaga and boat drones
- zug_zug 3y ago
  Could you share a source for that if we wanted to learn more?
  - morphle 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]