Hacker News Reader

Comment by vsnf | Hacker News Reader

I was recently in a country that strictly controls internet communications. Like, total lockdown absolutely forbidden levels of control. I spent my time there constantly wondering about the inevitable advent of ubiquitous wireless communication via things like Starlink and what the effects would be on these totalitarian regimes.

Edit: I didn't mean to focus on Starlink specifically. Eventually it won't just be Starlink up there, and likely our mobile devices will need less and less power to communicate with those satellites. So I'm less interested in the effects of Starlink and more on satellite communications generally.

View on HN

Starlink blocks access to specific countries that it doesn't have approval to work in, so I presume they'll just be blocked while the totalitarian regimes are in power.

What can they do if Starlink doesn't obey them? Shoot them down with rockets?

Jamming or triangulate the phones? Also yes, anti satellite weapons.

Or physically targeting the base stations or people who possess them.

Let's take China for instance. They can prosecute the the customers, interfere with the communications, prevent the building of or seize the ground stations (eventually the laser links could get around that), can blow the satelites up with missiles (though that is not likely), and in general prevent any future authorized business that Starlink might want to do.

If I were in charge, I'd try to get licensed and be able to collect money from customers there.

Even India forbids sat phones except Inmarsat which they can monitor. But that's only one of the many networks. You can get in real trouble with one.

I wonder what will happen now that every phone will become a sat phone.

Same as with drones - vendors will geofence them

> I wonder what will happen now that every phone will become a sat phone.

Governments that don't want that will disallow the sale of such phones inside their country unless the manufacturer disables the satellite features for customers there.

Sure, some will get through via illegal imports, but largely this will be effective.

Until someone 'accidentally' releases update that enables feature and now you have a critical mass that you can't enforce laws on..?

Can’t enforce laws? Nerds will look for any opening for a techno-anarchist utopia. Most people are going to give up their phone when even remotely threatened. Before things even get to that point, there are lots of other levers to pull to stop people from getting access to an (esp. paid) service.

You know how 911 works without a valid cell plan?

Hypothetically, in the event of a war or similar unrest, the US could use satellite cell 'towers' to give an entire country limited connectivity with old devices people have stashed away in some drawer or closet without otherwise active cell plans, which are therefore off the local government's radar. People could be coerced to turn over the phones the government knows about but still retain some connectivity.

Speeding is illegal yet most people do it because it’s impossible to enforce. There are (and aren’t) tons of laws that are like that.

That's what they did up to now but that doesn't work anymore. Starlink direct to cell works with any unmodified smartphone. They can't ban all of those and throw their country back 20 years :)

I'll believe it when I see it.

Never underestimate the violent stupidity a government will employ in pursuit of retaining its power.

most governments like this are technically incompetent and will be unable to prevent.

The difference with these new satellite systems (if they can deliver what they promise) is that every phone sold within the past few years is essentially compatible.

At that point, you could only request that phone manufacturers retroactively provide firmware updates that ban these networks, or maybe make it hard to get SIMs allowed to connect to them (but then there's eSIMs too).

I think in practice we'll see a combination of these countries applying legal/economical pressure on the operators and jamming, with larger/less isolated countries leaning on the former, and the others on the latter.

Huh? Any particular reason why?

They say it's for terrorism reasons. They consider them a 'threat to national security': https://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-satellite-phones-in-de...

Also: https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/64974/why-are-sat...

Because religiously motivated totalitarianism is a bad form of government.

- "Even India"

India routinely does total communications blackouts, so the satellite phone ban is unsurprising, in that context.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20701204 ("India Shut Down Kashmir’s Internet Access")

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10126931 ("India turned off mobile internet for 63M citizens amid protests in Ahmedabad")

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25972620 ("India protests: Internet cut to hunger-striking farmers in Delhi")

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%932021_Jammu_and_Ka... ("2019–2021 Jammu and Kashmir lockdown")

If you don't have enough things to worry about: the US has exactly the same legal powers—in fact they're national security powers the President can invoke unilaterally,

https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/22/representatives-propose-bi... ("Representatives propose bill limiting presidential internet ‘kill switch’")

> If you don't have enough things to worry about: the US has exactly the same legal powers—in fact they're national security powers the President can invoke unilaterally,

I'm not in the US so I don't worry about that. But the US doesn't seem to actually use it as India does.

And besides I have other communications options if that would happen.

Theoretically speaking, could you use high power lasers to overheat the satellites to the point that they break and permanently stop working?

I've had this idea on my mind for quite a while now, because some time ago I heard something about Starlink painting their satellites black, which reminded me of the "it's hotter in a black car" thing.

There is a known threat in using lasers to damage the solar cells which would lead to the batteries fully discharging and the satellite becoming useless for lack of electrical power.

How about making satellite phones illegal and then put anyone with one in prison. Allows them to arbitrarily put opponents in prison.

Not just china, but certain parts of india, e.g. Ladakh, also ban satellite phones (and yes, will jail you if found with one).

These new systems work with any standard 5G phone

“All authorised phones must have this feature disabled”

Like the US does with Beidou GNSS receivers. Know how pretty much every flagship phone advertises support for it? Can't use in the US, blocked by geofence set at firmware level. Take the device outside of the geofence and it'll see them.

Really? Why? What's the problem with using multiple GNSS constellations? They're receive-only. My phone definitely supports GLONASS but I hadn't checked Beidou.

(sorry for late response, maybe you'll still catch it) There's not a technical problem using multiple GNSS constellations. Officially the US had some treaty with Russia to allow use of GLONASS as a second constellation. Later on Galileo became the next constellation approved through a civil route, not a treaty.

China's BeiDou would have to probably be approved through a treaty since it's run by their military, it's not going to happen. I've been told by someone who used to work at space force that beidou can be used to track users, but that's bullshit with how our receivers use it. Here's a US gov report on the matter, if it's receive only (no messaging component) tracking isn't going to happen https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Research/Staff%20Re...

Finally, the way at least Qualcomm receivers work is they will only lock to GPS first and then mix in the other constellations (at least while in CONUS).

Thank you for the response anyway! I do review my comments every so often to catch these. How do you know so much about GPS and how can I learn more? :)

Also, is there any hope for "authenticated GPS" to prevent spoofing? Is that even technically possible for non-secret codes like C/A or L5?

It's not a feature, though. It looks like a regular old 4G/5G network to the phone.

I could see such a regulation be implemented for new phones (Apple's Globalstar functionality is already deactivated in software based on geolocation in non-supported countries and maybe even in hardware for models sold in some regions), but it won't help with existing devices.

Another avenue would be restricting access to SIMs capable of logging on to these networks. SIMs have supported mutual authentication since (I believe) 3G, so it's not possible for a satellite 4G service to provide "unilateral roaming".

Yes you are right actually, prohibition would need to be done at the SIM. Contraband much harder to detect.

But if you are going to go this far, then you can just put anyone in prison for any reason anyway.

An advantage to a law which is widely flauted is that it gives arbitrary pretext to apprehend or detain any given person.

Those who are, at least for now, within good graces are of course exempted. Those who are systematically repressed can be systematically, specifically, and/or arbitrarily detained, investigated, and/or prosecuted, as suits political needs.

And the fact that the actions are based on at least nominal basis in law and procedure means that the practice is defensible both to those tasked with enacting it and with the institutions and general public. Even tyrants find that power is best and most readily exerted through cooperating and existing channels.

> An advantage to a law which is widely flauted is that it gives arbitrary pretext to apprehend or detain any given person.

A prime example: On a highway leading from Chechnya to Dagestan there is a traffic light. It is always red. https://en.rattibha.com/thread/1595456040677556226

That is an excellent example of a terrifying instance, thanks!

Beat/imprison/murder/'re-educate' anyone who is found to be in possession of the dish?

That said the only people who will be able to afford the dish and service will likely be people who are in bed with the government or vise-versa...

This is about phones

They can make SpaceX life hell through the ITU. Eventually SpaceX can only operate if they get the licences to operate, and if they bypass this, they would show that they have a disregard of RF regulations and this will be used against them the next time they need to get/renew a licence.

I wonder if SpaceX has enough clout to influence the ITU decisions somehow, through political lobbying, for example?

Maybe in the eyes of an Elon Musk fetishist. Realistically, no.

The USG does

Threaten to ban Tesla from selling cars in their country? :)

Tesla has a brand, technology, energy storage and cost MOAT over other EV companies.

Countries that consider banning Tesla due to Starlink, would be effectively holding back their EV market.

I am not sure that is so relevant everywhere. I think I have read about Tesla having problems staying competitive in the Chinese EV market, for example.

They’re MOAT isn’t incredibly effective in China.

But it is effective in most other countries where they operate

Make the sales of Tesla hard to impossible, make the sales of minerals for Tesla cars hard to impossible.

That's usually how governments control businesspeople.

If only the government could control the companies like 3M and the people behind it, that have been releasing toxic chemicals into the environment and killing people. How can these companies get away with murder while paying (relative) pocket change for their crimes?

(https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/07/1...

https://conservancy.umn.edu/handle/11299/171701

https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/toxic-secrets-the...)

You mean the government requiring militaries train with too much pfas (for missile explosion control) and no effort towards mitigation decades before the technology existed to even detect the presence of trace amounts (due to pfas being a ww2 classified technology)?

Sounds like standard live and learn tech development, like nuclear.

There is corruption in every country.

Ok, please tell us about the corruption in Norway and New Zealand? Please provide specific examples.

Make it socially unacceptable for anyone to use foreign electronics and scan the RF spectrum for unathorized devices.

It's not that hard if you're really committed and can accept chasing up offenders after-the-fact.

China, Russia and India have successfully tested anti-satellite weapons. Considering that Iran and North Korea have recently been able to acquire some pretty advanced Russian missiles, it might not be that hard for other countries to obtain them.

I don't think this is the case. They don't sell hardware/service in countries they don't have approval to operate in, but their global roam service operates in places they don't have an operation license for, which is why south Africa is pissed off [1]

[1]: https://www.itweb.co.za/article/icasa-takes-note-of-illegal-...

> I don't think this is the case

Isn't that's how Ukraine got fucked. Sent their submarine drones towards Crimea but as soon they crossed the "border" they lost signal. They tried to contact Musk and the rest is history...

I'm pretty sure the reason there was the free internet access being give to Ukraine was conditional on it being used for defence only and not offence. Seems pretty reasonable to me.

the defence/offence line is pretty blurred... What with 99+% of the kills by the US Department of Defence being on other peoples soil...

That really says more about America than it does the blurred lines between offence and defence :)

It used to be called the Department of War. The "Department of Defense" name came about in 1949 for PR reasons. Also, "PR" is an American propaganda term which means "propaganda".

Isn’t it public relations?

PR expands to public relations, which is a euphemism for propaganda. Propaganda was rebranded in America after WW2 because people associated the term with Nazis.

https://theconversation.com/the-manipulation-of-the-american...

What is the difference between defense and offense when you are fighting against an invading army occupying ~20% of your country? Is it "offense" if you attempt to push them out?

It's offence when you leave your border on go over into another country. But either way, doesn't matter what I think, it's what Elon Musk thinks as he was giving them the starlink access for free.

The international consensus is that Crimea is Ukrainian territory. Also, Musk wasn't giving it to them for free. The US was paying for it.

Consensus doesn’t change the fact the enemy has occupied that territory. Isn’t so hard to grok why you Musk wouldn’t open internet on there, esp without explicit DOD authorization.

The enemy is ALWAYS occupying any territory that they are on. It isnt like they are on vaccation. So with that logic it couldnt be used for any defence purposes that kills the invaders.

It's no different from the limits on use of HIMARS in UKr

HIMARS can be used in Crimea because Crimea is part of Ukraine. US govt recognise Crimea as Ukraine. It is only Elon that denies that Crimea is part of Ukraine.

Comment depth exceeded, but by your logic we should also send weapons and aid to crimea..?

US didn't pay for anything before April 2022 after Kyiv was freed.

Mariupol had starlink, it doesn't today. Can you guess why?

Everyone except russians agree that crimea is inside Ukraine. Do you not recognize that Crimea is part of Ukraine?

Mariupol

Offensive operations are integral to achieving military strategy, including defenses. Passively defending has always been used to create conditions favorable to resuming offensive operations because only offensive operations get things done. Militarily, "defensive operations" include attacking the enemy

They were using humanitarian/civilian internet given freely for deadly cross border offensives. If you want military grade comms, you can buy them.

Not cross-border from Ukraine's perspective. Or the US government's.

Yes, morally Ukraine is in the right, although it's understandable why Musk wants his globally operating businesses to at least appear to be neutral. Despite being obviously US-based.

Maybe more interesting is the question why they need Starlink at all? Why are they dealing with a private for profit company when the US military could provide them with satellite communications?

They were using Starlink to get live video from small maritime drones. As in, things that you can only fit a tiny non-directional antenna onto. I can't imagine trying to talk to WGS with one of those would go well.

Meanwhile, US military contracts Starlink for some of its communications. Private contractors are very much the standard for military logistics these days.

starlink is the only game in town for high bandwidth low latency.

So Musk should grant internet to enemy occupied zone giving them super unfair advantage because of feelsies and vibes?

That's a justification but it doesn't rebut that it happened

Crimea is part of Ukraine. Only russia and its supporters recognize the russian occupation as valid.

And the ethnic Russian majority on it. Of course the west and the neocons don't recognize it and their propaganda organs will make sure people think otherwise, after all Crimea is strategic for controlling the Black Sea.

enlighten yourself a bit on recent Crimea history:

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/why-did-russia-give...

You mean Russian speakers like Zelensky? And of course Crimea has less crimean tatars and Ukrainians now after Russian ethnic cleansing. Russians has always engaged in that.

To be clear, Starlink is fine with defensive use, including Ukraine's cross-border counteroffensives that the US government sees as having a defensive purpose. They are very much already a military contractor, and Ukraine has gone through the proper avenues to receive the service for military purposes.^1

The problem is that the consequences of accidentally providing service to Russia, a country that is both sanctioned by the US (so Starlink would face headache-inducing legal problems in the US) and is conducting an offensive invasion (which matters because it's against Starlink policy), are considered far too high for the Pentagon to approve it without the use of hexagon geofencing. This hexagon geofencing means it's not as useful for crossing over the Russia-Ukraine front line. It is updated frequently to reflect the situation on the ground, but they can only provide service to a hexagon if all of that land has been taken back from Russia, so it will never quite satisfy how fast Ukrainian soldiers would prefer the geo-fencing to update.

It's likely that Starlink wants to refine this geofencing to be useful for Ukraine's cross-border counteroffensives, or to use some other measures to ensure the captured equipment and signals are not useful for Russia, but as long as the US Government says no, it won't happen.

---

^1: There was some usage of the service before it was properly approved, which was around the time Elon Musk was publicly saying Starlink wouldn't support counteroffensives and blocked off access in Crimea. But this is history now as Starlink is obligated by the Pentagon to support Ukraine, Musk's opinions do not appear to be guiding Starlink's current policies. Unfortunately this series of events has spawned some really confused news articles, angry Ukrainian soldiers on social media, and various partisan nonsense... the publicity and drama of it all pretty much overshadowed what actually ended up happening, which could have been much more interesting to investigate by anyone who is pro- or anti-ukraine, or pro- or anti-Musk -- or just anyone who is interested in how these military contracts work.

given how few starlink units are available and how ubiquitous wifi mesh network technology is this is likely a non issue. One starlink unit will likely be providing backhaul for a large portion of front line from a rear station.

There's thousands bought in Ukraine and at the beginning of the conflict it was 10 to 50 % of SL traffic.

Most users use 4G

oh wow, i thought there were just a couple hundred! I wonder where i got that idea from.

The first shipment was around that.

Every battlefield company in Ukraine has at least two.

Assuming Starlink is really willing to violate local frequency licensing requirements (which I doubt they'd dare for all but the most internationally isolated countries without anti-satellite weapons), given the low transmit powers, local wireless jammers should be relatively easy to implement.

> given the low transmit powers, local wireless jammers should be relatively easy to implement.

Not true. Both the transmitter and receiver (in both directions) utilize phased arrays. This means the receiver is very good at rejecting noise angularly separated from the expected location of the transmitter. Geometry dictates that jamming could be somewhat effective against upload (i.e. if the jammer is located roughly within the size of a spot beam from the transmitting dish), but is almost completely ineffective in the download direction.

This is all fairly theoretical since much of the details aren't publicly available; but as evidence I point to the fact that Russia has poured a huge amount of money into EW and, despite having considerable motivation to deny Starlink access, has consistently failed to prevent its widespread use by Ukrainian troops on frontlines mere kilometers from its own forces.

This is in ideal condition, but how good is the rejection of other signals by the beamforming circuits in the receiver? Intuitively, I'd think that a powerful enough local jammer (I really mean local, not at some kilometers, EM fields weaken with the square of distance, so very quickly) would manage to create interferences despite the beamforming.

I agree that jamming Starlink’s existing (dish-based) service might not be that easy, but mobile phones do not use phased arrays, and that’s what TFA is about.

MU-MIMO implies a phased array no?

They are conceptually related, and the more antennas you add ("massive MIMO"), the more you get into the "phased array" domain, especially on the base station side, which is where MU-MIMO is exploited.

But on common mobile devices, you only have two or four antennas, so the beamforming gain is much more limited. Having more than one antenna there is mostly done to leverage multipath propagation in a non-line-of-sight environment for capacity gains as far as I understand it, and in a line-of-sight environment, you only get very moderate steering gains of a few dB (and practically no steering/beamforming effect). Satellite communication is primarily line-of-sight, though.

So while the satellite can steer its beams towards a given mobile device (both for transmit and receive), and this allows for higher spectral efficiency and better use of the satellite's transmit power and better noise rejection, the mobile device can't do the same and will easily be overwhelmed by a jammer at least in the downlink path, as far as I understand.

I have lost hope that human can fight totalitarianism, regardless the new technology been used. It is like the low energy state of society, similar to a ball tends roll down the hill, it is easier for a country to enter the totalitarian state and stays there than to get out of it by itself. Imagine a North Korean owns a such cell phone, according to rumors, it is a crime if the spouse, children, or neighbors don’t report to the authorities. Governments can also jam communication, just like they jam radio programs and censor Internet. A more likely scenario would be regimes use new technology, including direct cell phone to satellite communication, to monitor and control people.

You can have Starlink in Iran already, but neither in Russia or China.

What is the reason for that?

I would guess because China and Russia are relevant markets for tesla...

I'd also guess that China and Russia are big enough that satellites would go unused a lot while flying over them.

While Iran isn't tiny (17th largest country), the satellites have several other territories nearby by that could use up the capacity that a no-Iran rule makes available.

The satellites fly over China and Russia either way. Starlink isn't geostationary, they're quite a few of them above you at any given time and place.

The situation in Iran is somewhat different. Despite being under heavy international sanctions and having a government that also exercises strict control over internet access, Iran saw the deployment of Starlink terminals following specific events, such as natural disasters or in response to certain socio-political situations. This deployment could be part of a broader strategy by the U.S. or other entities to provide uncensored internet access to the Iranian population during times of crisis. However, it's important to note that such deployments might be temporary, unofficial, or not fully sanctioned by the Iranian government.

The US State department provided specific authorization empowering telecom companies (incl. Starlink) to operate in Iran and disregard local restrictions. If you can smuggle a dish into the country, you can use it. But the signal wouldn’t be too hard to detect, so it’s risky.

What about a special reduced uplink power mode, with only 128Kb of bandwidth for example? Additionally, you can conceal the dish from terrestrial detectors, by putting it in a forest clearing for example. Those two things combined might make it a lot more difficult for the Iranian government to find a Starlink dish.

They'll find you with a WiFi scan. Not with ELINT aircraft

Starlink would have that control.

I doubt satellites will be competing with land-based networks in general because they can't deliver the same throughput, latency, and capacity.

In addition, as others have mentioned, companies do not like to take on whole countries unless perhaps it is a very small and irrelevant one.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com