How about providing free internet to China and Russia, to give the people there proper information without government oversight?
This constellation is plausibly if not probably duel-use technology. You can bet that China is planning ways to disable it if war breaks out.
But more to your point I agree; they won't try to destroy the constellation itself over something as petty as a few people using Starlink to circumvent their 'Great Firewall'. People sufficiently motivated to get around the firewall already can, without the need for Starlink. The CCP doesn't seem to care about it; the firewall doesn't need to be perfectly airtight to control the population, it only needs to be 'good enough'. And they wouldn't want to expose any new anti-satellite weapons they have, particularly soft-kill weapons that might be addressed after discovery with a software patch.
So there still seems to be some restraint around the concept of shooting down foreign satellites. I guess it's a "mutual assured destruction" type situation: once you shoot down a satellite, you'd better be prepared to lose your own.
[1] https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_188780.htm
[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/22/elon-musk-spacex-thousands-o...
On the other hand, providing free media merely to subvert the people of main land China could be seen as a company over stepping it's bounds by far.
I will bet China would sanction anyone who dealt with Starlink.
This would be an act of war and open their birds to retaliatory strikes. Tracking down the receivers and levying draconian punishments on those caught would do the trick. Moreover, from the example of Chinese students abroad, it's unclear access to information would do much.
Not by the thousands, short of taking ALL satellites out.
Kessler syndrome takes care of them all once you generate enough space junk.
The issue would be whether they could cause enough damage to make the orbital plane (temporarily) unusable.
I also think that both countries could launch geosync satellites or using existing geosync satellites to just generate a shitton of noise on whatever spectrum Starlink would use.
Starlink of course won't get a license for spectrum in either country.
The probably is there for a reason though, the exact extent of their capabilities is unclear.
Here's a citation: https://thediplomat.com/2022/06/chinas-directed-energy-weapo...
I would not call it rumors. If you'd like a more authoritative citation, here is a DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency, i.e. US military) report cited in the article I cited above: https://www.dia.mil/Portals/110/Documents/News/Military_Powe...
> During the past two decades, Chinese defense research has proposed the development of several reversible and nonreversible counterspace DEWs for reversible dazzling of electro-optical sensors and even potentially destroying satellite components. China has multiple ground-based laser weapons of varying power levels to disrupt, degrade, or damage satellites that include a current limited capability to employ laser systems against satellite sensors. By the mid- to late-2020s, China may field higher power systems that extend the threat to the structures of nonoptical satellites.
The discussion of current capabilities is primarily about optical satellites (though it can be read to include other components), but it probably applies to giant sensitive phased array antennas too.
That's not even mentioning the sanctions on Western technology entering Russia at the moment.
I was just implying that I'm guessing getting actual Starlink hardware through legit channels is probably not something that will be available.
What's the end-to-end level of starlink vis-a-vis encryption? I have to imagine it's pretty good.
I'm sure the backdoor master key "everyone" is pushing for would find a practical use in this situation
[0] https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-is-using-elon-musks-starlink-f...
As well as VPNs existing, international sim cards also 'bypass' internet filtering. Absolute restriction of the internet is not the goal. The goal is to not allow anything approaching a critical mass to do so, especially less technically literate who would not seek out VPNs etc unless they were marketed to or directly facilitated. The next is to all but remove the browser, email is truly dead having never been a big thing socially, with a domestic app orientated landscape; mobile penetration is far beyond lap/desktop.
This doesn't make it better, but it is how it is.
Incidentally, HN is blocked in China. Am using a VPN.
The government would restrict or ban import or sale of the hardware. They'd make them illegal and use possession of one as a reason to throw the owner in jail.
While Starlink was marketed as a boon to rural democratic internet access, those promises have been walked back and its pretty clear that it the limited bandwidth is primarily intended to increase the Pentagon/ICs communications capabilities in the field, much like the Internet itself.
The USG did not fund a swarm of satellites so that American (nor Russian, nor Chinese) farmers can watch Netflix.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10613795/Joe-Biden-...