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So, if (just spitballing here) Russia were to have wanted to take out Starlink in order to handicap Ukrainian operations, and they didn't want to do something a

So, if (just spitballing here) Russia were to have wanted to take out Starlink in order to handicap Ukrainian operations, and they didn't want to do something as visible as actually taking out the satellites, what would be the most likely way for them to have done it? And how would we be able to check if that's what happened? No idea if this is plausible at all, just raising the question for anyone who knows more about this system than I do.

deleted 1y ago
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modeless 1y ago
It's essentially impossible for anyone to disable the Starlink network by "taking out satellites" through physical means. There aren't enough anti satellite missiles in the world to make a dent, it would cost trillions to manufacture enough, and SpaceX can launch satellites faster than anyone could manufacture interceptors anyway. And Kessler syndrome is impossible at the altitudes Starlink uses. Cyberattack is the only plausible way to take down Starlink.
- ponector 1y ago
  >>There aren't enough anti satellite missiles in the world to make a dent, it would cost trillions to manufacture enough Few big nukes are enough to take out all satellites.
  - modeless 1y ago
    I don't believe this is true. And of course detonating nukes in space would be an act of war against the whole world.
    - baq 1y ago
      nukes optimized for EMP may be able to do this just fine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_electromagnetic_pulse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_electromagnetic_pulse
      - modeless 1y ago
        I'm aware of the existence of the EMP weapon concept. I doubt its effectiveness against modern satellites in LEO at long range. That very article says "The damaging effects on orbiting satellites are usually due to factors other than EMP". Also "for equipment to be affected, the weapon needs to be above the visual horizon". Given how low Starlink orbits and the fact that they are dispersed evenly over the whole Earth, the number of weapons you would need to detonate just to ensure line of sight to every satellite at a range short enough to be effective is absolutely enormous.
        baq 1y ago
        digging a bit deeper, apparently most damage is coming from irradiated material interacting with solar panels of satellites passing through the cloud. sounds like it'll work, just not immediately and not necessarily via an actual EMP.
        ianburrell 1y ago
        Nukes produce lots of gamma and x-rays. On Earth, those are absorbed to produce the fireball. In LEO, some are absorbed by upper atmosphere to make EMP. In space, they are radiation. Except for military satellites like GPS, most satellites aren't hardened to deal with that much radiation. My guess is that the range would be thousands of miles.
        oskarkk 1y ago
        I wondered how much energy could pass through some area 1000 miles away from the explosion, so I made some rough calculations. Assumption: all energy of the nuclear explosion is radiation uniform in every direction. The energy E would be spreading in a sphere with area 4*pi*R^2. Area A being a part of that sphere would capture E*A/(4*pi*R^2) of energy. So with: energy E = 209 PJ (Tsar bomba for an extreme example) area A = 1 m^2 radius of the sphere R = 1000 miles (1609 km) That would give: 2.09 * 10^17 J * 1 m^2 / (4 * pi * (1.609 * 10^6 m) ^ 2) = 6.4 kJ So at the distance of 1000 miles an 1 m^2 object would be exposed to 6.4 kJ of radiation. I don't know how destructive would that be. That energy would be equivalent to 6 seconds of sun irradiating a 1 m^2 area above the Earth's atmosphere, but of course sun's radiation is less dangerous (very little gamma/x-ray), and all of that radiation would be almost instant. From what I'm reading about high-altitude nuclear testing, it can cause artificial radiation belts around the Earth (composed of high-energy electrons). I think that may be more dangerous to satellites at distances like 1000 miles (or at any distance) than the immediate gamma/x-ray radiation.
  - xoa 1y ago
    >Few big nukes are enough to take out all satellites. Um, no. Not even vaguely remotely. "Thousands of satellites" is a lot by historical human space standards, but compare that to the number of cars you see every day and then remember these are spread out over an area bigger then the surface of the entire planet. Don't be fooled by the simulation maps you can find online, where the satellites and tracks are shown thousands of times bigger then they would be to scale because otherwise they couldn't be seen. They are very, very far apart. Even on the ground, "a few big nukes" wouldn't do diddly. And nukes do less, not more, damage in space. A lot of the damage enhancement effects of nukes comes from their interaction with atmosphere. In a vacuum, it's only direct radiation which falls by the square of the distance, and satellites are of course designed to handle plenty of thermal and ionizing radiation all the time already by virtue of being designed for space. But Starlink sats aren't so high that Kessler syndrome is a concern either, there's plenty of atmospheric drag to bring debris down without active boosting. GP is correct and I don't understand the downvotes: as far as physical resilience goes the Starlink constellation is a pretty damn hard target on an absolute basis, even before we get into the geopolitics of some country trying to shoot down US property that is also a US strategic asset.
    - baq 1y ago
      > Starfish Prime caused an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that was far larger than expected, so much larger that it drove much of the instrumentation off scale, causing great difficulty in getting accurate measurements. The Starfish Prime electromagnetic pulse also made those effects known to the public by causing electrical damage in Hawaii, about 900 miles (1,450 km) away from the detonation point, knocking out about 300 streetlights, setting off numerous burglar alarms, and damaging a telephone company microwave link. The EMP damage to the microwave link shut down telephone calls from Kauai to the other Hawaiian Islands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime
      - xoa 1y ago
        Yes, very good you're capable of a simplistic wikipedia search. Now I'd like you to try thinking about the paragraph you just linked for a moment: is "Hawaii", the "300 streetlights", "numerous burglar alarms", and a "microwave link" in the atmosphere (and on the ground, or indeed literally the ground) or in Earth orbit? If you read further, you'll find that the mechanism of generation involves the interaction of the gamma ray emissions with the atmosphere and Earth's magnetic field, that at 500km+ the effect are is reduced, and then find that in your example of Starfish Prime the primary damage to the satellites it affected was not due to EMP at all but rather because the test created radiation belts that damaged solar panels as satellites passed through. This would reduce design lifetime but isn't an immediate killer of everything. You'd need far more then a couple of nukes. Of course, purposefully detonating nuclear weapons to create large scale NEMP effects might well still disrupt Starlink to the degree that it'd effect any piece of ground electronics, because the ground effects would be far, far worse. The satellite constellation could be ok enough to still be functional at reduced capacity, but if terminals and ground stations get toasted that's not immediately helpful. But that directly leads, again, to the fact that you're talking about LAUNCHING A NUCLEAR WAR ON THE ENTIRE WORLD here. No internet is going to be doing very well! So yes: Starlink is pretty darn robust.
- dmonitor 1y ago
  Could some kind of microwave / laser attack from a high altitude air vehicle be possible?
- gmiller123456 1y ago
  The anti-satellite devices could be deployed in the same manner as the Starlink satellites. And they wouldn't need communications equipment, so they could be lighter and cheaper to launch. And you really wouldn't need to take them all out, just enough to make communication unreliable. Starlink launches reduce costs by launching a bunch of satellites with similar orbits on the same vehicle, replacing one or a few satellites is going to cost a lot more per satellite. So just disrupting the network is a lot cheaper than fixing it. Thought the cheapest is still probably paying an existing employee to break some stuff.
  - modeless 1y ago
    Taking out one or even a few dozen satellites isn't going to make communication unreliable. They can redistribute themselves to fill holes. You'd need to take out thousands, requiring hundreds of launches at least. And neither Russia nor China has reusable rockets, so the costs would be much higher than SpaceX's costs. The interceptors would take a long time to spread out to reach their targets if they were launched in groups like Starlink is, so it wouldn't be a surprise attack and SpaceX would have time to prepare. They would need to start launching on-orbit spares for each orbital shell, but there are only a few shells, not hundreds. And in a few years when Starship is launching Starlink, the economics will be tilted even more wildly in SpaceX's favor.
- cozzyd 1y ago
  Taking out GNSS satellites would probably also effectively take out starlink. User terminals rely on GNSS for timing and position and I wouldn't be surprised if the satellites did too.
  - modeless 1y ago
    GPS is owned by the US military. Physically destroying GPS satellites would be an unambiguous act of war against the US.
shermantanktop 1y ago
If they had that capability, they could presumably do it any time, and then Starlink would recover at some point. So it would make sense to combine this with some other offensive action where hampering communication would help them. Otherwise they are just poking at something just to do it... unless this were a more serious attack with long-term consequences.
deleted 1y ago
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viraptor 1y ago
> what would be the most likely way for them to have done it? Ensure Starlink hires an agent. Establish skills / access permissions. Push an update which bricks both the update system and the running system, so the satellites become useless.
- newsclues 1y ago
  They would exfiltrate any secret technology first, then do their best to burn the whole network. Potentially you could burn the constellation with reentry.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > Potentially you could burn the constellation with reentry Just put them into a spin with a strong propellant burn while compromising ground stations. Even if the fleet recovers, its lifespan will have been significantly reduced by the propellant expenditure.
    - m4rtink 1y ago
      Spin would be indeed the most problematic, but the Starlink satellites only have krypton hall thrusters. Very efficient but also very low thrust - you you could not actually significantly waste fuel this way even if you wanted to.
  - codedokode 1y ago
    Is there any secret technology in Starlink that is not taught in Russian Universities and not described in Soviet scientific works?
    - newsclues 1y ago
      Fundamentally maybe not, but knowing what they are actually doing/using is still useful. If you can get schematics or source code, you can put it to use as well. And then you can also use communications logs and HR to find other human targets.
Symmetry 1y ago
Yeah, Russia maanged to knock Viasat offline with hacking during the initial invasion. The original donated Starlinks were supposed to replace Viasat and SpaceX was surprised that they ended up being used on the front lines. Russia has certainly been trying to knock them out ever since.
- asadotzler 1y ago
  If my memory is accurate, that didn't knock Viasat offline, it only made most of Viasat's customers unable to connect, but the network was just fine, only user routers were broken.
MKais 1y ago
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinholdenplatt/2025/07/23/russian-nuclear-sabotage-in-space-could-decimate-western-satellites/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinholdenplatt/2025/07/23/rus...
Zigurd 1y ago
I would still bet against the Russians taking down all of Starlink. If they had a zero day that could do that, they'd save it for just before a big war. But Russian low-intensity hybrid warfare, including infiltration and sabotage, is very real. Particularly in Europe and especially so in eastern Europe. There's a lot of nasty things going on in border areas that isn't widely reported.
- whizzter 1y ago
  Things get patched over time, Nato has their own comms systems whilst Ukraine relies on this third party, and the US just accepted the EU funded weapons sale so their Trump advantage seems to have disappeared with his patience in P's promises. Thus using the weakness to launch a coordinated summer offensive now for a decisive breakthrough before US weapons supplies reaches full speed again seems like a reasonably good choice. Conquering Ukraine is the key for restoring the USSR, Belarus is already under the yoke and Khz,etc won't dare resist after Ukr falls. P sees a victory here as moving the linchpin that makes him immortal in historybooks.
  - EB-Barrington 1y ago
    [dead]
- sneak 1y ago
  No good way to test your PoC without burning your 0day; I don’t imagine that the OV firmware is public or even “available”.
bamboozled 1y ago
Doesn’t the military use a different starlink or something ? If not and this was a cyber attack the this an attack on the USA.
newsclues 1y ago
Get an employee to take the network down from the inside. Either exploit existing employees or take years to seed an agent into the company. State level persistent attacks are well funded and have long timelines.
- keyringlight 1y ago
  I'd wonder about someone targeting Musk seeing as Starlink is one of his ventures that seems to be running well up to now while his other companies have issues. Having typed that out it seems like a spy movie plot, but that seems to be the world we're living in recently.
  - newsclues 1y ago
    I don’t think musk himself would be the weakest link, as the high profile brings scrutiny and thus increased security and counterintelligence. Trying would be a good way to get the FBI to look into you. Easier and safer to go after unknown employees with access.
flytyer37 1y ago
Starlink has been supporting Russia over Ukraine (congressional investigation into this). So I would bet against Russia, but you never know. Could be rouge. Anonymous has promised in the past to mess with Musk... could be that. Well funded and some crazy good hackers.
- rossdavidh 1y ago
  In terms of actual actions, Starlink has done a lot more for Ukraine than almost anyone else, since early on. Musk says stuff from time to time in order to try to keep Putin from noticing this, and pushing him out of a window or something. But his actions are that he let Ukraine use Starlink for over a year for free, and they still use it widely today.
  - rasz 1y ago
    No one is using Starlink for free. Poland has been paying for all of those "free" terminals DoD was sending over. Currently Poland is still paying for more than half of all Starlink in Ukraine.
_joel 1y ago
The Russians use Starlink too, saw a video on Kiev Independent that had a Ukranian drone team take out a Starlink dish atop a Russian bunker.
- sneak 1y ago
  I imagine it is illegal for Starlink to not geofence service to prevent Russians using it for exactly that purpose. Sanctions still exist, after all.
  - _joel 1y ago
    Yes, in Kursk, maybe. However this is in Ukraine.
    - sneak 1y ago
      Donetsk and Lugansk are both sanctioned too I believe.
      - _joel 1y ago
        You can watch the video yourself - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MqoBPXzJds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MqoBPXzJds
  - rossdavidh 1y ago
    I would not be surprised if US intelligence quietly asked Starlink to please let the Russians keep using Starlink, so long as they get to listen in.
    - rasz 1y ago
      Be serious. Look at the president, look at the head of ODNI, look at the head of DoD, finally look at musk

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

modeless 1y ago

It's essentially impossible for anyone to disable the Starlink network by "taking out satellites" through physical means. There aren't enough anti satellite missiles in the world to make a dent, it would cost trillions to manufacture enough, and SpaceX can launch satellites faster than anyone could manufacture interceptors anyway. And Kessler syndrome is impossible at the altitudes Starlink uses. Cyberattack is the only plausible way to take down Starlink.

ponector 1y ago
>>There aren't enough anti satellite missiles in the world to make a dent, it would cost trillions to manufacture enough Few big nukes are enough to take out all satellites.
- modeless 1y ago
  I don't believe this is true. And of course detonating nukes in space would be an act of war against the whole world.
  - baq 1y ago
    nukes optimized for EMP may be able to do this just fine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_electromagnetic_pulse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_electromagnetic_pulse
    - modeless 1y ago
      I'm aware of the existence of the EMP weapon concept. I doubt its effectiveness against modern satellites in LEO at long range. That very article says "The damaging effects on orbiting satellites are usually due to factors other than EMP". Also "for equipment to be affected, the weapon needs to be above the visual horizon". Given how low Starlink orbits and the fact that they are dispersed evenly over the whole Earth, the number of weapons you would need to detonate just to ensure line of sight to every satellite at a range short enough to be effective is absolutely enormous.
      - baq 1y ago
        digging a bit deeper, apparently most damage is coming from irradiated material interacting with solar panels of satellites passing through the cloud. sounds like it'll work, just not immediately and not necessarily via an actual EMP.
      - ianburrell 1y ago
        Nukes produce lots of gamma and x-rays. On Earth, those are absorbed to produce the fireball. In LEO, some are absorbed by upper atmosphere to make EMP. In space, they are radiation. Except for military satellites like GPS, most satellites aren't hardened to deal with that much radiation. My guess is that the range would be thousands of miles.
        oskarkk 1y ago
        I wondered how much energy could pass through some area 1000 miles away from the explosion, so I made some rough calculations. Assumption: all energy of the nuclear explosion is radiation uniform in every direction. The energy E would be spreading in a sphere with area 4*pi*R^2. Area A being a part of that sphere would capture E*A/(4*pi*R^2) of energy. So with: energy E = 209 PJ (Tsar bomba for an extreme example) area A = 1 m^2 radius of the sphere R = 1000 miles (1609 km) That would give: 2.09 * 10^17 J * 1 m^2 / (4 * pi * (1.609 * 10^6 m) ^ 2) = 6.4 kJ So at the distance of 1000 miles an 1 m^2 object would be exposed to 6.4 kJ of radiation. I don't know how destructive would that be. That energy would be equivalent to 6 seconds of sun irradiating a 1 m^2 area above the Earth's atmosphere, but of course sun's radiation is less dangerous (very little gamma/x-ray), and all of that radiation would be almost instant. From what I'm reading about high-altitude nuclear testing, it can cause artificial radiation belts around the Earth (composed of high-energy electrons). I think that may be more dangerous to satellites at distances like 1000 miles (or at any distance) than the immediate gamma/x-ray radiation.
- xoa 1y ago
  >Few big nukes are enough to take out all satellites. Um, no. Not even vaguely remotely. "Thousands of satellites" is a lot by historical human space standards, but compare that to the number of cars you see every day and then remember these are spread out over an area bigger then the surface of the entire planet. Don't be fooled by the simulation maps you can find online, where the satellites and tracks are shown thousands of times bigger then they would be to scale because otherwise they couldn't be seen. They are very, very far apart. Even on the ground, "a few big nukes" wouldn't do diddly. And nukes do less, not more, damage in space. A lot of the damage enhancement effects of nukes comes from their interaction with atmosphere. In a vacuum, it's only direct radiation which falls by the square of the distance, and satellites are of course designed to handle plenty of thermal and ionizing radiation all the time already by virtue of being designed for space. But Starlink sats aren't so high that Kessler syndrome is a concern either, there's plenty of atmospheric drag to bring debris down without active boosting. GP is correct and I don't understand the downvotes: as far as physical resilience goes the Starlink constellation is a pretty damn hard target on an absolute basis, even before we get into the geopolitics of some country trying to shoot down US property that is also a US strategic asset.
  - baq 1y ago
    > Starfish Prime caused an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that was far larger than expected, so much larger that it drove much of the instrumentation off scale, causing great difficulty in getting accurate measurements. The Starfish Prime electromagnetic pulse also made those effects known to the public by causing electrical damage in Hawaii, about 900 miles (1,450 km) away from the detonation point, knocking out about 300 streetlights, setting off numerous burglar alarms, and damaging a telephone company microwave link. The EMP damage to the microwave link shut down telephone calls from Kauai to the other Hawaiian Islands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime
    - xoa 1y ago
      Yes, very good you're capable of a simplistic wikipedia search. Now I'd like you to try thinking about the paragraph you just linked for a moment: is "Hawaii", the "300 streetlights", "numerous burglar alarms", and a "microwave link" in the atmosphere (and on the ground, or indeed literally the ground) or in Earth orbit? If you read further, you'll find that the mechanism of generation involves the interaction of the gamma ray emissions with the atmosphere and Earth's magnetic field, that at 500km+ the effect are is reduced, and then find that in your example of Starfish Prime the primary damage to the satellites it affected was not due to EMP at all but rather because the test created radiation belts that damaged solar panels as satellites passed through. This would reduce design lifetime but isn't an immediate killer of everything. You'd need far more then a couple of nukes. Of course, purposefully detonating nuclear weapons to create large scale NEMP effects might well still disrupt Starlink to the degree that it'd effect any piece of ground electronics, because the ground effects would be far, far worse. The satellite constellation could be ok enough to still be functional at reduced capacity, but if terminals and ground stations get toasted that's not immediately helpful. But that directly leads, again, to the fact that you're talking about LAUNCHING A NUCLEAR WAR ON THE ENTIRE WORLD here. No internet is going to be doing very well! So yes: Starlink is pretty darn robust.
dmonitor 1y ago
Could some kind of microwave / laser attack from a high altitude air vehicle be possible?
gmiller123456 1y ago
The anti-satellite devices could be deployed in the same manner as the Starlink satellites. And they wouldn't need communications equipment, so they could be lighter and cheaper to launch. And you really wouldn't need to take them all out, just enough to make communication unreliable. Starlink launches reduce costs by launching a bunch of satellites with similar orbits on the same vehicle, replacing one or a few satellites is going to cost a lot more per satellite. So just disrupting the network is a lot cheaper than fixing it. Thought the cheapest is still probably paying an existing employee to break some stuff.
- modeless 1y ago
  Taking out one or even a few dozen satellites isn't going to make communication unreliable. They can redistribute themselves to fill holes. You'd need to take out thousands, requiring hundreds of launches at least. And neither Russia nor China has reusable rockets, so the costs would be much higher than SpaceX's costs. The interceptors would take a long time to spread out to reach their targets if they were launched in groups like Starlink is, so it wouldn't be a surprise attack and SpaceX would have time to prepare. They would need to start launching on-orbit spares for each orbital shell, but there are only a few shells, not hundreds. And in a few years when Starship is launching Starlink, the economics will be tilted even more wildly in SpaceX's favor.
cozzyd 1y ago
Taking out GNSS satellites would probably also effectively take out starlink. User terminals rely on GNSS for timing and position and I wouldn't be surprised if the satellites did too.
- modeless 1y ago
  GPS is owned by the US military. Physically destroying GPS satellites would be an unambiguous act of war against the US.

shermantanktop 1y ago

If they had that capability, they could presumably do it any time, and then Starlink would recover at some point. So it would make sense to combine this with some other offensive action where hampering communication would help them. Otherwise they are just poking at something just to do it... unless this were a more serious attack with long-term consequences.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

viraptor 1y ago

> what would be the most likely way for them to have done it? Ensure Starlink hires an agent. Establish skills / access permissions. Push an update which bricks both the update system and the running system, so the satellites become useless.

newsclues 1y ago
They would exfiltrate any secret technology first, then do their best to burn the whole network. Potentially you could burn the constellation with reentry.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > Potentially you could burn the constellation with reentry Just put them into a spin with a strong propellant burn while compromising ground stations. Even if the fleet recovers, its lifespan will have been significantly reduced by the propellant expenditure.
  - m4rtink 1y ago
    Spin would be indeed the most problematic, but the Starlink satellites only have krypton hall thrusters. Very efficient but also very low thrust - you you could not actually significantly waste fuel this way even if you wanted to.
- codedokode 1y ago
  Is there any secret technology in Starlink that is not taught in Russian Universities and not described in Soviet scientific works?
  - newsclues 1y ago
    Fundamentally maybe not, but knowing what they are actually doing/using is still useful. If you can get schematics or source code, you can put it to use as well. And then you can also use communications logs and HR to find other human targets.

Symmetry 1y ago

Yeah, Russia maanged to knock Viasat offline with hacking during the initial invasion. The original donated Starlinks were supposed to replace Viasat and SpaceX was surprised that they ended up being used on the front lines. Russia has certainly been trying to knock them out ever since.

asadotzler 1y ago
If my memory is accurate, that didn't knock Viasat offline, it only made most of Viasat's customers unable to connect, but the network was just fine, only user routers were broken.

MKais 1y ago

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinholdenplatt/2025/07/23/russian-nuclear-sabotage-in-space-could-decimate-western-satellites/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinholdenplatt/2025/07/23/rus...

Zigurd 1y ago

I would still bet against the Russians taking down all of Starlink. If they had a zero day that could do that, they'd save it for just before a big war. But Russian low-intensity hybrid warfare, including infiltration and sabotage, is very real. Particularly in Europe and especially so in eastern Europe. There's a lot of nasty things going on in border areas that isn't widely reported.

whizzter 1y ago
Things get patched over time, Nato has their own comms systems whilst Ukraine relies on this third party, and the US just accepted the EU funded weapons sale so their Trump advantage seems to have disappeared with his patience in P's promises. Thus using the weakness to launch a coordinated summer offensive now for a decisive breakthrough before US weapons supplies reaches full speed again seems like a reasonably good choice. Conquering Ukraine is the key for restoring the USSR, Belarus is already under the yoke and Khz,etc won't dare resist after Ukr falls. P sees a victory here as moving the linchpin that makes him immortal in historybooks.
- EB-Barrington 1y ago
  [dead]
sneak 1y ago
No good way to test your PoC without burning your 0day; I don’t imagine that the OV firmware is public or even “available”.

bamboozled 1y ago

Doesn’t the military use a different starlink or something ? If not and this was a cyber attack the this an attack on the USA.

newsclues 1y ago

Get an employee to take the network down from the inside. Either exploit existing employees or take years to seed an agent into the company. State level persistent attacks are well funded and have long timelines.

keyringlight 1y ago
I'd wonder about someone targeting Musk seeing as Starlink is one of his ventures that seems to be running well up to now while his other companies have issues. Having typed that out it seems like a spy movie plot, but that seems to be the world we're living in recently.
- newsclues 1y ago
  I don’t think musk himself would be the weakest link, as the high profile brings scrutiny and thus increased security and counterintelligence. Trying would be a good way to get the FBI to look into you. Easier and safer to go after unknown employees with access.

flytyer37 1y ago

Starlink has been supporting Russia over Ukraine (congressional investigation into this). So I would bet against Russia, but you never know. Could be rouge. Anonymous has promised in the past to mess with Musk... could be that. Well funded and some crazy good hackers.

rossdavidh 1y ago
In terms of actual actions, Starlink has done a lot more for Ukraine than almost anyone else, since early on. Musk says stuff from time to time in order to try to keep Putin from noticing this, and pushing him out of a window or something. But his actions are that he let Ukraine use Starlink for over a year for free, and they still use it widely today.
- rasz 1y ago
  No one is using Starlink for free. Poland has been paying for all of those "free" terminals DoD was sending over. Currently Poland is still paying for more than half of all Starlink in Ukraine.

_joel 1y ago

The Russians use Starlink too, saw a video on Kiev Independent that had a Ukranian drone team take out a Starlink dish atop a Russian bunker.

sneak 1y ago
I imagine it is illegal for Starlink to not geofence service to prevent Russians using it for exactly that purpose. Sanctions still exist, after all.
- _joel 1y ago
  Yes, in Kursk, maybe. However this is in Ukraine.
  - sneak 1y ago
    Donetsk and Lugansk are both sanctioned too I believe.
    - _joel 1y ago
      You can watch the video yourself - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MqoBPXzJds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MqoBPXzJds
- rossdavidh 1y ago
  I would not be surprised if US intelligence quietly asked Starlink to please let the Russians keep using Starlink, so long as they get to listen in.
  - rasz 1y ago
    Be serious. Look at the president, look at the head of ODNI, look at the head of DoD, finally look at musk