4 ms·

It's putting AI processing out of the reach of hostile local, state, and international governments. Does it need to be a cover?

gpm 5mo ago
> It's putting AI processing out of the reach of hostile local, state, and international governments It isn't... the hostile local government can seize the ssh keys you use to control it and take it over just fine. The hostile international non-local super power just gained a new ability to jam communications or destroy it with a bit of deniability too.
- trothamel 5mo ago
  So, that's generally not something local governments do in the US. They do things like increasing taxes on data centers, denying water rights, electric interconnection rights, etc. (At least, all of this has been threatened against data centers.)
  - gpm 5mo ago
    The US government, and sub-governments routinely exercise control over data centres, typically by the simple act of issuing a subpoena or warrant or weird national security document. They will entirely retain this power. And the power to force compliance with force if they need to (though they typically don't). Local governments in the US practically never exercise control over data centers by doing any of the things you just discussed. There's a reason why you're saying "this has been threatened". It's a strange new thing resulting from bizarre current behavior - behavior and a resulting trend that started after Elon started talking about space based data centers, and thus cannot be the cause of it.
  - runako 5mo ago
    PRISM[1] has been publicly-documented for over a decade. China, Iran, Russia, among others obviously also intervene in electronic communications at a low level. I'm not caught up entirely, but I would imagine that NSA's capabilities have advanced beyond what has been published from slides created nearly 20 years ago. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM
wahnfrieden 5mo ago
A cover is going to have a plausible enough sounding justification that you’ll believe and defend
rasz 5mo ago
>hostile ... international governments you mean other than China, russia, NK and Iran?
- trothamel 5mo ago
  SpaceX's launch capacity is an order of magnitude larger that all four of those put together.
  - gpm 5mo ago
    Which is irrelevant because offensive launches can destroy many orders of magnitude more launches worth of payloads. Even with simple kinetic means. Though these days I think I'd expect to see directed energy weapons adding even more zeros to that.
    - inglor_cz 5mo ago
      Have you done the math? "Many orders of magnitude" means, IMHO, at least three. A regular Falcon 9 carries 60 Starlinks IIRC, so three orders of magnitude means destroying 60 thousand at once. What is the offensive launch that can destroy 60 000 satellites in one mission? I don't think it exists.
      - SXX 5mo ago
        No idea about 60,000, but it's not impossible to make whole orbits unusable by launching piles of small junk. Its will ruin it for everyone, but Russia or China is certainly able to do that.
        m4rtink 5mo ago
        The Starlink orbits are so low that stuff deorbits quite quickly withou active propulsion. So while this might work for a while, you woul need to replenish that junk for it to continue working, in all the many orbifs you would want to deny.
      - 5mo ago
vkou 5mo ago
Local, state and international governments who wanted to crack down on AI could just arrest and execute the owners. None of whom plan on living in space anytime soon.

gpm 5mo ago

> It's putting AI processing out of the reach of hostile local, state, and international governments It isn't... the hostile local government can seize the ssh keys you use to control it and take it over just fine. The hostile international non-local super power just gained a new ability to jam communications or destroy it with a bit of deniability too.

trothamel 5mo ago
So, that's generally not something local governments do in the US. They do things like increasing taxes on data centers, denying water rights, electric interconnection rights, etc. (At least, all of this has been threatened against data centers.)
- gpm 5mo ago
  The US government, and sub-governments routinely exercise control over data centres, typically by the simple act of issuing a subpoena or warrant or weird national security document. They will entirely retain this power. And the power to force compliance with force if they need to (though they typically don't). Local governments in the US practically never exercise control over data centers by doing any of the things you just discussed. There's a reason why you're saying "this has been threatened". It's a strange new thing resulting from bizarre current behavior - behavior and a resulting trend that started after Elon started talking about space based data centers, and thus cannot be the cause of it.
- runako 5mo ago
  PRISM[1] has been publicly-documented for over a decade. China, Iran, Russia, among others obviously also intervene in electronic communications at a low level. I'm not caught up entirely, but I would imagine that NSA's capabilities have advanced beyond what has been published from slides created nearly 20 years ago. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM

wahnfrieden 5mo ago

A cover is going to have a plausible enough sounding justification that you’ll believe and defend

rasz 5mo ago

>hostile ... international governments you mean other than China, russia, NK and Iran?

trothamel 5mo ago
SpaceX's launch capacity is an order of magnitude larger that all four of those put together.
- gpm 5mo ago
  Which is irrelevant because offensive launches can destroy many orders of magnitude more launches worth of payloads. Even with simple kinetic means. Though these days I think I'd expect to see directed energy weapons adding even more zeros to that.
  - inglor_cz 5mo ago
    Have you done the math? "Many orders of magnitude" means, IMHO, at least three. A regular Falcon 9 carries 60 Starlinks IIRC, so three orders of magnitude means destroying 60 thousand at once. What is the offensive launch that can destroy 60 000 satellites in one mission? I don't think it exists.
    - SXX 5mo ago
      No idea about 60,000, but it's not impossible to make whole orbits unusable by launching piles of small junk. Its will ruin it for everyone, but Russia or China is certainly able to do that.
      - m4rtink 5mo ago
        The Starlink orbits are so low that stuff deorbits quite quickly withou active propulsion. So while this might work for a while, you woul need to replenish that junk for it to continue working, in all the many orbifs you would want to deny.
    - 5mo ago

vkou 5mo ago

Local, state and international governments who wanted to crack down on AI could just arrest and execute the owners. None of whom plan on living in space anytime soon.