Starlink updates privacy policy to allow consumer data to train | Hacker News Reader

Starlink updates privacy policy to allow consumer data to train

finance.yahoo.com

128 pointsmalchow38 comments

Given their inherit latency, and cost; the equation for running everything via Wireguard is surly worth it.

I already do this on my Starlink as well as my terrestrial residential cable modem. The GL.inet routers work great for this.

Wireguard to where? Another ISP/VPN that can also sell/MITM your traffic just as well? Non-residential exit IPs are also very often blocked by many websites.

Residential ISPs are well setup for monitoring home traffic (and legally required to in most places). A VPS in a different jurisdiction is vastly less likely to be good at it.

https fixes that mostly - unless your talking about metadata

It is all metadata at this point. With statistical monitoring and sharing of netflow data, there is no anonymity on the internet.

Entire businesses specialize in this; Nokia and Kentik.

You occasionally get blocked, but not that often if you can putup with a few more captchas. Can't remember it ever being more then a minor inconvenience and well worth this cost.

My home internet is 5G, and many, many websites are blocked or have infinite captcha loops... even well-known sites. Etsy is blocked. Reddit/Discord/Locals is blocked. Archive.is only captcha loops. Even libera IRC is blocked. Trying to buy products online often gets the order flagged or canceled as a potential bot or VPN. IPs are rotated often so I unfortunately have to share bad-reputation IPs with people who keep the addresses on global blacklists like DroneBL that are used by many sites. Even 4chan blocks most of the IPs I get because other people post CP from there.

Trying to use a VPS/cloud IP or well-known VPN provider, the experience for me is just as bad or worse.

For some, the issue is a lot worse than you think.

Thank cgnat

I never understood the business case for Starlink. You're either on fiber or 5G.

Exactly. I don't get the business case for cars too, you're either in a train or on a subway.

You're not the target audience.

In many places, 5G doesn't work and you have to pay a lot for fiber installation.

I live in a place with no fiber and no 5G. Here’s your business case.

So a high latency connection that is also susceptible to atmospheric effects and run by a madman is okay?

I am still on DSL because there is no fiber or 5g internet here yet*. And I live on the edge of an area with 500k people. DSL is good enough for 4k streaming video and anything else I need and costs me $65.

Why on earth would I want to make things worse by using starlink?

Of course, if I lived 50 miles from a gas station, that is different. But living rural has many risks and downsides that the people out there accept.

*This is the real issue. If corporations had to put its customers(and employees) on the same level as shareholders(very few actually benefit the corporation directly because they don't buy stock directly from the company) a lot of problems would be solved. Or, if companies realized that taking care of the customer and employees first means that everything else will follow.

>So a high latency connection

It's hard to take the rest of your comment seriously when you're starting your comment off with this. Independent reviews says latency is in the 20-30ms range. That's in the same range (if not better) than cellular internet, and even though coax/DSL might lower, you won't really notice unless you're a competitive esports streamer or running a HFT bot out of your basement.

You clearly talk a lot but ask very few questions and make a lot of assumptions.

My only other option here is a FWA connection that is 1/10th the speed, it’s even more subjected to weather and costs me the same. That is it.

There is no DSL good for anything. Say what you want about the man (which I’m definitely not a fan of at this point) but Starlink is solving a real issue for many people.

Do you have access to 4G?

I have been considering options and it seems like 4G has coverage pretty much all over the USA. If that isn't an option, I would consider hughesnet, it seems like they have a cheaper lowest plan than starlink. What do you think?

I’m in Europe. Where I live 4g is spotty at best. My two options are Starlink that gives me a 350/50 connection or a legacy provider that has a FWA 30/5 at the same price.

That’s it, those are the two options. Difference in price between those two is 4€

There are massive areas in the US not covered by 5G, or any cell service. Are you just assuming that coverage is 100% everywhere?

Most places I'm at with 5G also have really poor speeds, usually under 10Mbps download with fairly high latency. Not really suitable for a primary internet connection.

Take your RV for an extended stay at the National Parks. RV parks are full of Starlinkers and I *love* the service. Roadtrips with kids are so much better too. The residential dish's in-motion performance is phenomenal and it's not even made for that.

Yes! Definitely gotta ensure those kids are consuming digital content at all times, especially on road trips or in nature.

Sure, why not stay home if that is the case?

You don’t even have to get very remote in Australia before the best on offer was dialup over copper before starlink.

… now multiply that by all the remote regions of earth.

The objective of every technocracy is to ensconce the entire planet in a panopticon. SpaceX is not sending those internet satellites into space just for consumer internet applications. Those satellites are also going to maintain the control plane for the sensors & actuators in the future technocratic panopticon.

Next democratic president should force them to be labeled as a public utility and regulated as such. For “National Security” reasons of course.

Banking and internet for sure.

Yep -- https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Dome_(missile_defense_syst...

Musk has been working on that project since 2001 at least.

We need another young Kary, but using shrapnel instead of frogs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSVy1b-RyVM

Is Grok listening to Starlink traffic?

No, only Skynet

i wonder what consumer data they even have to train? they explicitly disclaim using customers’ internet data:

> As a Starlink customer, you may share information with third parties (for example, when you send an email or communicate with a third-party website). In this context, we are not sharing personal information; you are using our Services to share data, and we are merely connecting you to the Internet.

edit: reading this again, i may have misinterpreted this as “we don’t share this data” instead of “this isn’t considered us sharing data”. although in Section 1 they say they only collect diagnostic data in relation to customers’ connection speed/duration etc

Sounds like loads of new VPN subscribers to me! I would certainly do it myself.

Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46647716

I'd be surprised if they were really going to sniff traffic and dump that into training runs. 99% of traffic is going to be encrypted these days. Probably not very useful.

You're talking about a company owned by one of the richest "tech bro" out there. He's not just an ISP, he's a visionary (for better or worse) with a lots of ideas.

TLS payload is encrypted, but meta data (such as SNI and other fingerprints) is not. These meta data could still be valuable for someone who know how to utilize it.

The most interesting data running through Starlink is Ukrainian and Russian military comms (including feeds from drones). I wonder if Musk actually plans to tap into that.

I’m going to assume that they are encrypted especially for military purposes so unless they can crack the encryption it’s useless.

"Good luck" [in Russian accent]

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