Comment on Russia is using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite devices in Ukraine, sources say

• KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I’m curious, how do you think starling can tell the difference between a Ukrainian and a Russian?

  Are you under the impression that Russia is signing up for service transparently? The devices aren’t sold in Russia, and won’t even work within Russia. Meaning they were likely bought through a proxy using aliases, and set up in Ukraine.

  At that point, you cant tell the difference. It’s just data, which can also be easily encrypted and proxied to mask the fact that they are being used for military purposes.

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  • rdri@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    It’s just data, which can also be easily encrypted and proxied to mask the fact that they are being used for military purposes.

    It’s not though. The data goes both ways. As long as the device id was not altered, its history of movement can be tracked down, provided such a data is being recorded.

    Also, there may be caveats about how accounts are getting created and activated. Those devices bought by Russia may come with pre-activated accounts which can be tracked by origin.

    Finally, billing. Unless Russia is not relying on stolen Ukrainian credit cards it should be easy to identify that a group of devices/accounts are being paid for by entities that are neither Russian nor Ukrainian.

    Based on all of that, they could filter groups of devices by location, confirm it with Ukrainian forces and ban maliciously used ones.

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    • UrPartnerInCrime@sh.itjust.works ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Yeah. Russia crosses many lines but stealing credit cards is NOT one of them

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      • rdri@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        What do you mean? They steal basically everything they when destroying cities and killing people. Should I mention it’s a crime to make it more obvious?

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    • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Russia has operatives worldwide. Just like every other country with any sort of intelligence agency. The idea that they aren’t able to come up with a credit card with a Ukrainian name that looks 100% legitimate to a billing company is farcical.

      Let me just ask you point blank, do you think the CIA could manage to purchase a Starlink, activate it, and use it, without anyone having any idea it was the CIA that did all that? Because if so, it’s just as easy for Russia to do it.

      Hell, I could likely do it.

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      • gardylou@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        [deleted]

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      • rdri@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        The idea that they aren’t able to come up with a credit card with a Ukrainian name that looks 100% legitimate to a billing company is farcical.

        I see you don’t know how credit card numbers work. You may also not be aware of the fact that credit cards aren’t working in Russia for almost 2 years.

        Let me just ask you point blank, do you think the CIA could manage to purchase a Starlink, activate it, and use it, without anyone having any idea it was the CIA that did all that?

        Just one or two is easy to manage. A dozen is much more difficult already, provided Starlink manages some security and have access to metadata (data that ultimately can’t be faked such as location, accounts, device id).

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    • LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      This is kinda scary. Sanctions are one thing, but do you really want your internet provider to investigate people and act like an intelligence service for the state?

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      • rdri@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        It’s not about what I want. It’s about what Starlink can do to make sure their help to Ukrainian army (which is paid by the US department of defense) goes only to Ukrainian army.

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  • KrapKake@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    You see, you are supposed to have a “musk bad” comment, not a rational comment.

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• Gregorech@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Elon “Daddy Warbucks” Musk.

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  • tsonfeir@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    All he needs is a flying suit.

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• Evil_incarnate@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Of course starlink is allowing paying customers to use it, won’t someone think of the shareholders!

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• Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  spacex is allowing russia to use it

  Bold claim to suggest they would be defying US sanctions to Russia. Got anything to back that up? Not even the article that you didn’t read implies that.

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  • gmtom@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Bold claim to suggest they would be defying US sanctions to Russia like that

    I’m no diplomat but I’m pretty sure this doesn’t break any laws.

    And if you know anything about Musk then it’s really not a bold claim.

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    • locuester@lemmy.zip ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      But you clearly didn’t read the article. This makes having dialog in the comments frustrating.

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    • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      It’s against US sanctions. Starlink doesn’t work in Russia (or Crimea) for this very reason.

      “If SpaceX obtains knowledge that a Starlink terminal is being used by a sanctioned or unauthorized party, we investigate the claim and take actions to deactivate the terminal if confirmed.”

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• jonne@infosec.pub ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Yeah, it’s totally impossible for Russia to register these using an Ukrainian VPN with Ukrainian ID. It’s not like they have access to tons of POWs or even Ukrainians that are sympathetic to Russia.

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  • echo64@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    So now you think that it’s… Ukrainian traitors or pows? You think they don’t deactivate clearance for anyone captured?

    If you’re going to make up fan fiction for Russia, at least suggest something more realistic, like espionage

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    • jonne@infosec.pub ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Is registration only limited to military personnel? My guess is that anyone except citizens of sanctioned countries can register one of those, so you just need any kind of foreign ID, which are probably plentiful if you have access to POWs or the population of Donbass.

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• con_fig@programming.dev ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  You don’t own the sky, nasa does!

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