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Ukraine Discovers Starlink on Downed Russian Shahed Drone: Report

TMWNN 2y ago
Both sides in the Ukraine War are using "irregular" Starlink dishes. * Russia is reportedly buying dishes (and the service attached to the dishes) in the Middle East. * Ukraine has its own fleet of dishes (being paid for by the US, after Musk initially provided free service early in the war after a Ukrainian request), but also many individual dishes that were donated, and being paid for, by private individuals outside Ukraine. US law prohibits Russia from using Starlink. The problem is, how to stop Russia from doing so? A simple location-based ban won't work, because the front line is constantly shifting. Whitelisting only Ukraine's own dishes to work within Ukrainian territory might work, but 1) what about dishes that get captured by Russia? 2) As noted, what about all the privately paid-for dishes? Another way to think about this is that this demonstrates just how lifesaving for Ukraine Starlink has become. Ukraine could ask Starlink to disable all dishes within its territory. On the contrary, it has decided that the benefits of Starlink to Ukrainians outweighs Russians also benefiting from it.
- CamperBob2 2y ago
  Whoever exported the dishes to whatever Middle Eastern entity transferred them to Russia is very much on the hook for the consequences under US law. Even if it was SpaceX themselves, they need to be fined heavily, just as any of us would be. They are responsible by law (and good luck downvoting the Department of Commerce.) Also, whoever took possession of the equipment at the receiving end needs to be added to the Denied Persons List ( https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/policy-guidance/lists-of-parties-of-concern/denied-persons-list https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/policy-guidance/lists-of-p... ), so that they can no longer participate in international commerce with the US.
  - rolph 2y ago
    this goes beyond fines
    - CamperBob2 2y ago
      If there's intent, yes, but I'm sure they didn't intend for the gear to end up in Russian hands.
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    How does legally selling a dish to a legal customer in the middle east imply liability?
    - rolph 2y ago
      if you know, or ought to reasonably know what it will be used for, you are contributing to armament of a foreign power, and international traffic in arms.
      - s1artibartfast 2y ago
        Reasonable does a lot of heavy lifting there. For most things, I dont think it is reasonable to be able to predict, track, and detect 2nd and 3rd order transfers. Have you ever sold a used car? That could be in Russia right now for all you know.
    - CamperBob2 2y ago
      That's just how it works, per Export Administration Regulation rules (see https://www.bis.gov/regulations https://www.bis.gov/regulations ). You send something out of the country that's not designated EAR99 and it ends up in the wrong hands, they will^H^H^H^H can come down on you like a ton of bricks. It's a relatively-big hassle in the hardware business, with disproportionately high stakes. Safe to say a Starlink receiver isn't EAR99.
    - Zigurd 2y ago
      Easy: You need a service subscription to use Starlink. If you are paying for Starlink service after transferring it to Russia, yoo are complicit.
      - s1artibartfast 2y ago
        Yes, but that is very different than everyone in the upstream chain of custody being complicit.
  - 486sx33 2y ago
    Sure, go to Saudi Arabia and arrest people in power under US law. Hahahaha
    - CamperBob2 2y ago
      That's not how it works, hahahaha.
- dist-epoch 2y ago
  Musk could give Ukraine real-time access to the location of all starlink dishes in the front line region, and Ukraine could say which one are not theirs.
  - k12sosse 2y ago
    But how does this benefit musk? For this reason, you will not see this. Musk's moral compass has no needle.
  - e12e 2y ago
    ... and Ukraine could bomb those they didn't operate. Providing such strike intelligence data might land Starlink even more squarely in the "military supplier"-basket - making it subject to stricter export regulations.
    - ben_w 2y ago
      I think Musk may be more worried about Russian nukes than export controls. Personally, I think Russian nukes and their missiles are likely to be a Potempkin force, but I have no special intelligence to back that up, it's just based on what I see of Russian corruption and them accidentally sinking one of their own subs and separately setting their only aircraft carrier on fire about one year after their largest drydock sank and dropped a crane onto the deck. And that was before one of their missile silos exploded.
      - rolph 2y ago
        one nuke in orbit, will disrupt satellite service, duration dependent on design.
        ben_w 2y ago
        Yes, but Starlink is designed to be cheap and rapidly replaced anyway. One nuke in space would also be a continental scale EMP, which is why, despite my expectation that the Russian stuff is probably more paint than metal, it's still not a good idea to bet the farm (everyone's farm) on that.
- rscho 2y ago
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- shykes 2y ago
  > US law prohibits Russia from using Starlink. The problem is, how to stop Russia from doing so? A simple location-based ban won't work, because the front line is constantly shifting. Whitelisting only Ukraine's own dishes to work within Ukrainian territory might work, but 1) what about dishes that get captured by Russia? 2) As noted, what about all the privately paid-for dishes? It might be more beneficial to silently spy on Russian terminals once they are found, rather than block them. In fact I wonder how much of that has been going on.
  - Jach 2y ago
    It seems more likely that Russia would just be using the hardware to communicate with their own systems, probably not Starlink's actual network. For a kamikaze drone, if you don't have to pay for the antenna, great, money saved. Two years ago there was a Black Hat talk on hacking the equipment, full compromise, is it inconceivable that Russia could find more vulnerabilities? They have their own satellites, too, it's not like they need to use Starlink unlike Ukraine.
    - _visgean 2y ago
      I dont think starlink antena is able to communicate with their own satelites - those are much higher and you would need much more powerfull antenna.
- wodenokoto 2y ago
  > 1) what about dishes that get captured by Russia? 2) As noted, what about all the privately paid-for dishes? Let the Ukranian military decide which dishes are allowed to work in Ukraine and Russia. Surely they all have mac addresses and need a subscription/login to connect to the network, so surely it is manageable. How well do the dishes triangulate? Can you follow their movement like cellphones, just less precise?
  - TMWNN 2y ago
    > > 1) what about dishes that get captured by Russia? 2) As noted, what about all the privately paid-for dishes? > Let the Ukranian military decide which dishes are allowed to work in Ukraine and Russia. Surely they all have mac addresses and need a subscription/login to connect to the network, so surely it is manageable. No, Ukraine does not have the data needed to do this reliably. As I said, >many individual dishes that were donated, and being paid for, by private individuals outside Ukraine. Ukraine has decided that having those dishes continue to operate along with the odd Russian dish is better than mistakenly turning Ukrainian dishes paid by an American or French or Australian individual off.
- deely3 2y ago
  1) what about dishes that get captured by Russia? I suppose Ukraine will be happy to report stolen devices to Starlink. 2) As noted, what about all the privately paid-for dishes? Controversial topic, but Ukraine can decide what to do with this devices.
  - TMWNN 2y ago
    >>1) what about dishes that get captured by Russia? >I suppose Ukraine will be happy to report stolen devices to Starlink. If Russia completely wipes out a Ukrainian unit and seizes its dishes, who will report their being stolen? Especially if those dishes were donated and paid for by private individuals outside Ukraine in the first place, so do not appear on any Ukrainian government list?
    - int_19h 2y ago
      Just because it was donated through volunteers doesn't mean that it is not tracked. I donate heavily, and the volunteer orgs do a lot of work to keep track of everything that is procured and delivered.
    - godelski 2y ago
      > If Russia completely wipes out a Ukrainian unit and seizes its dishes, who will report their being stolen? Presumably the group that oversees said unit... > Sir, we lost unit IDKWhatAPGPKeyis! > Damn, another one. Remove their keys from the white list. Report to Admiral SoAndSo so he can provide the signing key to verify the removal. Sure, it won't be 100% effective, but it'll dramatically reduce the numbers. It can also be used offensively since if they have the keys then presumably they can get the data from those units too... plus, aren't the satellites being bought via third party groups and then transported?
      - Ancapistani 2y ago
        Doing this would more directly involve Starlink in the war, which isn't great for several reasons. If they're willing to be involved, I have a better idea: algorithmically determine when a receiver is being used on an airframe that takes off from Russian-controlled territory. Display their location on a map and provide that to the Ukrainian military. Give them the ability to shut down the data stream at will. Better yet, degrade service to those devices in a randomized and targeted way that leads Russia to believe that the Ukrainian miltiary has developed a new EW system that interferes with Starlink, and are beginning to deploy it. Then selectively degrade service near specific areas of no strategic importance. Place decoy infrastructure in those areas - ammo dumps, air defense units, radar installations, etc. You could even go so far as to design a fake antenna that won't actually do anything, manufacture them, and put them on a cheap chassis. Put those in areas where you're degrading service to lead them to believe they're the source of the interference. Let Russia capture one or two that are built specifically to be plausible as a new type of EW military vehicle - but don't actually do anything. Then Russia will spend time, money, and hours trying to reverse-engineer something that never worked in the first place.
- qaq 2y ago
  Well you can allow only dishes from allow list to be used in some geofenced area while moving at more than x miles per h.
- HarryHirsch 2y ago
  That does not make the slightest amount of sense - Starlink is a US goverment asset, it's Brilliant Pebbles, the dishes are geolocated, a dish knows if it's moving or standing still because it needs to receive from the right satellite, there needs to be an uplink station nearby, they would make very sure not to be working for the enemy. Thunderfoot would say "BUSTED!"
- godelski 2y ago
  > what about dishes that get captured by Russia? If Ukraine is whitelisting this doesn't seem to be a problem - Ukraine can set validation rules, such as needing to be verified every 24 hrs. Make this possible to do on a per-key basis since some will be more at risk than others. - Give an API to set certain rules to keys too. Like how fast it is able to move or based on any metadata. - Only allow dishes that have been white listed via an official Ukrainian signing key access to working in that region of the world. - Allow Ukraine to choose which licenses to approve and revoke because yeah, Russia, please take the dish so that Ukraine can get more information on Russian targets. If Russians steal a dish, the dish is known to be stolen, and the Ukrainians still have access to the dish's metadata, well you may not be able to see the drones but they are broadcasting their GPS coordinates to you... > As noted, what about all the privately paid-for dishes? There's usually certain concessions in war. I don't know the dynamics to have an opinion here. But possible solutions are let Ukraine deal with that or provide different capabilities to private dishes such as rate limiting or feature limiting. You could even just provide all data to Ukraine for dishes in their territory. I'm spitballing here, but my point is that these don't seem insurmountable problems. Like you say, there are costs and benefits, but a few of these suggestions would reduce costs while allowing Ukraine to keep benefits.
  - inemesitaffia 2y ago
    Where's this list Ukraine has drawn up.
- karp773 2y ago
  It's naive to think this is a technical problem. Someone powerful at Starlink does not mind Russia using its tech. More than that, a lot of US allies, even NATO members, supply Russia with dual use tech even now and the White House cannot do much about it. The United States does not have that much power in the world as we used to think.
  - inemesitaffia 2y ago
    Please wear your tin foil hat properly. Russians are buying starlink equipment from the same place Ukrainians are; paying the same way, using the same way and in the same country. It's not working in Russia, The company doesn't ship there, and doesn't accept payment from Russian banks or cards
    - karp773 2y ago
      Read this, for example. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66752264 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66752264
      - inemesitaffia 2y ago
        Your claims aren't strengthened by that article. Till today starlink doesn't work there in Crimea unless you use equipment bought by the Pentagon. The Crimea sanctions aren't gone. And at that time the US refused to allow Ukraine use it's weapons in Crimea And I feel I'm arguing with someone who doesn't know how Satellite Internet works, what spot beams are or how starlink dishes are bought in Ukraine. I'll give you a clue. If you buy a dish at a supermarket in any country starlink operates, sign up for a roaming plan and enter Ukraine it will work. Just like any other global satellite Internet provider. A stronger clue? No one involved has talked about it. And we don't even know if it's real. Nothing from Ukraine, the State Department, the Pentagon, or SpaceX. Not one word.
        karp773 2y ago
        Starlink could shut it down for Ukraine on a whim, right in the middle of the mission. That's all one needs to know.
- rasz 2y ago
  >(being paid for by the US, after Musk initially provided free service early in the war after a Ukrainian request) This is not true. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40250680 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40250680 : 1 Musk never provided free service for Ukraine. All dishes have subscription. What Musk alluded to was "free upgrade" while demanding Ukrainians start paying for Mobile Priority plans. 2 "As of October 2022 there were 18k Starlink terminals in Ukraine. At the time State Department (USAID) paid for ~2K units, Poland paid for >12K units – over half of all terminals came from one relatively poor EU country. December 2022 number rose to 22K. Apparently as of June 2023 there are >40K terminals in use, with USAID share rising to at least ~5K." US paid for 1/8 of all terminals up to June 2023. I stopped tracking numbers last year.
  - tomekf 2y ago
    FYI: Delivering terminal is one thing, paying for subscription is another. Poland pays for over 20k starlink terminals subscription. Every month: https://www.barrons.com/news/poland-says-funding-20-000-starlink-devices-for-ukraine-8b667698 https://www.barrons.com/news/poland-says-funding-20-000-star... Multiple nations delivered them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_in_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_in_the_Russo-Ukrainia...
  - inemesitaffia 2y ago
    EDIT: I've replied this claim before, it's just untrue 1. isn't true. There were several free dishes and dishes with free subscriptions. Every single round dish was delivered free. i.e every dish delivered in February 2022 Many people who received equipment after putting up a deposit who claimed they couldn't cover the cost of the equipment got it waived. If you stopped paying your bill it would still keep working for months. Some people even paid in full and asked for a waiver and refund. The first set of USAID equipment was delivered in late March/Early April 2022 and SpaceX covered the subscription in full for every one of them. In 2022, most dishes were bought by Poland. In 2024, most are privately purchased. The gall to think a provider will charge a military user civilian prices for services is ridiculous especially with all the stuff that has gone down and the extra expectations. You shouldn't be paying less than you pay OneWeb or SatCube period. I won't be surprised if some people have attempted warranty replacements. I saw someone complaining they couldn't get their dish price waived in 2023.
Eumenes 2y ago
Hardly news. Did they find any Cisco/Juniper networking equipment among Russian rubble? Sandisk or WD drives? Micron RAM? This is obviously meant as flame bait against Musk
- jajko 2y ago
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akrtakm 2y ago
Only Newsweek is running this story, which was originally reported by a Ukrainian outlet. Newsweek tends to report early and often. If the vast majority of highly pro Ukrainian and anti-Musk U.S. outlets are not running the story, perhaps it is not really confirmed.
qaq 2y ago
There is a ton of western tech in russian weapons in general. This is just one more example of it.
yread 2y ago
They say it's impossible to block the dishes on drones, I have a hard time believing that. I wonder how long would it take to figure out a way to block them if those drones started to fly over/into Boca Chica
- Zigurd 2y ago
  "Impossible" has got to be a knowing lie. Starlink knows where you are, and how fast you are moving, to connect you, and who you are to bill you for it.
  - belter 2y ago
    The fact the CEO of the company has been praised by Putin, and is a vocal supporter of a Presidential candidate who is considered a Russian asset, has for sure nothing to do with it...\s
- mcphage 2y ago
  If you can target the dish to block it, couldn’t you also shoot the drone down?
- rasz 2y ago
  Yes, its truly impossible to SELECT * FROM receivers WHERE receiver_location = Ukraine AND receiver_speed > 100 AND receiver_registered_with_GRU = false ORDER BY registration_date ASC;
  - inemesitaffia 2y ago
    Does Ukraine have a list of their equipment yet?
- Log_out_ 2y ago
  Its every feasible to block all starlonk forever for any spacefaring power aka Kessler. Thus starlink has to get along with all the big boys and bullies ,wether it likes it or not.
- 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
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throw73737 2y ago
Old civil GPS receivers had limitations that would prevent their use on ballistic missiles. Why Starlink does not have such limitations? It would be very easy to detect receiver is flying on some airplane. Such use should require special permissions and licencing! I find it very hard to argue Starlink is not a military technology! At least its satellites are low, so debris wont stay on orbit forever!
- philipkglass 2y ago
  Shahed drones are so slow that the civilian GPS receiver limits wouldn't affect them either. GPS is limited to receivers moving slower than 510 meters per second and below 18 km altitude: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinating_Committee_for_Multilateral_Export_Controls#GPS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinating_Committee_for_Mul... The Shahed-136 flies at low altitude and around 185 km/hour, well below the 1836 km/hour speed CoCom limit on GPS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HESA_Shahed_136 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HESA_Shahed_136
- Ancapistani 2y ago
  > Why Starlink does not have such limitations? Who is to say it doesn't? At least some GPS receivers have those limitations set in firmware, and it's not too difficult to modify the firmware to change those values. > I find it very hard to argue Starlink is not a military technology! Sure it is. It's clearly "dual use", at least to some degree. Not all dual use technologies are export controlled. For that matter, not all strictly military tech is export controlled. The legal/regulatory environment is designed to prevent potential adversaries from bridging the divide between their current capabilities and ours. I could definitely see it being reasonable to place Starlink in that regulatory bucket, but it isn't necessarily a good idea. While it's convenient for long-distance communications, if there are alternatives that can serve the same use cases with similar investment (cost and complexity) then restricting it wouldn't really help anyone. > At least its satellites are low, so debris wont stay on orbit forever! I agree, but don't really see how it's relevant here.
  - throw73737 2y ago
    With military technology, I did not meant US export controls, but other countries. Any weapon used by an enemy is a fair game. What would happen if US went to war with Iran, and Iran would destroy Starlink constellation? They already have rockets that reach such heights, and Kessler cascade effect would destroy all satellites on LEO! Couple that with undersea optical cable disruption... We have global communication blackout! I really feel we need stronger separation for military/non military infrastructure!

Both sides in the Ukraine War are using "irregular" Starlink dishes. * Russia is reportedly buying dishes (and the service attached to the dishes) in the Middle East. * Ukraine has its own fleet of dishes (being paid for by the US, after Musk initially provided free service early in the war after a Ukrainian request), but also many individual dishes that were donated, and being paid for, by private individuals outside Ukraine. US law prohibits Russia from using Starlink. The problem is, how to stop Russia from doing so? A simple location-based ban won't work, because the front line is constantly shifting. Whitelisting only Ukraine's own dishes to work within Ukrainian territory might work, but 1) what about dishes that get captured by Russia? 2) As noted, what about all the privately paid-for dishes? Another way to think about this is that this demonstrates just how lifesaving for Ukraine Starlink has become. Ukraine could ask Starlink to disable all dishes within its territory. On the contrary, it has decided that the benefits of Starlink to Ukrainians outweighs Russians also benefiting from it.

CamperBob2 2y ago
Whoever exported the dishes to whatever Middle Eastern entity transferred them to Russia is very much on the hook for the consequences under US law. Even if it was SpaceX themselves, they need to be fined heavily, just as any of us would be. They are responsible by law (and good luck downvoting the Department of Commerce.) Also, whoever took possession of the equipment at the receiving end needs to be added to the Denied Persons List ( https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/policy-guidance/lists-of-parties-of-concern/denied-persons-list https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/policy-guidance/lists-of-p... ), so that they can no longer participate in international commerce with the US.
- rolph 2y ago
  this goes beyond fines
  - CamperBob2 2y ago
    If there's intent, yes, but I'm sure they didn't intend for the gear to end up in Russian hands.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  How does legally selling a dish to a legal customer in the middle east imply liability?
  - rolph 2y ago
    if you know, or ought to reasonably know what it will be used for, you are contributing to armament of a foreign power, and international traffic in arms.
    - s1artibartfast 2y ago
      Reasonable does a lot of heavy lifting there. For most things, I dont think it is reasonable to be able to predict, track, and detect 2nd and 3rd order transfers. Have you ever sold a used car? That could be in Russia right now for all you know.
  - CamperBob2 2y ago
    That's just how it works, per Export Administration Regulation rules (see https://www.bis.gov/regulations https://www.bis.gov/regulations ). You send something out of the country that's not designated EAR99 and it ends up in the wrong hands, they will^H^H^H^H can come down on you like a ton of bricks. It's a relatively-big hassle in the hardware business, with disproportionately high stakes. Safe to say a Starlink receiver isn't EAR99.
  - Zigurd 2y ago
    Easy: You need a service subscription to use Starlink. If you are paying for Starlink service after transferring it to Russia, yoo are complicit.
    - s1artibartfast 2y ago
      Yes, but that is very different than everyone in the upstream chain of custody being complicit.
- 486sx33 2y ago
  Sure, go to Saudi Arabia and arrest people in power under US law. Hahahaha
  - CamperBob2 2y ago
    That's not how it works, hahahaha.
dist-epoch 2y ago
Musk could give Ukraine real-time access to the location of all starlink dishes in the front line region, and Ukraine could say which one are not theirs.
- k12sosse 2y ago
  But how does this benefit musk? For this reason, you will not see this. Musk's moral compass has no needle.
- e12e 2y ago
  ... and Ukraine could bomb those they didn't operate. Providing such strike intelligence data might land Starlink even more squarely in the "military supplier"-basket - making it subject to stricter export regulations.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    I think Musk may be more worried about Russian nukes than export controls. Personally, I think Russian nukes and their missiles are likely to be a Potempkin force, but I have no special intelligence to back that up, it's just based on what I see of Russian corruption and them accidentally sinking one of their own subs and separately setting their only aircraft carrier on fire about one year after their largest drydock sank and dropped a crane onto the deck. And that was before one of their missile silos exploded.
    - rolph 2y ago
      one nuke in orbit, will disrupt satellite service, duration dependent on design.
      - ben_w 2y ago
        Yes, but Starlink is designed to be cheap and rapidly replaced anyway. One nuke in space would also be a continental scale EMP, which is why, despite my expectation that the Russian stuff is probably more paint than metal, it's still not a good idea to bet the farm (everyone's farm) on that.
rscho 2y ago
[flagged]
shykes 2y ago
> US law prohibits Russia from using Starlink. The problem is, how to stop Russia from doing so? A simple location-based ban won't work, because the front line is constantly shifting. Whitelisting only Ukraine's own dishes to work within Ukrainian territory might work, but 1) what about dishes that get captured by Russia? 2) As noted, what about all the privately paid-for dishes? It might be more beneficial to silently spy on Russian terminals once they are found, rather than block them. In fact I wonder how much of that has been going on.
- Jach 2y ago
  It seems more likely that Russia would just be using the hardware to communicate with their own systems, probably not Starlink's actual network. For a kamikaze drone, if you don't have to pay for the antenna, great, money saved. Two years ago there was a Black Hat talk on hacking the equipment, full compromise, is it inconceivable that Russia could find more vulnerabilities? They have their own satellites, too, it's not like they need to use Starlink unlike Ukraine.
  - _visgean 2y ago
    I dont think starlink antena is able to communicate with their own satelites - those are much higher and you would need much more powerfull antenna.
wodenokoto 2y ago
> 1) what about dishes that get captured by Russia? 2) As noted, what about all the privately paid-for dishes? Let the Ukranian military decide which dishes are allowed to work in Ukraine and Russia. Surely they all have mac addresses and need a subscription/login to connect to the network, so surely it is manageable. How well do the dishes triangulate? Can you follow their movement like cellphones, just less precise?
- TMWNN 2y ago
  > > 1) what about dishes that get captured by Russia? 2) As noted, what about all the privately paid-for dishes? > Let the Ukranian military decide which dishes are allowed to work in Ukraine and Russia. Surely they all have mac addresses and need a subscription/login to connect to the network, so surely it is manageable. No, Ukraine does not have the data needed to do this reliably. As I said, >many individual dishes that were donated, and being paid for, by private individuals outside Ukraine. Ukraine has decided that having those dishes continue to operate along with the odd Russian dish is better than mistakenly turning Ukrainian dishes paid by an American or French or Australian individual off.
deely3 2y ago
1) what about dishes that get captured by Russia? I suppose Ukraine will be happy to report stolen devices to Starlink. 2) As noted, what about all the privately paid-for dishes? Controversial topic, but Ukraine can decide what to do with this devices.
- TMWNN 2y ago
  >>1) what about dishes that get captured by Russia? >I suppose Ukraine will be happy to report stolen devices to Starlink. If Russia completely wipes out a Ukrainian unit and seizes its dishes, who will report their being stolen? Especially if those dishes were donated and paid for by private individuals outside Ukraine in the first place, so do not appear on any Ukrainian government list?
  - int_19h 2y ago
    Just because it was donated through volunteers doesn't mean that it is not tracked. I donate heavily, and the volunteer orgs do a lot of work to keep track of everything that is procured and delivered.
  - godelski 2y ago
    > If Russia completely wipes out a Ukrainian unit and seizes its dishes, who will report their being stolen? Presumably the group that oversees said unit... > Sir, we lost unit IDKWhatAPGPKeyis! > Damn, another one. Remove their keys from the white list. Report to Admiral SoAndSo so he can provide the signing key to verify the removal. Sure, it won't be 100% effective, but it'll dramatically reduce the numbers. It can also be used offensively since if they have the keys then presumably they can get the data from those units too... plus, aren't the satellites being bought via third party groups and then transported?
    - Ancapistani 2y ago
      Doing this would more directly involve Starlink in the war, which isn't great for several reasons. If they're willing to be involved, I have a better idea: algorithmically determine when a receiver is being used on an airframe that takes off from Russian-controlled territory. Display their location on a map and provide that to the Ukrainian military. Give them the ability to shut down the data stream at will. Better yet, degrade service to those devices in a randomized and targeted way that leads Russia to believe that the Ukrainian miltiary has developed a new EW system that interferes with Starlink, and are beginning to deploy it. Then selectively degrade service near specific areas of no strategic importance. Place decoy infrastructure in those areas - ammo dumps, air defense units, radar installations, etc. You could even go so far as to design a fake antenna that won't actually do anything, manufacture them, and put them on a cheap chassis. Put those in areas where you're degrading service to lead them to believe they're the source of the interference. Let Russia capture one or two that are built specifically to be plausible as a new type of EW military vehicle - but don't actually do anything. Then Russia will spend time, money, and hours trying to reverse-engineer something that never worked in the first place.
qaq 2y ago
Well you can allow only dishes from allow list to be used in some geofenced area while moving at more than x miles per h.
HarryHirsch 2y ago
That does not make the slightest amount of sense - Starlink is a US goverment asset, it's Brilliant Pebbles, the dishes are geolocated, a dish knows if it's moving or standing still because it needs to receive from the right satellite, there needs to be an uplink station nearby, they would make very sure not to be working for the enemy. Thunderfoot would say "BUSTED!"
godelski 2y ago
> what about dishes that get captured by Russia? If Ukraine is whitelisting this doesn't seem to be a problem - Ukraine can set validation rules, such as needing to be verified every 24 hrs. Make this possible to do on a per-key basis since some will be more at risk than others. - Give an API to set certain rules to keys too. Like how fast it is able to move or based on any metadata. - Only allow dishes that have been white listed via an official Ukrainian signing key access to working in that region of the world. - Allow Ukraine to choose which licenses to approve and revoke because yeah, Russia, please take the dish so that Ukraine can get more information on Russian targets. If Russians steal a dish, the dish is known to be stolen, and the Ukrainians still have access to the dish's metadata, well you may not be able to see the drones but they are broadcasting their GPS coordinates to you... > As noted, what about all the privately paid-for dishes? There's usually certain concessions in war. I don't know the dynamics to have an opinion here. But possible solutions are let Ukraine deal with that or provide different capabilities to private dishes such as rate limiting or feature limiting. You could even just provide all data to Ukraine for dishes in their territory. I'm spitballing here, but my point is that these don't seem insurmountable problems. Like you say, there are costs and benefits, but a few of these suggestions would reduce costs while allowing Ukraine to keep benefits.
- inemesitaffia 2y ago
  Where's this list Ukraine has drawn up.
karp773 2y ago
It's naive to think this is a technical problem. Someone powerful at Starlink does not mind Russia using its tech. More than that, a lot of US allies, even NATO members, supply Russia with dual use tech even now and the White House cannot do much about it. The United States does not have that much power in the world as we used to think.
- inemesitaffia 2y ago
  Please wear your tin foil hat properly. Russians are buying starlink equipment from the same place Ukrainians are; paying the same way, using the same way and in the same country. It's not working in Russia, The company doesn't ship there, and doesn't accept payment from Russian banks or cards
  - karp773 2y ago
    Read this, for example. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66752264 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66752264
    - inemesitaffia 2y ago
      Your claims aren't strengthened by that article. Till today starlink doesn't work there in Crimea unless you use equipment bought by the Pentagon. The Crimea sanctions aren't gone. And at that time the US refused to allow Ukraine use it's weapons in Crimea And I feel I'm arguing with someone who doesn't know how Satellite Internet works, what spot beams are or how starlink dishes are bought in Ukraine. I'll give you a clue. If you buy a dish at a supermarket in any country starlink operates, sign up for a roaming plan and enter Ukraine it will work. Just like any other global satellite Internet provider. A stronger clue? No one involved has talked about it. And we don't even know if it's real. Nothing from Ukraine, the State Department, the Pentagon, or SpaceX. Not one word.
      - karp773 2y ago
        Starlink could shut it down for Ukraine on a whim, right in the middle of the mission. That's all one needs to know.
rasz 2y ago
>(being paid for by the US, after Musk initially provided free service early in the war after a Ukrainian request) This is not true. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40250680 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40250680 : 1 Musk never provided free service for Ukraine. All dishes have subscription. What Musk alluded to was "free upgrade" while demanding Ukrainians start paying for Mobile Priority plans. 2 "As of October 2022 there were 18k Starlink terminals in Ukraine. At the time State Department (USAID) paid for ~2K units, Poland paid for >12K units – over half of all terminals came from one relatively poor EU country. December 2022 number rose to 22K. Apparently as of June 2023 there are >40K terminals in use, with USAID share rising to at least ~5K." US paid for 1/8 of all terminals up to June 2023. I stopped tracking numbers last year.
- tomekf 2y ago
  FYI: Delivering terminal is one thing, paying for subscription is another. Poland pays for over 20k starlink terminals subscription. Every month: https://www.barrons.com/news/poland-says-funding-20-000-starlink-devices-for-ukraine-8b667698 https://www.barrons.com/news/poland-says-funding-20-000-star... Multiple nations delivered them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_in_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_in_the_Russo-Ukrainia...
- inemesitaffia 2y ago
  EDIT: I've replied this claim before, it's just untrue 1. isn't true. There were several free dishes and dishes with free subscriptions. Every single round dish was delivered free. i.e every dish delivered in February 2022 Many people who received equipment after putting up a deposit who claimed they couldn't cover the cost of the equipment got it waived. If you stopped paying your bill it would still keep working for months. Some people even paid in full and asked for a waiver and refund. The first set of USAID equipment was delivered in late March/Early April 2022 and SpaceX covered the subscription in full for every one of them. In 2022, most dishes were bought by Poland. In 2024, most are privately purchased. The gall to think a provider will charge a military user civilian prices for services is ridiculous especially with all the stuff that has gone down and the extra expectations. You shouldn't be paying less than you pay OneWeb or SatCube period. I won't be surprised if some people have attempted warranty replacements. I saw someone complaining they couldn't get their dish price waived in 2023.

Eumenes 2y ago

Hardly news. Did they find any Cisco/Juniper networking equipment among Russian rubble? Sandisk or WD drives? Micron RAM? This is obviously meant as flame bait against Musk

jajko 2y ago
[flagged]

akrtakm 2y ago

Only Newsweek is running this story, which was originally reported by a Ukrainian outlet. Newsweek tends to report early and often. If the vast majority of highly pro Ukrainian and anti-Musk U.S. outlets are not running the story, perhaps it is not really confirmed.

qaq 2y ago

There is a ton of western tech in russian weapons in general. This is just one more example of it.

yread 2y ago

They say it's impossible to block the dishes on drones, I have a hard time believing that. I wonder how long would it take to figure out a way to block them if those drones started to fly over/into Boca Chica

Zigurd 2y ago
"Impossible" has got to be a knowing lie. Starlink knows where you are, and how fast you are moving, to connect you, and who you are to bill you for it.
- belter 2y ago
  The fact the CEO of the company has been praised by Putin, and is a vocal supporter of a Presidential candidate who is considered a Russian asset, has for sure nothing to do with it...\s
mcphage 2y ago
If you can target the dish to block it, couldn’t you also shoot the drone down?
rasz 2y ago
Yes, its truly impossible to SELECT * FROM receivers WHERE receiver_location = Ukraine AND receiver_speed > 100 AND receiver_registered_with_GRU = false ORDER BY registration_date ASC;
- inemesitaffia 2y ago
  Does Ukraine have a list of their equipment yet?
Log_out_ 2y ago
Its every feasible to block all starlonk forever for any spacefaring power aka Kessler. Thus starlink has to get along with all the big boys and bullies ,wether it likes it or not.
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throw73737 2y ago

Old civil GPS receivers had limitations that would prevent their use on ballistic missiles. Why Starlink does not have such limitations? It would be very easy to detect receiver is flying on some airplane. Such use should require special permissions and licencing! I find it very hard to argue Starlink is not a military technology! At least its satellites are low, so debris wont stay on orbit forever!

philipkglass 2y ago
Shahed drones are so slow that the civilian GPS receiver limits wouldn't affect them either. GPS is limited to receivers moving slower than 510 meters per second and below 18 km altitude: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinating_Committee_for_Multilateral_Export_Controls#GPS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinating_Committee_for_Mul... The Shahed-136 flies at low altitude and around 185 km/hour, well below the 1836 km/hour speed CoCom limit on GPS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HESA_Shahed_136 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HESA_Shahed_136
Ancapistani 2y ago
> Why Starlink does not have such limitations? Who is to say it doesn't? At least some GPS receivers have those limitations set in firmware, and it's not too difficult to modify the firmware to change those values. > I find it very hard to argue Starlink is not a military technology! Sure it is. It's clearly "dual use", at least to some degree. Not all dual use technologies are export controlled. For that matter, not all strictly military tech is export controlled. The legal/regulatory environment is designed to prevent potential adversaries from bridging the divide between their current capabilities and ours. I could definitely see it being reasonable to place Starlink in that regulatory bucket, but it isn't necessarily a good idea. While it's convenient for long-distance communications, if there are alternatives that can serve the same use cases with similar investment (cost and complexity) then restricting it wouldn't really help anyone. > At least its satellites are low, so debris wont stay on orbit forever! I agree, but don't really see how it's relevant here.
- throw73737 2y ago
  With military technology, I did not meant US export controls, but other countries. Any weapon used by an enemy is a fair game. What would happen if US went to war with Iran, and Iran would destroy Starlink constellation? They already have rockets that reach such heights, and Kessler cascade effect would destroy all satellites on LEO! Couple that with undersea optical cable disruption... We have global communication blackout! I really feel we need stronger separation for military/non military infrastructure!