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SpaceX disables 2,500 Starlink terminals allegedly used by Asian scam centers
- mc32 1y ago[flagged]
- onetokeoverthe 1y ago[dead]
- perihelions 1y agoThe title is underselling the nuance—there's the entire Myanmar civil war hiding behind the word "allegedly". The group in power claims a group trying to overthrow them is operating scam centers (they deny it); this SpaceX intervention cuts off communications on a large scale, presumably aiding one side or the other in some unclear way. > "“Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, the spokesperson for the military government, charged in a statement Monday night that the top leaders of the Karen National Union, an armed ethnic organization opposed to army rule, were involved in the scam projects at KK Park,” the AP wrote. The Karen National Union is “part of the larger armed resistance movement in Myanmar’s civil war” and “deny any involvement in the scams.”"
- iknowstuff 1y agoA scam is a scam right
- boringg 1y agoRight - shutdown the scam centers. Why is this so hard? If one group is using the scam center to power their resistance ... that resistance is built on a really bad foundation. I get that if you are shutting down comms for an an org thats different - but if its a known scam center not a tough decision here.
- ralfd 1y agoThe nominal group in power should be able to deny/allow communication from the space above their country though.
- perihelions 1y agoBut the US (who has jurisdiction over Starlink) isn't bound by Mynamar laws, and (IMHO) shouldn't give the time of day to the requests of a junta commiting crimes against humanity, systemic extermination[0] of ethnic minorities. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_genocide
- buran77 1y ago> But the US (who has jurisdiction over Starlink) isn't bound by Mynamar laws, and (IMHO) shouldn't... Should everyone else be allowed to do anything they want in a country as long as it's from a distance because "your laws don't apply to me"? Is it fine when Russian, Chinese, or NK hackers are operating against the US? If a country is good enough to sell to and provide a service there, it's good enough to obey its laws.
- IshKebab 1y agoStarlink isn't sold to Myanmar.
- simiones 1y agoSold in, not sold to. The GP meant: if you consider it legitimate to sell your product in Myanmar, you should obey the laws of Myanmar. If you consider the government is illegitimate, don't do business there.
- perihelions 1y agoWhat if a "legitimate" government is committing genocide, as Mynamar's is? Should international companies respect its sovereign laws? This thread baffles me, that people are somehow capable of ignoring the elephant in the room of the massacring of civilians, to tunnel-vision instead on some trivial and insignificant technicalities about satellite law.
- jacknews 1y agoThey may well deny it, but there's plenty of international documentation showing it is indeed a thing, and presumably starlink have even more evidence.
- altacc 1y agoThe truth is more likely that both the junta and local militias have ties to different scam centres. The Myanmar government never does anything for its people, it's motivated by power and money and they were profiting heavily from scam centres until China's patience broke, due to large numbers of Chinese being trafficked and imprisoned at these scam compounds. The junta needs China's support in order to survive. As the junta lost control of the border regions the local militias stepped in to either profit from scams or close them to please China, depending upon what they thought would benefit them most.
- whimsicalism 1y agoi haven’t seen any good evidence tying the Tatmadaw to these large-scale scam operations, while I have seen a fair bit of evidence tying a few of the regional militias.
- yorwba 1y agoMany of those regional militias are or were integrated into the Tatmadaw as Border Guard Forces to hold territory against other militias. E.g. the scam centers in Laukkai were run by the local BGF until 2023 when the Tatmadaw lost control to the MNDAA, who then shut them down, presumably as part of a deal with China. The Tatmadaw doesn't control many towns on the eastern border anymore, but they do control Muse near the border with China, where scam centers were operating unimpeded until after that offensive, when the Tatmadaw began to target them with arrests and deportations https://shwepheemyay.org/english-edition/junta-raids-muse-scam-centers-arrests-over-130-including-41-chinese/ https://shwepheemyay.org/english-edition/junta-raids-muse-sc... probably to get back on China's good side.
- wraptile 1y agoIt's a very well proven fact that the scam centers are operated by Chinese given that before covid they were all Chinese casinos that transitioned to online scams because no Chinese could leave China to spend their money there.
- Cthulhu_ 1y agoIf it's a very well proven fact, can you link to some objective sources to your strongly worded claims? Given that clearly this is a very politically sensitive subject, I'm not going to trust a commenter on the internet on their own.
- wraptile 1y agoWikipedia is a good start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KK_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KK_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shwe_Kokko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shwe_Kokko Statement by US Treasury: https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0237 https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0237 If you ever been to Myanmar you'd know that Burmese simply have no capability of operating something like this, especially now.
- moralestapia 1y ago>presumably aiding one side or the other in some unclear way "I'm strongly opposed to one side or the other gaining a possible advantage or disadvantage in some unclear way" LOL
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 1y agoIt's important to know that anything Elon or Tesla or SpaceX says about freedom of speech or libertarianism, is subject to either the US government or President Trump or Elon's personal beliefs about freedom of speech. Which so far have been "I support complete freedom of speech. (for myself, and censorship for others)" They aren't going to sell a product that could be used against them. Our allies are reasonably asking if the high-tech F-35 fighters have kill switches too
- whimsicalism 1y agoAny topic related to Elon Musk seems to get flooded with low-entropy uninteresting comments.
- miroljub 1y agoIt won't be the first time that Starlink takes a side in a military conflict somewhere in the world. Somewhere they do it openly and boast proudly about it, somewhere they just keep it quiet.
- safety1st 1y agoI don't think the nuance you believe exists actually exists. The scam centers at KK Park and Shwe Kokko employ forced laborers numbering in the thousands - they literally kidnap people from neighboring countries, imprison them, confiscate their passports, and force them to conduct scam operations for 17 hours a day, torturing them if they fail to comply. The KNU is undoubtedly in on this, allowing it to happen within their area of control and almost certainly profiting financially from it. The stuff going on there is evil of the highest degree. It's evil on a level that many Hacker News users probably did not even realize exists in the world. Starlink doesn't even offer service in Myanmar! The operators of the scam centers acquired the terminals through their criminal connections. Yes the Tatmadaw is also evil. It doesn't really matter though. This is a pretty black and white scenario. What's going on is dark beyond belief and any action which curtails it is positive.
- dylan604 1y ago> Starlink doesn't even offer service in Myanmar! If this is the case, what is the justification for allowing them at all? If the receiver's location is not in an authorized service area, why allow it to connect? In fact, I'm surprised that's not automated. I can't access websites due to geofencing, yet Starlink can't figure out the location of the dish accessing their network? I'm not buying that at all.
- mschuster91 1y ago> If the receiver's location is not in an authorized service area, why allow it to connect? Money and other KPIs. Money is an obvious KPI - 2500 terminals at 100 $ a month each, 250k a month in income, nothing to sneeze at. The more important KPI however is satellite utilization. And it's not like either the legitimate Myanmari government nor the various oppositional factions have any interest, much less ability, in trying to curtail Starlink.
- dylan604 1y agothey have interest in curtailing for the opposition while keeping it for themselves
- more_corn 1y agoThe scam centers are real and there has been extensive reporting on them. Look up “Operation Shamrock” and particularly the work by Erin West for some of the work busting them (she even toured a scam center Thea had been recruiting busted and took video and photographic evidence). Workers from many countries have been lured through Thailand, kidnapped and trafficked across the border forced to work behind bars and under threat of torture.
- whatsupdog 1y agoThese scams are getting really really out of hand. I mean the ones out of India were pretty bad, but at least there was no slavery/human trafficking/torture involved. Also, most of the Myanmar ones are "pig butchering", so they even play with the victims emotions for a long long time, and it's much much more difficult to get your life back on track after being scammed by someone you thought was the love of your life.
- contrarian1234 1y agoThe ones in Myanmar target the Sinosphere. They kidnap Chinese tourists and enslave them. It's run by Taiwanese and Chinese mafia. It's possible they have native English speakers there.. I haven't heard of it before though.
- notahacker 1y agoIt certainly started focusing on the Sinosphere, but the DW investigation last year talked to Africans who had been persuaded of "job opportunities" at KK Park, who would be far more likely to be fluent in English than Chinese
- rasz 1y agoAdd Belarusian girl from yesterday, definitely didnt speak local languages https://www.the-independent.com/asia/southeast-asia/myanmar-belarus-vera-kravtsova-bangkok-b2850608.html https://www.the-independent.com/asia/southeast-asia/myanmar-...
- pavel_lishin 1y agoMaybe, but I get several texts a week (Telegram, SMS, etc) from what are very obvious scams of these types. The classic: "Are you still picking me up from the airport? Oh, this isn't Natasha's phone? <picture of (presumably) AI-generated Asian lady>." I guess it's possible that they're making an erroneous assumption based on my last name, but I'm not Chinese.
- 1y ago
- zyf 1y agoNot advocating for either side here, but the ability for US gov to control/influence internet access on a global scale is, to me, the main driver behind Starlink. tinfoil hat off
- alt227 1y agoHow do Starlink IP addresses work with Geolocation? Does Starlink have access to IP address blocks for all coutnries and issue them out based on registration and/or GPS data? Or do all starlink customers worldwide get issued US IPs?
- fluoridation 1y agoNote that there's no such thing as "US IPs". GeoIP works by induction: "OK, this operator is in France, so all addresses in this range are probably in France; these ones are probably close to Paris, which is where this internal router is;" etc. If I had to guess, you probably get the address of the base station whose signals reflect off the satellite, which is probably not very far from you, given the satellites are in LEO. EDIT: I meant to say that you get an address in the ground station's subnetwork. I don't know if Starlink uses NAT.
- alt227 1y agoI hadnt even considered that there were multiple ground stations. I just assumed the Starlink satelites would just all bounce the signal back to base in the US.
- dmix 1y ago> Starlink is not licensed to operate in Myanmar > Myanmar’s military has shut down a major online scam operation near the border with Thailand, detaining more than 2,000 people and seizing dozens of Starlink satellite Internet terminals So Myanmar seized some terminals and Starlink disabled the accounts?
- shellfishgene 1y agoAbout 80 were seized in raids, SpaceX disabled 2500.
- noselasd 1y agoYes, seems so - but they shut down a lot more terminals too, not just the seized ones. And it seems the biggest reason for them shutting down the terminals was pressure from US Senator Maggie Hassan to shut down scam centers, not the government in Myanmar.
- 1-6 1y ago[flagged]
- Jeremy1026 1y agoDoes he though? Feels like he envisions a utopian world where he is the leader and the rest of the population needs to accommodate his every whim.
- IAmBroom 1y agoWell, that's one of the utopian visions he markets. In practice Elon seems to envision a world that worships Elon.
- etchalon 1y agoElon envisions a world where he's cool and everyone thinks he's cool and everyone thinks he's funny and he's really mad most of us don't.
- benbojangles 1y agoi would prefer to go there and visit to find out the truth before i pass judgement
- MoltenMan 1y agoI really don't think you would prefer to do that
- pavel_lishin 1y agoFlights start at ~$1500.
- pavlov 1y agoNow do the Texan scam center called Tesla, Inc. (Former Tesla customer here)
- leobg 1y agoA zero effort, dismissive, libelous comment, driven by an emotional reflex befitting the poster’s name.
- pavlov 1y agoIt’s not libel that Tesla sold me a 7,500 EUR car feature that doesn’t work and never will, and they’ve kept lying about it for almost a decade. The company’s operations are fraudulent at the core. No business should treat its customers like this.
- gethly 1y agoMusk getting political again? Oh no, what a surprise...
- guywithahat 1y agoI mean this seems to be tied to the Chinese human trafficking/slave call centers, and the terminals are not legal in the country. I suppose everything is politically complex, but I wouldn't really call this "getting political". The US just confiscated 15 billion in bitcoin from what seems to be the same group (although I think there's some discrepancy between what they're doing and how they're doing it).
- ta1243 1y agoAmerican Billionaires interfering in Myanmar is hardly unprecedented given the facebook genocide They're the new East India company.
- lofaszvanitt 1y agoOh, the free internet.
- jjangkke 1y agoI'm appalled that HN seemingly do not care about the human suffering that is going on in these medieval human slavery camps and instead focus on seemingly to regurgitate whatever talking points from their political leanings that were taught. These "scam" centers kidnap, torture, even harvest organs from victims and have caused extreme violation of human rights but many of you seem more concerned with focusing your hatred towards Elon Musk or how your internet is being censored by this act. Almost no modern telecom business will allow its customers to engage in terrorism and heinous criminal acts such as this. This thread is the first time I am disgusted by HN users which in the recent years becomes indistinguishable from Reddit.
- cindyllm 1y ago[dead]
- lofaszvanitt 1y agoStill, on what basis do you, as a company, decide whether you restrict your services or not? Internet is like drinkable water. Imagine someone shutting off water to your area, because the little green elfs said so. There are myriad ways to kneecap these bastards, no, they decided to shut off the internet.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- NaomiLehman 1y agoThe Internet is still free. Access just got regulated for a region :D
- nomdep 1y agoOf course now there are comments here about how evil Musk is "getting political again" or "aiding one side". But last time (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45422514 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45422514), allowing it was "walking all over national and international laws".
- leobg 1y agoExactly. > What he does is evil. Why is it evil? Because I resent him. Why do you resent him? Because I am no match for him. - Has anyone ever answered like this? (Nietzsche)
- SrslyJosh 1y ago> An October 2024 report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime described the use of Starlink in fraud operations. About 80 “Starlink satellite dishes linked to cyber-enabled fraud operations” were seized between April and June 2024 in Myanmar and Thailand, the report said. Starlink is prohibited in both countries. They knew about it over a year ago. From a Wired article ("Elon Musk’s Starlink Is Keeping Modern Slavery Compounds Online"): > Starlink connections appeared to be helping criminals at Tai Chang to “scam Americans” and “fuel their internet needs,” West alleged at the end of July 2024. She offered to share more information to help the company in “disrupting the work of bad actors.” > SpaceX and Starlink never replied, West claims. The whole article is worth a read.
- Wingman4l7 1y agoNext they need to disable the Starlink terminals being used on narco-subs: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44477601 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44477601
- mertleee 1y ago[dead]