6 ms·
What is the specific use case you have in mind?
by 100721 1y ago
What is the specific use case you have in mind?
- mattmaroon 1y agoWell the author is Ukranian so I have a guess.
- michaelt 1y agoGiven that the blogger is based in Kiev, Ukraine? Good chance this goes on some sort of long range, Predator-style drone.
- mft_ 1y agoWouldn’t this give Starlink the ability to track and/or turn off operations in real time?
- mattmaroon 1y agoYes but they’ve mostly not been doing that (they probably are selling a lot of dishes) and what’s the alternative?
- michaelt 1y agoYes, you may recall some controversy a few years back when Musk made some threats along those lines. There are alternatives if you only need short range, or if you can tolerate high latency. And of course there are fire-and-forget cruise missiles that don't need communications at all. But there aren't all that many other options. Historically, satellite internet companies like Iridium, Globalstar and Teledesic have not fared well.
- lxgr 1y agoIridium works extremely well for what it was designed for – truly global, low latency communications without requiring a directional antenna. Unfortunately, that also means very low data rates. It only gained packed-switched data with the second generation satellite network, but data rates are still very low (think hundreds of kbps, and I believe even that needs high-gain antennas).
- NitpickLawyer 1y ago~Iridium~ devices were bricked in the first days of the invasion, iirc. That's why starlink was such a big deal, and that's why the usmil wanted it "yesterday" after it proved itself in ua. They had to set up a dedicated unit to deal with starlink, as every branch was trying to get it on their own and complicated purchasing. That unit / project was also called starshield, confusing the matter with the other starshield project that uses starlink buses + ng sensor packages. edit: it was Viasat not Iridium, I got them mixed up.
- RF_Savage 1y agoViasat fixed modems got bricked at start of the war in Ukraine and some collateral one's in border areas.
- NitpickLawyer 1y agoYou are right, thanks. I mixed them up. Iridium is also providing service in ua now, and was unaffected at the start of the war.
- snickerdoodle12 1y agoInteresting how the US goes absolutely ballistic about some random dude violating the "Computer Security Act" on a small scale, but didn't react at all to this massive, incredibly impactful, attack.
- mschuster91 1y agoit didn't impact Americans. it impacted us Europeans but at the time this went down we were too dependent on Russia's cheap gas (and, frankly, lacked the military power) to raise the appropriate level of stink. Hell we let Russia freely execute dissidents (Skripal or the Berlin Tiergarten murder come to my mind) and tolerated a land-grab war by little green men in 2014. Either of these actions would have warranted serious consequences, the Crimea/Donbas grab would be a casus belli if you ask me. But again, we were too busy sucking Putin off for cheap gas.
- maxlin 1y agoIt was only made to appear a controversy for clicks and Ukrainians (understandably) trying to bend the rules. The thing came with a clear limit "this thing works in these cells of this big hex grid". And they drove it off that hex grid. Plan and simple. Its like if the US-supplied HIMARS came with some built-in limit that it cannot be used to target known Russian nuclear installments, and they'd try to do that. It's not that those things are unquestionable, but they are limits that would need US consultation as US obviously doesn't want the thing to escalate from being a defensive war to something else.
- karp773 1y agoIs Crimea on "this big hex grid" or not? If not, why not?
- coryrc 1y agoBecause the US military/govt has a say in what US companies sell to foreign militaries and that's what the restrictions were at the time. Remember this was early on in the full invasion.
- TMWNN 1y agoStarlink is prohibited for use in Crimea because of US sanctions against Russia, and not because "Musk turned Starlink off during a Ukrainian attack".
- karp773 1y agoWell, per other comments, Starlink terminals apparently do work in Russia. And Musk did exactly that per numerous reports. Given his erratic behavior since around 2018, it's not hard to believe. The other day he was literally threatening to stop Dragon launches for NASA.
- maxlin 1y ago"per other comments" Lol. The geoblocks are quite hard. The only situation where Russians have managed to use them for a short while is when they've managed to capture a terminal, and it hasn't been cut off because it's been unclear who was in control of it, and Ukranians benefit more of them as they've built a lot of things and process around them as it such a massive battlefield advantage if used right. >Given his erratic behavior it's not hard to believe Congratulations, you've managed to slip in to a sea of misinformation and media spin. Place a check on this in 5 years, these things tend to be silently put under the rug. It's like you're saying it wouldn't be a surprise if all future Falcon 9 rockets just blew up because they've done so at testing and because Starship does so too. Learn some distinction.
- burnt-resistor 1y agoI wonder how SL plans vary in Ukraine / for use in Russia. Assuming US-like pricing and limitations, for low speed drones, this would work. The gotcha is that for jet or fast prop drones in the 250-478 kts range requires a very expensive aviation plan assuming it's similar to US plans.
- dylan604 1y agoCould that not also be part of the support being provided to Ukraine in that those prices are not the same as some commercial account? At the end of the day, the billing department could just not issue the bill, or any other method of meaning Ukraine isn't paying for it.
- Aspos 1y agoAFAIK US DoD pays for some of the Starlink accounts in Ukraine. The rest are paid for by volunteers at normal prices.
- kubelsmieci 1y ago"As of May 2024, Poland continues to pay subcription fees for more than 20 thousand terminals it has bought for Ukraine" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_in_the_Russian-Ukrainian_War#Funding_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_in_the_Russian-Ukrain...
- littlestymaar 1y agoMaybe just for front-line deployment, it would suck to be targeted by a glide bomb because the Russians located some WiFi signal.
- tomaskafka 1y agoI am not sure - afaik there is a speed limit (assumption of satellite visibility and specific latency?) over which starlink won’t work, right? It can however be useful for getting the internet without announcing yourself to a swarm of drones?
- maxlin 1y ago[flagged]
- gruez 1y ago>Fact check with more interesting info: https://chatgpt.com/share/684eef92-a604-8010-94aa-07200edb4b https://chatgpt.com/share/684eef92-a604-8010-94aa-07200edb4b... An AI conversation is hardly a "fact check".
- maxlin 1y agoIf you have actual feedback on the points go ahead. If you even opened the link, It contains sources. What I wrote, I wrote from memory as I've read plenty of articles and first-party takes while fighting stupid misinformation on this specific issue so much, and just added the fact check as I think that is doing a lot more than 90% of commenters. Replying (trolling?) in the lines of just "lol AI stupid" isn't helpful or aiming towards anyone being better informed.
- gruez 1y agoNote I'm not saying it's wrong, just that it's not considered anywhere reliable enough for a "fact check". At best it's "some sources that chatgpt turned up that I have to manually check myself". I'll admit that human written "fact checks" aren't exactly foolproof either (eg. the infamous "Clinton acid washed her servers" fact check), but at least I can be reasonably sure that it doesn't contain entirely made up sources.
- gmerc 1y ago"Sources". It's low quality slop that requires validation.
- codedokode 1y agoRussians also use Musk's satellites and might find the information useful. Also as I understand, satellites do not work over Russian territory so guess where this can be used.
- Andrew_nenakhov 1y agoActually, they do work is Russia. You need account registered in some allowed country and also use RV plan (or maybe it is called 'roam' now). I know some ppl who use it. Was thinking to get one myself, to have a reliable bypass of pathetic russian firewall.
- Ray20 1y ago> Actually, they do work is Russia. Aren't starlink have some kind of geolock? > to have a reliable bypass of pathetic russian firewall All data shows that Russia have one of the strongest and best firewall in the world, in many aspects even better than in China. And all the Russians I spoke with say that VPN is not blocked and any service for a couple of bucks does its job.
- tguvot 1y agoThey use it at front lines for fighting Ukraine. Not for reading cnn
- Andrew_nenakhov 1y agoPpl I know use it live in Yekaterinburg, rather far from the front lines.
- tguvot 1y agoKazakhstan is near by, maybe service spills over . sure that yekaterinburg and not Kaliningrad ?
- 1y ago
- multjoy 1y agoKyiv
- neilv 1y agoI hope that the engineers and scientists contributing to asymmetric warfare technology there aren't designated high-value targets by the adversary. Wouldn't publicity paint a target on one's back?
- stephen_g 1y agoSeems likely, just a risk one has to take if you want to actively contribute to a war effort...
- neilv 1y agoIs one increasing the risk by blogging and YouTubing about it?
- stronglikedan 1y agoAsk Gonzalo Lira.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- tenuousemphasis 1y agoBased on recent events I would guess an explosive-laden drone.