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They are almost completely inaccessible to the average Iranian. A friend of mine who has come a long way to fight Iranian censorship told me that they essential
by GaggiX 9mo ago
They are almost completely inaccessible to the average Iranian. A friend of mine who has come a long way to fight Iranian censorship told me that they essentially don't exist.
- burkaman 9mo agoThere are ~100,000 users, about 0.1% of the population: https://www.newsweek.com/starlink-usage-iran-skyrockets-break-internet-law-rebel-restrictions-2011111 https://www.newsweek.com/starlink-usage-iran-skyrockets-brea... Compare that to the number of cell phone users which is very close to 100%. All estimates of the number of mobile subscribers or number of mobile phone numbers are greater than the total population.
- helloaltalt 9mo agoHow are there so many users, see my other comment but i will ask here as well but starlink's american company and sanctioned iran so how do the details really work? And how do starlink recievers enter the country in the first place? This is good that there is still a way to get censorship resistance even after all this perhaps joining it with other protocols which can work via bluetooth,wifi etc. and are more secure connecting to something like this, a secure internet access point could be developed but I don't know too much about it.
- petre 9mo agoBlack market. We had satellite dishes in Eastern Europe during communism. Bribe some people, shell out some insane amounts of cash and it can be done.
- helloaltalt 9mo agoIf black market's the only reason that activism/journalism/outside contact is even possible in the country It doesn't seem much of a plan (very sadly, I wish there was) which could be uncensored that much, some other comment pointed this point too but if black market's the case, then they would just hide whoever is using this They would also most likely be very less in amount, journalists etc. But the average person, they are stuck without proper internet I thought that there are materials which can build starlink and the only thing then you need is just subscription or something It's just sad to see that black market is the only way.
- petre 9mo agoStop worrying. You don't have to liberate everyone. The Iranian regime will screw itself up by attacking Israel. It's usually smuggled parts if they're small enough. Someone outside of the country usually makes the subscription and they get paid somehow.
- inglor_cz 9mo agoAs someone who grew up in late Communist Czechoslovakia, you underestimate the black market. Its capabilities were only comparable to the Secret Police itself (StB in our case). People in unfree conditions are crafty. Same with information. Suppressed information spreads using underground channels quite quickly. For example, we knew almost immediately that there was some nuclear disaster in Ukraine even though the official channels didn't say anything for days.
- scottyah 9mo agoAs long as starlink isn't forced to geofence an area, anyone can buy a terminal anywhere and smuggle it in as any other drug or contraband. The mini's are about the same size as a laptop
- syncsynchalt 9mo agoTools to evade state surveillance and censorship are explicitly exempted from US sanctions against Iran. https://www.reuters.com/world/us-expands-sanctions-exceptions-help-provide-internet-iranians-2022-09-23/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us-expands-sanctions-exception...
- torginus 9mo agoPossibly the number of users is even larger, if people can share a terminal. Wifi 802.11s Mesh with Batman routing scales very well to huge sizes.
- burkaman 9mo agoThis is already assuming terminal and account sharing. I meant to link this story, the original source: https://www.iranintl.com/en/202501060034 https://www.iranintl.com/en/202501060034. The stat is based on 30,000 unique users. I don't know how many actual terminals there are, probably a few thousand.
- helloaltalt 9mo agoThey must be smuggled inside the country and the dictatorship can say anything they want and charge if they get caught so they must be very few in numbers I don't know too much about starlink but is there a way that someone can pay for other person's usage and then build a starlink receiver or something from spare parts or like easy accesible parts from the world? Because how would people get starlink device. I dont know the mecanism of startlink though or how it works
- falaki 9mo agoYes, there are NGOs and organizations that sponsor these and pay for them. Here is an example: https://www.forbes.com/sites/cyrusfarivar/2024/12/18/inside-irans-thriving-black-market-for-starlink-terminals/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/cyrusfarivar/2024/12/18/inside-...
- helloaltalt 9mo agoForbes asking me to pay Elevate Your Journey Invest in your success with unlimited access to trusted, in-depth journalism for less than $1/week. Become a member today to continue. here's an web.archive.org link if anyone's interested which works https://web.archive.org/web/20250301050041/https://www.forbes.com/sites/cyrusfarivar/2024/12/18/inside-irans-thriving-black-market-for-starlink-terminals/ https://web.archive.org/web/20250301050041/https://www.forbe... Edit: WTF forbes still gives me a popup even in archive, strange, but its less restrictive overall in the web archive version so I am able to still copy and read the version
- shellwizard 9mo agoNo problem using uBO and FF
- pantalaimon 9mo ago> is there a way that someone can pay for other person's usage and then build a starlink receiver or something from spare parts or like easy accesible parts from the world? Starlink uses a pretty sophisticated phased array antenna, so not something you can easily build in your garage.
- BurningFrog 9mo agoThose who have one surely keep that fact secret.