- cross-posted to:
- cybersecurity@sh.itjust.works
- cross-posted to:
- cybersecurity@sh.itjust.works
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Whether there is evidence or not of surveillance via Starlink, does anyone believe that anything connected to the Internet does not have some ability for surveillance imbedded?
What do you mean by this? If you mean “networks can always be listened on on” then sure. If you mean “all devices have a backdoor” then no.
A lot of “duh” comments indicating people didn’t read… The headline could be better too but it doesn’t excuse commenting without even engaging the post…
Also, even if it was what people think it is, it’s important to have evidence and journalism highlighting that evidence.
I read the post and it’s still a “duh.” Of course, other countries will exploit the systemic corruption in our system. It makes a lot of sense for governments in non-Starlink countries to target Starlink users on their territory because those are basically guaranteed to be spies or saboteurs. And yeah, ad targetting isn’t exactly a new tactic. I just don’t get how agents are not using uBlock Origin. Don’t they get some basic computer security best practices course?
You could call anything a “duh” with that argument…
I will say, I’ve taken a TON of basic cyber security corporate run training events… NONE of them talk about using ad block hahahahah.
Yeah, maybe i am a bit biased. And you should definitely tell them to add ad blocking and awareness of targeted and dragnet malvertising to their courses. Blocking ads should also increase productivity by reducing distractions and cognitive load when using the web.
NOOOO YOU DON’T SAY
This is what Surprised_Pikachu.jpg was made for I Imagine.
Noooooo. Ya don’t say.
Obviously most of people in comments didn’t read the article, so here is TLDR:
A shady Israeli company was found to be spreading scary zero-click spyware through targeted ads. Despite being banned from Google ad platform, they seem to simply change business entity from time to time and keep doing what they do. One of such attacks was targeted to people using StarLink, including in countries that restrict StarLink use. Attacks through targeted ads, not StarLink itself. Targeted ads are bad, StarLink users are target audience.
This is what happens when you societally refuse to “pierce the corporate veil”. The criminals actually performing the illegal activity wear articles of incorporation like a costume or disguise, then when they get busted, they throw that costume in a dumpster and get a new one.
I think we need Fred, Daphne, and Velma to find out who this criminal really is.
Well it is an Israli company. The call could be coming from inside the house.
JINKIES, a clue!
Despite being banned from Google ad platform
The most shocking news to me is that google banned something evil or malicious from their ad platform
It was the wrong kind of evil that doesn’t make them any money and hurts sales.
We should find the guy that made this and lock him up!
I’m not arguing against your username, but this article is about an Israeli malware campaign using ad bids to specifically target itself towards Starlink users. There’s nothing about Starlink itself being complicit.
I’d think if Starlink wanted to surveil their users (they probably do) they could find a more direct route than this (they probably have).
For one mistake? Seems like that would be appropriate if he had a track record of bad behavior perhaps.
He’s got a bright future ahead of him, shouldn’t punish him for a few seconds of action
All ad networks are malware distribution networks.
Adblock is the new antivirus.
I heard adblock was sold to advertising interests, and some of the creators that were against selling it made the content blocker ublockorigin, which works better than adblock ever did. Undetectable by websites too unlike adblockers.
Adblock the concept, not Adblock the named software browser extension.
People should currently be using ublockorigin as you say.
Is that why a lot of people still don’t use it?
Hey guys, I just heard water is wet. There’s news all over. Why are we just picking on a musk owned company? Obviously Musk cares so little about his test subjects he also tallies what shows they watch and websites they visit, like Facebook. Every company under the sun is tapping your conversations, looking at your phone, listening to your music. Nothing you do is private, Starlink or otherwise.
Get VPN and even then its not so cut and dry.
Is this why they want to use Starlink for mobile phone service and sell the infrastructure to telecoms?
Sell the service cheaply to telcos, hope they invest less in ground infrastructure and couple of decades later you can spy on every citizen.
Um, duh.
I’m glad this is coming to light, but… duh
People clapping for Internet on planes from Herr Tesla who led the massive data theft of social security and citizen records, and people would feign surprise?
As you said, duh
I doubt many people using internet on planes give any þought as to how. Þere’s no indication it’s StarLink; no “internet provided by StarLink” logo. Not on any plane I’ve flown in, anyway.
since 2022, when he slowed down ukraine startshield/link.
wasnt it obvious form the start? and since 2022, im not surprised its heavily rolled in RURAL area and red states.
The whole point of Starlink was to bring broadband to rural areas… The places telephone and cable companies didn’t want to build modern infrastructure for.
At the beginning you couldn’t even sign up for Starlink near cities.didn’t want to
That’s what regulations are for. We let them have their regional monopolies, and they build out service everywhere, even the nonprofitable builds. Then we just stopped doing that when the bribes got big enough, and this problem came into being. All those shacks in the middle of nowhere have phone lines because of this regulation, which is totally still on the books, by the way.
Put musk in prison
We need to nationalize Space X and Starlink, and imprison Musk.
Alternatively, we could reinstate NASA’s funding, and come up with an actually sane way to get Internet service to remote areas that doesn’t involve what is essentially “space littering”. Putting thousands of satellites into space for something that can be done way more practically on the ground makes every future thing you do in space harder, and severely hampers land-based astronomy. They have to track every nut and bolt in orbit for as long as they stay there, or one of those things will blow something to smithereens, even if it is small, like a literal nut or bolt.
We’re letting private entities potentially trap our children here on Earth by failing to regulate and enforce what can be up there. If you envision a future with space colonies and exploration, SpaceX and Starlink are not how you get there. I’m sure its doing a great job letting yokels in the swamp watch foxnews.com though, so there’s that.
We’ve tried to do it on the ground for decades to little success. We give them money, and they say, oh so sorry we spent it all and did 0.001% of the requirements.
SpaceX and these other LEO constellations can do it in a few years, at their own risk.
Also, these constellations serve areas that fiber will never serve. 5g towers maybe in many but not all, but never fiber. They also serve areas like the ocean, and air, some of which will never be served by 5g.
edit: Also there’s no risk of trapping us on earth with something like Starlink. It’s too low and will resolve any mass destruction in a handful of short years. The risk comes with something like Eutelsat One Webs constellation at 1200km that will last millennia in a Kessler Syndome type doomsday scenario.
Also there’s no risk of trapping us on earth with something like Starlink.
We dont actually know this yet. There are potentially other risks from burning more things up in the atmosphere as well that we don’t know.
Edit: its worth pointing out, these satellites are a drop in the bucket compared to what naturally burns up in the atmosphere, however that doesnt mean just a little bit more might not tip the scales. Like some co2 is fine in the atmosphere, but when we put extra in its a problem. There might be a balance that the dishes disrupt.
The thing about this added coverage in remote areas is that they will only “never be served” by fiber because nobody wants to pay for that, not that it can’t be done.
If you consider the monumental infrastructural and ecological impact of launching thousands of satellites instead of running lines, digging that 750km fiber trench starts looking way better.
I believe this is a case of externalizing costs and privatizing profits. In this example, for instance, we all have to breathe that rocket exhaust but it doesn’t cost Starlink anything. Digging hundreds of long trenches likely creates dramatically less air pollution and other externalities than even a single satellite launch.
Regarding the “unservable” locations, such as the ocean, those problems can be solved individually, such as with drones, signaling relays, fixed wireless, and other technologies, some of which have not been devised yet because of market pressure from Starlink. Blanketing the planet with satellites so some boats can get online feels a lot like using explosive ordinance to kill a mosquito, and I’m sure we could do a lot better solving these edge cases than this global orbital network owned by private enterprise.
How many hundreds of thousands or millions of km of trenches though do you think you actually need to serve the entire rural world? How long do you think that would take? That 750km trench might only ever serve 500-1000 people, hence why it never gets built.
Starlink and the LEO constellations provides the capability for anywhere in the world that can clearly see the sky, to have internet. Today. The next stage of the network will make that capable of serving everyone in rural areas instead of having some cell capacity limits on people as the V3 dishes provide 10x the capabilities per dish, and 20x per launch. The only reason not everyone has access to it is because of geopolitical reasons and licensing, but it could technically serve the entire worlds rural areas today.
For the non land areas you can’t just wish wash that away with ‘future tech’ or it’s not important. Keeping hundreds of thousands or millions of drones up in the middle of the oceans isn’t going to happen. Sea internet is just as important to the millions of people who work or live on the sea as it is to the rural people at home. The dramatic improvement in quality of life at people at sea is also improved, and has even been noted by the military.
Surprisingly, Starship is actually ‘clean’ in terms of air pollution. It’s exhaust is just CO2. They could in the future pull CO2 out of the air via solar to make the methane making it neutral. So it’s still a global warming issue, but it’s not tossing other noxious compounds into the air. It’s also a tiny fraction of current airline usage. There’s more CO2 emissions from 1 day of transatlantic flights, than it would take to maintain and grow starlink each year with starship.
Edit: and in case you missed it, starship is operational now. They launched 10 functioning satellites on the last launch. Its a long ways off from being fully and rapidly reusable, but it can deploy payloads now.
I dont know exactly how much trenching would be required, but someone does, because it is the exact same number as they already did to run the phone lines, possibly less due to dramatically superior fiber length limits. That was a massive success that can also not be wish-washed away. It never gets built because the people that would have to build it bought and bribed the people that can make them, and now from Starlink, as well; that is the problem that needs solving.
When we finally do run those fibers, if ever, they are good for decades, and repairing them is a trifle compared to anything involving shuttle launches. The Starlink constellation is grievously costly in uncaptured externalities. I am perfectly fine with solving non-critical problems,such as Internet access at sea, so long as they cover all of the costs of something I consider a tremendous waste, including the environmental cleanup from burning tons of rocket fuel.
Furthermore, future tech was only one of multiple proposed solutions to Internet access at sea. We can do it right now, badly, with existing technologies, and it would improve with time, like every human endeavor in history has when motivated.
I believe that you are viewing the value proposition as it is on its face, but that company (among many) is benefitting tremendously from government subsidy and structurally ignoring those externalities. Even a child knows that it is wrong to make a mess and leave it for someone else to clean up, but every time we let a company burn something or throw something away without paying the real costs of doing that, we’re rewarding that misbehavior. I would not be even slightly surprised if Starlink was in the top 5 of corporate air polluters; launching a rocket takes an amount of energy that is incomprehensible to the average person, and they have to do it repeatedly forever, or Starlink not only stops working, but their “infrastructure” in space becomes worthless. A buried fiber would still be there after the people that placed it are dead.
We never actually solved the telephone line problem globally. This is a global issue, not a US issue or western country issue. Some countries just skipped right over it in areas it was simple to do and went straight to wireless after struggling for decades without connectivity, but still the rural areas rely on some form of satellite internet.
Again, you seem to be worried about these launches, but it will be less than 1 day of transatlantic flights each year to maintain the network. The fuel is methane and oxygen which as I said only has CO2 as a pollutant. If that’s the cost to provide global internet coverage that’s nothing. It’s more for Falcon 9, but its absolutely tiny on the scale of what we do and what it provides.
The unknown externalities are what does burning things up in the atmosphere do, and that is something we don’t truly have an answer today. SpaceX already solved the throwing away 1st stages each launch which every other launch provider does, and are close to solving the 2nd stage as well. If they can solve the 2nd stage, then we really are only talking about whatever damage the burned up satellites do. In the meantime, they burn up the 2nd stages as well as the satellites which everyone else also does, or leave it in a dead orbit.
We could have solved the telephone lines globally, though. The USA gave a beautiful example of how to get it done in one of their sadly few historic commendable examples set for the rest of the world. The fact that it was not done more broadly was due to people not demanding more and better from their governments that could easily have done the same; it gets cheaper and easier every year. The lack of Internet connectivity in remote areas is a problem, but more importantly, it is a symptom of a bigger problem of government neglect in infrastructure. Starlink is a big, inefficient, expensive, polluting, astronomy-interfering, high-maintenance, unilateral private international remedy to a symptom. It’s very easy to get distracted by problems that are really symptoms of other problems, especially when media is quick to point the cameras at those symptoms, and much less so at the bigger, tougher societal problems.
Solving this particular problem with physical lines to everywhere that is possible is surely dramatically less costly than launching satellites to cover the same area. Fiber lines are also functionally permanent infrastructure; they are physical appreciating assets akin to real estate. Satellites are depreciating assets with relatively short lifespans, and are active components frequently requiring both routine and emergency maintenance while fiber cabling is just a hunk of inert matter that stays the same functionally forever. With something so inefficient, wasteful, and problematic to other industries, it is insightful to weigh the pros and cons to consider if it is still worth doing. Extreme measures like these may be appropriate for military or even seafaring purposes, but rural Internet is a stretch when there are cheaper, cleaner, faster, more permanent, and overall better alternatives. Even at sea, technology like this serves much more appropriately as a stopgap until something more practical can be put in its place, but Starlink’s monopoly in this market combined with a friendly and protective domestic government to operate in ensures that better, more permanent solutions will never be pursued.
I often find it beneficial to try to take fresh perspectives on issues like these, taking a step back from the world we are in and acting as an outside observer. In this case, maybe something like this: We have had conductive wire for well over a century, and fiber optics for well over half of one, but we are launching satellites into space, a hostile environment that none but a handful of humans have ever been and can only recently even dream of going one day, repeatedly in perpetuity, to connect locations together, often even locations on the same continent. Then, the complex and costly devices we’ve deployed in vast numbers are very soon irrevocably destroyed.
In that context, if the problem could be solved by doing little more than digging a whole bunch of long shallow trenches, its a pretty hard sell to convince me it is better solved with an unending amount of the highest-tech machinery and industry the world has ever seen. We’ve dug rivers and moved mountains for thousands of years, sometimes just for the bragging rights. This is no problem! We already saw fit to build roads to all those places, and fiber is of comparable infrastructural value while much less costly and lower-maintenance than roads.
We keep giving them the money before they do it and then don’t do anything completely within our power to hold them accountable when they don’t? Sounds like regulatory capture to me.
I’m talking about before then. Describing the failures of government systems at this point in history seems a bit like diagnosing why a car that’s at the bottom of a lake won’t start. We have to back up and look at the whole scenario to see why not to blame the engine or even pop the hood.
You can see a real life major success case in my previous example. It was not at all profitable to run telephone service to rural communities below a certain size at all, but it was mandated and they did it. We did subsidize its deployment, but they also did do it.
These systems can and do work, but other systems that they require have failed. It may not be practical or even possible to make every such system that society needs be immune to this sort of tampering, so until that is figured out, if ever, we must protect things we need that are susceptible to it, and put a stop to the bad behavior, not just what it caused.