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Comment by siliconc0w | Hacker News Reader

It's not great that they found starlink terminals on Russian drones (they've since tried to lock them down more).

These should be export controlled and geo-locked as they are arguably much more powerful than any missile.

Starlink recently implemented new rules for satellites that travel more than 100mph. Service is deactivated unless they have a valid government ID and an aircraft's tail number attached to the account. While both can be faked, you could arguably correlated a provided tail number with ADS-B data because anyone with a Starlink is likely also broadcasting ADS-B. But it also provides a bit of 1:1 correlation on satellites and there is a finite number of tail numbers out there.

They also jacked up the subscription price which caused thousands of actual pilots to cancel their service. So expect a flood of used Starlink Minis to enter the market soon.

I thought Starlink doesn't allow you to move your terminal at all with the basic plan, and there's a premium plan where you can move it, but still can't use it, unless you stop?

You aren’t supposed to move the terminal on a residential plan, but there are plans for RVs, boats and planes that allow you to change location and/or use while in motion.

I had the RV plan when they said it would not work in motion, but it worked pretty well on the highway anyway.

SpaceX already does geo-lock them to an extend. But the terminals are exported to so many countries that any meaningful controls are impossible.

The terminal knows where it is at all times.

I think what's actually funnier is that the satellite shooting the laser has to know where the terminal is with pin point accuracy too. So it's pretty easy to cut off targeting to a vast chunk of the planet.

The sats don't use lasers to communicate with terminals, just regular radio waves, they only use lasers for inter-satellite communication

Starlink cells are ~15 miles wide BTW.

Yes but the problem is that the battle lines are fluid and the drones are obviously aiming for the Ukrainian side.

I know this is a meme but for those at home the whole point of a war is to cross over the front line into the opponent's territory and capture it. If your comms are disabled when you cross the front you can't really fight. So "just disable Starlink within Russian territory" does not solve anything.

You can have a hybrid approach - deny access in that area by default but have a secure way to whitelist specific terminals for short periods (mission duration)

So Starlink ‘Offence’ could be an upsell on a basic ‘Defence’ plan.

Simple solutions: block all Starlink terminals that aren’t whitelisted upon entering Russian territory or Ukrainian conflict zones.

This will prevent Russians importing Starlink terminals and then deploying them in Ukraine.

Work with Ukrainians to whitelist all their terminals.

Which is exactly what they are doing.

https://unn.ua/en/news/ukraine-launches-starlink-whitelist-i...

It’s missing the part that any non-whitelisted Starlink terminal entering Russian territory should automatically be blocked.

This would deny all Russians the use of Starlink.

The issue isn't Russians using Starlink inside Russia (they have other option, e.g. wired system, etc. there); the issue was their using it for drones and other combat operations inside Ukraine (including Ukrainian territory presently held by Russia).

The point is that in order for Russians to use Starlink in combat operations in Ukraine, they first have to import them to Russia. All non-whitelisted Starlink terminals entering Russia should be immediately bricked to prevent this. It's an important part for denying Russians the use of Starlink.

It's beyond sickening what none of you even bother with the idea what a civilian service should not be used by the military, especially in the zone of the conflict - by any side.

Why not? Assuming you want one of the sides to win, why would you not want your side to use every (ethical) means available to do that?

War is not ethical.

Starting a war is not ethical. Defending your territory from aggressors is 100% ethical.

Of course it is.

This line of thinking would lead to the world being led by bastards. There are ethical uses of war and violence.

Starting a war maybe not (depending on circumstances), but how is getting attacked and fighting a war to prevent invasion not ethical?

"Civilian service" - lol.

SpaceX is a privately-owned defense services company. Their #1 client is the United States. Their launches out of Vandenberg occur because the United States Space Force allows them to happen.

Are you on their board? Who are you to make the call that the product they are offering is a "civilian" (only?) service?

The Starlink terminal can't know based on only its position which side it's being used by. Equipment is often used in enemy territory.

That is a tiny minority of the use. The vast majority of Russian use has been on Russian controlled land.

Sure. But if you geoblock all use on Russian controlled land, you're also blocking Ukrainian use on Russian controlled land. I have no idea if that would cause issues or not, but it's not that far fetched to imagine it might.

It knows this because it knows where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't

I understand this reference

That all depends on what the meaning of is is.

It knows this because it knows where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is (whichever is greater), it obtains a difference, or deviation.

This makes it a very, very dirty terminal.

Terminals in Ukraine are whitelisted (with whitelist being supplied by the Ukrainian MoD). Meaningful controls are possible, it's what led to the ukrainian forces advancing and liberating territory recently.

You missed my point. It's impossible to meaningfully control the export of physical terminals. But as I pointed out above, SpaceX has already been doing some geo-locking.

I did not. Whitelisting means Russia can not buy terminals in UAE and use them in Ukraine. Because the terminals in UAE are not whitelisted to be used in Ukraine. Therefore, it's possible to control the export of terminals.

I suspect nradov argues that this type of geofencing + allow-listing is not typically what people mean when they talk about "export control", which I agree with.

And while geofencing + allow-listing for sure provide value in e.g the Ukrainian conflict, it's a weak protection compared to goods that are actually under strict export control (e.g ITAR), and will always have to be done after the fact. Russia could for example put Starlink on drones launched from the Baltic Ocean targeting Poland or whatever.

How would they geolock terminals on active conflict zone where conflict line changes in realtime. Terminals also cross miles across the line on drones etc. regularly. There was also pushback from Ukraine forces, when they are asked to register their terminals to be whitelisted a while back.

Cappy army on YouTube had an interesting analysis on the starlink usage in russia.

https://youtu.be/Fpt8dYAwK7c?si=x5pp9vfKdwXM947c

The usage is in Ukraine

Right i meant to say by Russians in Ukraine

Nowadays Starlink terminals to operate in Ukraine they have to be approved so right now Russians cannot waste them anymore on drones as it's much harder getting one working (in the past they have been).

The theory is the US let some Russians use it as a trap to get them dependent on it and then pulled the rug which gave Ukraine a big advantage to clear some areas and generally disrupted Russian operations.

The DoD has always been deeply involved in running Starlink there

How does radio transmission with fast moving targets work (including LTE on phone), doesnt the doppler effect shift the frequencies of all radio waves?

Yup, it shifts but it's a minor shift and easily handled in the receiver. Receivers already need a little ability to tune the carrier frequency to account for ordinary variations in the circuits. From memory GPS's doppler shift is on the scale of a single digit khz, so Starlink's probably double that. A few khz of shift is no big deal for ghz carriers.

How does the receiver know how to shift?!

All RF protocols have some provision for signal acquisition. It can take a bunch of forms but what it nets out to is the oscillator in the receiver can acquire the signal from the sender. A simple example of this is "pilot" signals or prefixes that have an easily recognizable structure and allow the receiver to align to the sender in the clock recovery sense. So the receiver needs a little extra tunable bandwidth and to run the messy intermediates through something like a convolution filter, but it can latch on easily. This is early days of radio technology, like mid century post war.

Not only that. It seems to have been more Russian starlink terminals than Ukrainian ones.

.gov allowed Russian military to become reliant on Starlink, then cut it off.

That was a deliberate tactic; Government is not leaving the fate of nations in the hands of Elon Musk alone.

Yes. Their brilliant 5D chess moves I can see at the gas station every day. Their long term plan is clearly to drive everyone away from the fossil industry and towards renewables.

Especially in light of that early war elon confession about disabling terminals mid Ukraine op.

Another not great data point is https://militarnyi.com/en/news/ukraine-starlink-data-traffic...

"Starlink satellite traffic in Ukraine fell by about 75% after SpaceX shut down its terminals in the occupied territories of the country."

By now it came to light russians for example had starlinks on every assaulting tank in addition to long range drones.

That story keeps being spun by people who don’t read articles (or don’t expect people to). What SpaceX did there was limit the use of Starlink in Russian controlled territory. The very same new pattern of Ukraine whitelisting and geofencing access which is what everyone is praising today.

The only reason Ukraine complained was their special ops were running drone boats deep in Russian territory. After they asked for permission (following this controversy) SpaceX did a deal with DoD to let them manage those special cases allowing its use behind enemy lines.

Starlink has been nothing but positive for Ukraine

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