4 ms·

> 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

> 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 ago
Starlink isn't sold to Myanmar.
- simiones 1y ago
  Sold 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 ago
    What 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.
    - logicchains 1y ago
      Because a good chunk of people on this site have so little moral development that to them "whatever the law says is moral".
    - buran77 1y ago
      > What if a "legitimate" government is committing genocide That's an interesting question, I'll say. I can't say yes or no but I can say that the answer should be consistent. You either support genocidal regimes, or you don't. So you have Starlink operating in Israel and in Myanmar. > 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. Imagine the bafflement when some people stick to their tunnel vision while writing about other people's tunnel vision on the same exact topic.
    - andsoitis 1y ago
      > What if a "legitimate" government is committing genocide, as Mynamar's is? Should international companies respect its sovereign laws? Yes. The answer is not to act lawlessly, but instead to not be in that country at all or be there and apply pressure for change. But breaking the laws in ad hoc ways is not the way. Several international companies have divested or exited due to political risk, sanctions, or human rights concerns. > people are somehow capable of ignoring the elephant in the room of the massacring of civilians To consider, the following countries, amongst others, retain embassies in Myanmar: Australia, Brazil, China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Israel, Japan, Nepal, Singapore, UK, USA. Should embassy staff break the country's laws?
      - watwut 1y ago
        > The answer is not to act lawlessly, but instead to not be in that country at all or be there and apply pressure for change. Oh, that is the novel idea. For people being genocided to not be there and for those who are against genocide to let themselves be killed in the first step. > But breaking the laws in ad hoc ways is not the way. Breaking the laws is frequently necessary in the genocide situation, because the laws were designed to create and facilitate the genocide. Genocides do not just happen out of nothing.
        andsoitis 1y ago
        >> The answer is not to act lawlessly, but instead to not be in that country at all or be there and apply pressure for change. > Oh, that is the novel idea. For people being genocided to not be there and for those who are against genocide to let themselves be killed in the first step. >> But breaking the laws in ad hoc ways is not the way. >Breaking the laws is frequently necessary in the genocide situation, because the laws were designed to create and facilitate the genocide. Genocides do not just happen out of nothing. My response was to this question: "Should international companies respect its sovereign laws?" Nothing about the people of Myanmar. My answer is different if you're a Myanmar person. But you still face the moral question of which laws you should disregard vs. which to follow.
    - jacquesm 1y ago
      Agreed. I think I have an explanation (a partial one, at best). The tech world is so adept at abstraction that we have made it one of our primary tools in the box. Everything gets abstracted away until we have a nice, clean, uniform representation of the underlying item. Whether that item is people, vehicles, road accident data or private communications doesn't really matter any more once it is abstracted. Then it's just another record. Ethics and other moral angles no longer apply, after all, how could those apply to bits, that's for 'real' engineers. It's also at the core of the HN "'no politics', please." tenet. I see a similar deficiency in the legal profession, they too tend to just focus on the words and the letters and don't actually care all that much about the people.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
  - IshKebab 1y ago
    Starlink isn't sold in Myanmar either. SpaceX does not do business in Myanmar.
    - buran77 1y ago
      Starlink has the precise terminal location and gets paid for the subscription for that terminal. They know where it is and who pays for it. From the article they say that they were selling a service there and stopped in order to comply with local laws: > SpaceX proactively identified and disabled over 2,500 Starlink Kits in the vicinity of suspected ‘scam centers.'”
      - burnerthrow008 1y ago
        I think the point (which you seem to have missed) is: How do you distinguish between a terminal under the control of a scam center versus, say, a journalist who has traveled to the vicinity of the call center to interview people and make a report (The Economist recently had an excellent series of articles about these call centers). Neither terminal was bought in Myanmar. Both have been transported to and used in the vicinity of the scam center. The difference is purely the intent of the person controlling the terminal. But you can't infer that intent from only the location where it was purchased and the precise location where it is being used. > > SpaceX proactively identified and disabled over 2,500 Starlink Kits in the vicinity of suspected ‘scam centers.'” Sure, because it's currently in the news and it's any easy way to say "we fixed the problem". Maybe some Economist journalist just lost internet access. Oh well. Guess they'll have to find their way out of Myanmar without internet. Sucks to be them, right?
        close04 1y ago
        > How do you distinguish between a terminal under the control of a scam center versus, say, a journalist who has traveled to the vicinity of the call center to interview people and make a report. You are told by the local law enforcement and legal system? Starlink's obligation is only to assist local authorities as per their law. Maybe the local authorities are corrupt but that doesn't give Starlink a free pass from obeying their law. > Neither terminal was bought in Myanmar. Does it matter? Starlink does business there, in Myanmar. They offer an internet service. They were asked by the authorities to disable some terminals, and because they want to keep offering the service to other paying customers, they complied. There's no legal grey area here, not even a moral conundrum for Musk. He follows the law of the land, gets to still do business and make more money. Point being, as long as Starlink wants to keep offering a service and make money in Myanmar the company has to obey local laws. The statement below [0] that started the thread was a kneejerk reaction, keyboard warrior style. Musk "didn't give the time of day" to Brazilian authorities and he was squeezed into compliance. Why fight when there's an easy way to keep making money? > But 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 [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45680818 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45680818
IlikeKitties 1y ago
> 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? Yes absolutely, see the ridiculous censorship the British government is trying to establish against us companies. Companies should be forced to comply with local law when they have a physical office there or there is a government to government contract that regulates how commerce should be done between those countries. Now, Myanmar or the british or whoever can block, deny payment services or make it illegal to use such services for their locals but it is ludicrous to accept the laws of foreign countries just because.
- close04 1y ago
  > Companies should be forced to comply with local law when they have a physical office there What happens when they send signals in that country, like Starlink is explicitly doing? What if companies in Mexico or Canada started blasting signals on frequencies used in the US for critical communication, would that fall under "they should comply with US law"? What if Russia does the same with boats on the border?
  - IlikeKitties 1y ago
    First, consider separating state actors from companies. Countries actively sabotaging critical infrastructure is an act of war like russia is doing with GPS Signals. It's not a matter of legal or illegal but a matter of are you willing and able to either sanction or bomb the country into changing their behavior. As for what companies are doing: If i'm legally allowed to send a signal inside mexico that interferes with US Signals, sucks to be an US Person relying on that signal but me as a company wouldn't give a shit. Doubly so for space based assets. This is where inter country contracts come into play. If your country and my country have a contract that designates some signals for public use and others not, than local law can be changed to comply with those contracts. Everything else is just a matter of tragedy of the commons or questionable encroachments into another countries sovereignity.
    - 1y ago
Ray20 1y ago
> because "your laws don't apply to me"? That's exactly how it works, via ability to apply laws. If there is no abiliyt to apply the law, then yeah, everyone allowed to do anything they want.
- Cthulhu_ 1y ago
  Allowed, no, but there's also no direct consequences. Indirect consequences though, like counterattacks, sanctions, export restrictions, etc are a thing. But a country like NK doesn't care about relationships with the US or Europe, since they benefit more from their relationship with China and Russia, their close neighbours (physically and culturally). Anyway, it's like free speech, I can say anything I want on the internet because what are you going to do, huh? But it'll also mean that if I were to contact you for a job later on you'd be like "nu uh you insulted my mother". Plus I'd get banned from HN.
Cthulhu_ 1y ago
It's not fine I think, and I'm honestly surprised that years of continued cyberattacks haven't led to an escalation outside of the internet yet. Can't be economic sanctions because the US already doesn't deal with NK for example. I am not aware of the victims of state sponsored cyberattacks doing any cyber-counter-attacks either, but that's likely down to a lack of reporting. That is, cyberattacks are seen as a victimless or economic only thing, not unlike economic sanctions.

IshKebab 1y ago

Starlink isn't sold to Myanmar.

simiones 1y ago
Sold 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 ago
  What 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.
  - logicchains 1y ago
    Because a good chunk of people on this site have so little moral development that to them "whatever the law says is moral".
  - buran77 1y ago
    > What if a "legitimate" government is committing genocide That's an interesting question, I'll say. I can't say yes or no but I can say that the answer should be consistent. You either support genocidal regimes, or you don't. So you have Starlink operating in Israel and in Myanmar. > 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. Imagine the bafflement when some people stick to their tunnel vision while writing about other people's tunnel vision on the same exact topic.
  - andsoitis 1y ago
    > What if a "legitimate" government is committing genocide, as Mynamar's is? Should international companies respect its sovereign laws? Yes. The answer is not to act lawlessly, but instead to not be in that country at all or be there and apply pressure for change. But breaking the laws in ad hoc ways is not the way. Several international companies have divested or exited due to political risk, sanctions, or human rights concerns. > people are somehow capable of ignoring the elephant in the room of the massacring of civilians To consider, the following countries, amongst others, retain embassies in Myanmar: Australia, Brazil, China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Israel, Japan, Nepal, Singapore, UK, USA. Should embassy staff break the country's laws?
    - watwut 1y ago
      > The answer is not to act lawlessly, but instead to not be in that country at all or be there and apply pressure for change. Oh, that is the novel idea. For people being genocided to not be there and for those who are against genocide to let themselves be killed in the first step. > But breaking the laws in ad hoc ways is not the way. Breaking the laws is frequently necessary in the genocide situation, because the laws were designed to create and facilitate the genocide. Genocides do not just happen out of nothing.
      - andsoitis 1y ago
        >> The answer is not to act lawlessly, but instead to not be in that country at all or be there and apply pressure for change. > Oh, that is the novel idea. For people being genocided to not be there and for those who are against genocide to let themselves be killed in the first step. >> But breaking the laws in ad hoc ways is not the way. >Breaking the laws is frequently necessary in the genocide situation, because the laws were designed to create and facilitate the genocide. Genocides do not just happen out of nothing. My response was to this question: "Should international companies respect its sovereign laws?" Nothing about the people of Myanmar. My answer is different if you're a Myanmar person. But you still face the moral question of which laws you should disregard vs. which to follow.
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    Agreed. I think I have an explanation (a partial one, at best). The tech world is so adept at abstraction that we have made it one of our primary tools in the box. Everything gets abstracted away until we have a nice, clean, uniform representation of the underlying item. Whether that item is people, vehicles, road accident data or private communications doesn't really matter any more once it is abstracted. Then it's just another record. Ethics and other moral angles no longer apply, after all, how could those apply to bits, that's for 'real' engineers. It's also at the core of the HN "'no politics', please." tenet. I see a similar deficiency in the legal profession, they too tend to just focus on the words and the letters and don't actually care all that much about the people.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
- IshKebab 1y ago
  Starlink isn't sold in Myanmar either. SpaceX does not do business in Myanmar.
  - buran77 1y ago
    Starlink has the precise terminal location and gets paid for the subscription for that terminal. They know where it is and who pays for it. From the article they say that they were selling a service there and stopped in order to comply with local laws: > SpaceX proactively identified and disabled over 2,500 Starlink Kits in the vicinity of suspected ‘scam centers.'”
    - burnerthrow008 1y ago
      I think the point (which you seem to have missed) is: How do you distinguish between a terminal under the control of a scam center versus, say, a journalist who has traveled to the vicinity of the call center to interview people and make a report (The Economist recently had an excellent series of articles about these call centers). Neither terminal was bought in Myanmar. Both have been transported to and used in the vicinity of the scam center. The difference is purely the intent of the person controlling the terminal. But you can't infer that intent from only the location where it was purchased and the precise location where it is being used. > > SpaceX proactively identified and disabled over 2,500 Starlink Kits in the vicinity of suspected ‘scam centers.'” Sure, because it's currently in the news and it's any easy way to say "we fixed the problem". Maybe some Economist journalist just lost internet access. Oh well. Guess they'll have to find their way out of Myanmar without internet. Sucks to be them, right?
      - close04 1y ago
        > How do you distinguish between a terminal under the control of a scam center versus, say, a journalist who has traveled to the vicinity of the call center to interview people and make a report. You are told by the local law enforcement and legal system? Starlink's obligation is only to assist local authorities as per their law. Maybe the local authorities are corrupt but that doesn't give Starlink a free pass from obeying their law. > Neither terminal was bought in Myanmar. Does it matter? Starlink does business there, in Myanmar. They offer an internet service. They were asked by the authorities to disable some terminals, and because they want to keep offering the service to other paying customers, they complied. There's no legal grey area here, not even a moral conundrum for Musk. He follows the law of the land, gets to still do business and make more money. Point being, as long as Starlink wants to keep offering a service and make money in Myanmar the company has to obey local laws. The statement below [0] that started the thread was a kneejerk reaction, keyboard warrior style. Musk "didn't give the time of day" to Brazilian authorities and he was squeezed into compliance. Why fight when there's an easy way to keep making money? > But 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 [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45680818 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45680818

IlikeKitties 1y ago

> 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? Yes absolutely, see the ridiculous censorship the British government is trying to establish against us companies. Companies should be forced to comply with local law when they have a physical office there or there is a government to government contract that regulates how commerce should be done between those countries. Now, Myanmar or the british or whoever can block, deny payment services or make it illegal to use such services for their locals but it is ludicrous to accept the laws of foreign countries just because.

close04 1y ago
> Companies should be forced to comply with local law when they have a physical office there What happens when they send signals in that country, like Starlink is explicitly doing? What if companies in Mexico or Canada started blasting signals on frequencies used in the US for critical communication, would that fall under "they should comply with US law"? What if Russia does the same with boats on the border?
- IlikeKitties 1y ago
  First, consider separating state actors from companies. Countries actively sabotaging critical infrastructure is an act of war like russia is doing with GPS Signals. It's not a matter of legal or illegal but a matter of are you willing and able to either sanction or bomb the country into changing their behavior. As for what companies are doing: If i'm legally allowed to send a signal inside mexico that interferes with US Signals, sucks to be an US Person relying on that signal but me as a company wouldn't give a shit. Doubly so for space based assets. This is where inter country contracts come into play. If your country and my country have a contract that designates some signals for public use and others not, than local law can be changed to comply with those contracts. Everything else is just a matter of tragedy of the commons or questionable encroachments into another countries sovereignity.
  - 1y ago

Ray20 1y ago

> because "your laws don't apply to me"? That's exactly how it works, via ability to apply laws. If there is no abiliyt to apply the law, then yeah, everyone allowed to do anything they want.

Cthulhu_ 1y ago
Allowed, no, but there's also no direct consequences. Indirect consequences though, like counterattacks, sanctions, export restrictions, etc are a thing. But a country like NK doesn't care about relationships with the US or Europe, since they benefit more from their relationship with China and Russia, their close neighbours (physically and culturally). Anyway, it's like free speech, I can say anything I want on the internet because what are you going to do, huh? But it'll also mean that if I were to contact you for a job later on you'd be like "nu uh you insulted my mother". Plus I'd get banned from HN.

Cthulhu_ 1y ago

It's not fine I think, and I'm honestly surprised that years of continued cyberattacks haven't led to an escalation outside of the internet yet. Can't be economic sanctions because the US already doesn't deal with NK for example. I am not aware of the victims of state sponsored cyberattacks doing any cyber-counter-attacks either, but that's likely down to a lack of reporting. That is, cyberattacks are seen as a victimless or economic only thing, not unlike economic sanctions.