Russia May Fine Citizens Who Use SpaceX's Starlink Internet Service (arstechnica.com) 171
An anonymous reader quotes Ars Technica: Russia's legislative body, the State Duma, is considering fines for individuals and companies in the country that use Western-based satellite Internet services. The proposed law seeks to prevent accessing the Internet by means of SpaceX's Starlink service, OneWeb, or other non-Russian satellite constellations under development. According to a recent report in the Russian edition of Popular Mechanics, the recommended fines range from 10,000 to 30,000 rubles ($135-$405) for ordinary users, and from 500,000 to 1 million rubles ($6,750 to $13,500) for legal entities who use the Western satellite services.
In the Russian-language article, translated for Ars by Robinson Mitchell, members of the Duma assert that accessing the Internet independently would bypass the country's System of Operational Search Measures, which monitors Internet use and mobile communications. As part of the country's tight control on media and communications, all Russian Internet traffic must pass through a Russian communications provider. It is not surprising that Russia would take steps to block Starlink service -- the country's space chief, Dmitry Rogozin, views SpaceX as a chief rival in spaceflight.
In the Russian-language article, translated for Ars by Robinson Mitchell, members of the Duma assert that accessing the Internet independently would bypass the country's System of Operational Search Measures, which monitors Internet use and mobile communications. As part of the country's tight control on media and communications, all Russian Internet traffic must pass through a Russian communications provider. It is not surprising that Russia would take steps to block Starlink service -- the country's space chief, Dmitry Rogozin, views SpaceX as a chief rival in spaceflight.
In Soviet Russia (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Internet services YOU!
I was more amused by the phrase:
Russian edition of Popular Mechanics
So I thought: In Soviet Russia . . . Mechanics popularize you!
Re: (Score:2)
Their fear seems to be that StarLink would bypass the firewall they place near international connections, so it seems like the solution is to place some StarLink ground stations in Russia, the EU, the UK, and the USA to route their network appropriately. Beaming it all back the the USA just doesn't work well...
Re: (Score:2)
Will the Russians be using US bank accounts to sign up for service? Will they be circumventing said firewalls just in order to sign up for service in the first place? If they can create US bank accounts and circumvent the existing Russian firewalls then why do they need Starlink again?
Re: I hope Russia plans to sell US citizens access (Score:2)
My guess is the same reason anybody else would need it: rural connectivity.
Re:I hope Russia plans to sell US citizens access. (Score:5, Insightful)
I have friends in China. They use a VPN located in America. I pay for it in USD. They pay me back by using WeChat to deposit RMB into my Chinese bank account.
Using services from abroad doesn't mean that a user has a foreign bank account, political connections, or any superpowers. It just means that they know somebody who can help them, or know someone who knows someone.
Re: (Score:2)
Makes sense I guess. Be careful.
Re: (Score:2)
"Will the Russians be using US bank accounts to sign up for service? "
Are you crazy? They'll use the Caiman Islands like everybody else.
"If they can create US bank accounts and circumvent the existing Russian firewalls then why do they need Starlink again?"
Because there's no service in Buttfuck, Taiga.
Re: I hope Russia plans to sell US citizens access (Score:3)
if you studied history, had to throw off communism back in the Gorbachev/Yeltsin era in the 1980's and 90's. Lad, I took a third unit of geography in my final year and studied the cold war. Stuff like M.A.D. Then the goddamn wall fell. It was 1989. How the hell do you write an essay on that shit when its final act is happening around your fucking ears? Anyhow, I think I fudged a B-
Re: I hope Russia plans to sell US citizens acces (Score:2)
How is Winnie the Pooh's brain tumor surgery going? Will he pull through? I hearby nominate Anonymouse Cowtard for the next President of China! (in the event Pooh kicks the can) ^--- sent via a multitude of components made where ... ?
Re: I hope Russia plans to sell US citizens acces (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I was hoping the Great Firewall would've protected you from seeing that.
Slashdot is not blocked in China.
It is not important enough and doesn't support Unicode.
Re: (Score:2)
Can confirm, one of my greatest fears when travelling there the first time was being cut off from the soothing green glow.
Re: (Score:2)
As opposed to Russia already being a totalitarian state ruled by state propaganda for pretty much the entire history of existence of the country.
Re:I hope Russia plans to sell US citizens access. (Score:4, Interesting)
As opposed to Russia already being a totalitarian state
Russia is an authoritarian state. It is not totalitarian. They are two different things.
Russians can get in trouble for challenging the country's leadership. But otherwise, they are mostly free to live their lives as they choose, including the freedom to travel abroad and emigrate.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Why not? It's not like Russia doesn't have experience of building satellites, they were the first to do so after all.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Ivan, go study recent history to know the actual reason: https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-98... [media.ccc.de]
Re: (Score:2)
It's not that they don't have multiple units, it's just that their base unit is the equivalent of a cent rather than a dollar.
There will then be other larger units which represent equivalent values to "1000 cents", "10,000 cents" etc, the US does it too with various words to describe values such as "1000 dollars" etc as do other countries.
It actually makes *more* sense over all to have a single unit. The unit also needs to be sufficiently small so it's granular enough for cheaper items.
Comment removed (Score:3)
Re: I predict smuggling. (Score:3)
Receiving a signal is one thing, but sending seems like making you own homing beacon for the police to pick you up.
Re: (Score:2)
sending seems like making you own homing beacon for the police to pick you up.
That is not a problem that a 1000 ruble bill can't fix.
(1000 RR = 14 USD)
Re: (Score:3)
2. If you think that operating an unauthorized SAT service in USA will give you a lesser
Re:I predict smuggling. (Score:5, Interesting)
StarLink isn't really "radio".
StarLink uses 40-75GHz. That is, like, millimeter range microwaves.
It is line-of-sight and uses a narrow beam.
You could maybe detect a transmitter from an aircraft or drone, but it will be hard to do from a ground station.
Re: (Score:2)
Their small drones like Orlan 10 have a fully featured "fake" cell tower analogous to the USA Stingray as well as a full radio intercept suite up to GHz range. That is already in the field with both law enforcement and the relevant bits of the military which would be tasked with looking at this as a "security issue". Hopefully they will not use the "enforcement" bit - Orlan transmits radio intercept coordinates dir
Re: (Score:2)
addition to the full radio intercept suite and full Stingray
This also gives them all individuals using the service straight away - they can interrogate all phones within So the only people who will be "smuggling" them will be designated martyrs which we have prepared/bought to demonstrate the horrifying undemocratic capabilities of Vlad the Implaler. Normal people will simply use a VPN.
Re: (Score:3)
Most likely Starlink will just voluntarily block service in certain countries on request. For example if China asked them to, it seems likely that Musk would agree because if he didn't it would affect Tesla production and sales there. He might get arrested if he tried to visit one of his facilities.
Being an economic superpower has its advantages.
For other countries it may depend how much leverage they how, or how much a pain they want to be. For example jamming could affect neighbouring states so it would p
I don't like where this is going (Score:2)
How long do you suppose before they start shooting down satellites?
Re:I don't like where this is going (Score:5, Insightful)
Very unlikely. The corrupt Russian oligarchy and their friends will want to use this service more than the regular people. Most Russians won't care.
Re: I don't like where this is going (Score:2)
"Most X won't care." is an American meme.
Please refrain from trying to apply it to other cultures with less futuristic population control.
Re: (Score:2)
Russia'
Re:I don't like where this is going (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: I don't like where this is going (Score:2, Funny)
Please. With the right orbit, a single satellite with a well-aimed ESP can kill an entire anal bead chain of Starlink satellites. Shoot up one for every anal bead chain, all at once, and itntakes a single orbit to kill them all. Given precise close-flybies.
Re: (Score:3)
They could just spread a few billion 1-millimeter BBs into a counter-orbit.
Re: (Score:2)
Any ballistic/anti-ballistic missile can function as an anti satellite weapon. Especially against the very low orbit Starlink satellites. You have to realise that there is a little difference between launching a satellite and launching an explosive device that can destroy a satellite.
Re: I don't like where this is going (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Russia is actually launching the OneWeb satellites.
Re: (Score:2)
There are probably already more StarLink satellites in orbit than there are missiles capable of reaching orbit in all of the former Soviet Bloc.
Re: I don't like where this is going (Score:2)
By both sides wanting to spark one.
Anything can be 'interpreted' as provocation, if one just wants hard enough.
Re:I don't like where this is going (Score:5, Insightful)
If Musk wants a nuclear arsenal, he can afford it.
Really, the level of idiocy one can experience on Slashdot does not exist even on the flatearther forums.
Re: (Score:3)
I will take your word about flat earth forums.
Attn: Twitter whiners (Score:5, Insightful)
This is what losing freedoms actually looks like - an authoritarian government that wants to punish you for using an Internet connection that they cannot listen in on, and cannot firewall access to stuff they don't want you to see.
Get some perspective please.
Re: Attn: Twitter whiners (Score:2)
PROTIP: In America, you do not need such primitivte tactics. We got highly advanced methods to make the population WANT what we want. No need to force anyone.
Imagine our reaction when we found out, you could do it with ten semibrained tweets a day!
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Huawei has been caught with backdoors, and engaging in corporate espionage. It is idiotic to trust them, and their promises that there's nothing malicious hidden in their hardware are empty. Once you prove yourself to be an untrustworthy actor, it only makes sense for no one to trust you again.
That doesn't differentiate them from e.g. Cisco but then, there's plenty of people around here who don't give Cisco a pass either.
Re:Attn: Twitter whiners (Score:4, Insightful)
Honestly, you pretty much got it backwards.
The net result is the same: you singled out as not being able to communicate. (And: no, "other communications" besides Twitter do not count *if* Twitter is the only game in town; or if you're excluded from all other viable games in town, like Facebook, YouTube, AWS servers in general etc.)
Don't get me wrong, I not pro Trump (or against him, for that matter; I'm not from the US). But when the net result is you not being able to publish and/or receive via generally available methods, this *is* censorship, regardless of who does it. Just because one country or the other inadvertedly found a way to outsource this to private companies doesn't make it less moral.
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, you mean like losing the freedom under certain authoritarian government to buy certain Chinese stocks, download or using certain apps like WeChat and Tiktok, etc, all done by mandate called "executive order" from the Czar without any due process, right?
Re: (Score:2)
Hardly a recent thing though. Receiving radio broadcasts from "enemy" states has been illegal in many places since pretty much the invention of radio.
Re: (Score:3)
WTF has happened over the last ten years?
How did it become completely impossible for people to buy their own computers and set up a website, to such an extent that if they can't rent someone else's computer, they're being "censored"?
Re: Attn: Twitter whiners (Score:2)
Itâ(TM)s called DDOS attacks , harder to mitigate without cloud flare technology.
Parler has already planned to go to bare metal, but with that caveat in mind.
Re: (Score:3)
How did it become completely impossible for people to buy their own computers and set up a website, to such an extent that if they can't rent someone else's computer, they're being "censored"?
Two developments factored into this. First, consumers universally moved to mobile systems and were trained to use apps. These platforms are walled garden systems where platform dictates what you can and cannot install. Think what Internet would have looked like if everyone moved to AOL.
Second development is that hosting evolved to where you rent both the data link and virtualized hardware, consequently it became increasingly expensive to maintain your own hardware. The days of renting rack space at your IS
Re: (Score:3)
No true conservative thinks that the need for a large capital investment prevents anyone from pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. Parler just isn't trying hard enough.
Re:Attn: Twitter whiners (Score:5, Interesting)
However, it is highly unlikely any basement hosted server isn't going to stand much chance against coordinated DDoS attacks.
This one's actually easy:
0. You're very unlikely to be hit by a DDoS, unless you have something very interesting to say, and are obviously very successful at saying it, or otherwise nobody of importance would notice. But if you are, you're also likely to have enough money for a decent connection (see below).
1. If it happens, don't shit your pants. It's just a DDoS. It's not like your house is on fire or anything. Eventually it'll stop.
2. If you're in a hurry, or you get bored waiting it out, set up a 2nd server somewhere else. And a 3rd. And a 4th. And a 40th. If you have enough people caring for your cause, you can have essentially infinitely many servers.
3. Finally, if you have even mild financial resources to burn, try hooking your Walmart AMD box to a decent connection to begin with. You can try US, but you might want to give some consideration to the former eastern block, e.g. Romania. They have better and cheaper internet than anybody, $10 will buy you Gbit fibre optics there. (You don't need a "cloud" to serve static HTML, just mail your AMD box over. Any DDoS is likely to saturate the connection a lot earlier than your hardware, hence the better your connection, the more leeway you have.) If you don't have even mild money to burn, see above: you're likely not important enough to be DDoS'ed.
Of course, you're all out of luck if you need a PHP + Postgres + Jenkins + Mongo + JavaBeans + JavaSoup + JavaTheIsland + PythonOnRails + HoldOnItWasRuby stack than can't support more than 10 concurrent connections. But then again, your sever isn't about getting heard anymore, it's about your DevOps buddy jerking off.
Likewise you'll need dynamic firewalling or an enterprise WAF, something that protects against zero-day exploits, etc.
Only if you have no idea of IT.
If you do know IT, you'll get a fairly recent Linux or BSD box, patched up to date. Fire up essentially any httpd of your choice (apache or nginx will do, but you can go for smaller, less-known ones, in particular known for tight security, like "gatling").
Make backups. No, really, DO MAKE BACKUPS!
You can have a simple iptables-based firewall if you want to isolate non-public services, if you like. But you're better off not having any non-public services on your publicly facing computer.
In the unlikely event anyone has a 0-day and uses it against you (and we're talking serious $$$ for the attacker here, those things aren't cheap, and they're usually burned after first use), reformat, reinstall, reconnect. If you have backups, that should cost you less than 1 hour of work and $12 in junkfood and beverages before you're up & running again, so let 'em come.
Dynamic firewalls and enterprise WATs are for wimps with too much money to burn, or for people who need to keep 4000 unpatched Windows 7 install safe inside a bug-ridden corporate network (which is essentially the same thing as wimps with too much money to burn).
That is serious money to purchase upfront, and the reason why cloud is ideal for starting out.
I seriously have no clue why anyone in their right minds would think that cloud is good for anything.
Container-based technology, now that's good, if properly employed. It pretty much allows you to do what I've told you: easily redeploy from backups in the case of an event. If they are in your own corporate network. But somebody else's computer, a.k.a. cloud? Why?!
Things have changed considerably since the 1990's.
The thing that's changed most since the '90s is computing power -- we're massively above the level of 30 years ago. As in: even the order-of-magnitude has an order-of-magnitude of its own (we're 10^9 faster, 10^10 if you're prepared to get into some more exotic confi
Re: (Score:3)
The thing that's changed most since the '90s is computing power -- we're massively above the level of 30 years ago. As in: even the order-of-magnitude has an order-of-magnitude of its own (we're 10^9 faster, 10^10 if you're prepared to get into some more exotic configurations with multiple GPUs). You can get multi-TFLOPS computing, with TB storage, and GBits data transfer, for a month's salary. Everything else -- how the web works, what a webserver does -- has essentially stagnated in relation to that.
I agree that the available computing power has grown tremendously the last 30 years. But I believe you are exaggerating the computing power development a few orders of magnitude. Do you have any data to back up your claims? If we look at the compute available in the Top 500 supercomputers you will find that it has increased by around 10^6 - 10^7 (and this includes exotic configurations). You may admittedly be able to find better data?
Not, that I disagree with your point. I am just skeptical that the develop
Re: (Score:3)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
0. You're very unlikely to be hit by a DDoS, unless you have something very interesting to say, and are obviously very successful at saying it, or otherwise nobody of importance would notice. But if you are, you're also likely to have enough money for a decent connection.
Well, you don't "likely to have enough money for a decent connection" as the result of being very successful at saying conservative things. This is because all digital advertising networks, subscription platforms and even large portion of payment processors are controlled by the same people that you are trying to escape. Google, Facebook and so on are also controlling all the ways to monetize your speech. If they disagree with your speech they not only ban you from their platforms but also very effectively
Re: (Score:2)
DDOS for a short time is easy. To do it effectively for an extended period is not. They can't be too distributed, and even if 50k devices are participating, its not too hard to block those and still allow 99.9999% of the rest of the world to access your site.
So, to stay up 100% is difficult if someone is trying to DDOS you. Staying up 98% of the time isn't that tough.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Increasingly you don't even get a dynamic IPv4, you get NAT and cannot host anything AT ALL.
Some providers provide IPv6 where you can still host, but not all, and users of those that don't wouldn't be able to access your site anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
Get a VPN to somebody who would offer you an IPv6 on the other side. A static one. Rumor has it they have enough of them to last a few decades or so... :-p
FALSE (Score:2)
"both have the same TOS prohibiting running your own servers,"
You can't run servers, or you can't run certain types of servers? Isn't any computer connected to the internet a server in some capacity? Also, you can run servers all day, as long as they aren't moving traffic through the ISP's connections.
"and nobody gives you a static IP, not even as an optional extra paid service."
Are you saying that you can't get any ISP to give you an static IP address? Or are you saying you can't get what you want with the
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Attn: Twitter whiners (Score:2)
Have you ever tried that switch?
Or is it like you "could" restore that backup?
Try it, and you get to meet little Mr Lock-In. And he got a huge fist to push up your ass til he can ring your tonsils. ;)
Re: (Score:2)
Spoken like someone who hasn't built their infrastructure properly, or depends way too much on the "managed services" offered by the cloud providers to lock you in.
Here's a few hints:
Instead of using a "managed database service" like Amazon RDS Postgresql, install Postgresql on an EC2 instance.
Repeat for other pieces of critical infrastructure such as Redis instead of ElastiCache, RabbitMQ instead of SQS, etc. Better yet, all of this can be deployed on k8s with Helm charts created by the community.
Back up
Re: (Score:2)
The fact that Parler was dumb enough to tie all of its infrastructure to a third party hosting service is its own fault.
What I've read is that they just have VMs and that they are not really tied to Amazon at all. However, their trial of some of the software they based their CMS on has been revoked, so their site won't actually function until it's been overhauled.
Re: (Score:2)
There are some other options, such as Huawei Cloud and Alibaba - both based in China. If you're not criticising the Chinese government they generally don't care what else you do.
Re: (Score:2)
The hosting that Parler moved to is Epik, which is based in the State of Washington, about 5 miles from Redmond.
Whoops, huh?
Re: Attn: Twitter whiners (Score:2)
Americans are too stupid to look through something as complex as a single layer proxy.
They can't handle more than two equivalent parties with imaginary differences in actual lawmaking, and when they do, it's Trump (which counts as neither), so what do you expect?
Fine. (Score:2)
The fact that it's a fine and not a criminal sentence means that this is just a ploy to discourage it .. I mean, the Russian government knows there are other ways to organize a revolution than via Starlink. They will take a wait-and-see approach. Meanwhile they need a way to download porn at their dacha.
Would the US do the same? (Score:5, Insightful)
If Russia rolled out it's SpaceXski StarLinkski internet over the US and offered the service at reasonable rates without all kinds of upselling scams?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: Would the US do the same? (Score:2)
But back then, Muslims were the scapegoat in the closet, taken out to scare people every time it didn't go so well in the own country. ...
Then stupid Bush emptied the closet
So they had to go back to Russians again. What a shame! ;)
Re: (Score:3)
People forget that Google was half founded by a Russian.
People forget Russia and Russian are not the same thing.
No, they wouldn't (Score:2)
People use all kinds of Chinese equipment already (except for the banned ones now). Russian ISP? Why not?
Re: (Score:2)
If Russia rolled out it's SpaceXski StarLinkski internet over the US and offered the service at reasonable rates without all kinds of upselling scams?
Yes. Hell if they powered it by Huawei they wouldn't even need to pass new laws.
Facetiousness about the law aside you can see quite clearly the USA's attack on Chinese hardware and software in the past months as a clear answer to your question.
Re: (Score:2)
China has already announced it is working on that.
It might be very competitive. Probably cheaper than Starlink and they will doubtless offer whatever censorship/monitoring state governments demand. The Chinese government may use it to increase soft power, similar to how the UK is failing to do with that dodgy satellite company it bought.
It's going to get crowded up there with tens of thousands of satellites in each constellation.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Probably not, until it was shown that it was being used as an espionage tool.
Simple fix (Score:3)
You live out in the middle of Siberia and can't get service any other way. You contact Russian authorities and volunteer to have them come out and install their firewall box between the Starlink ground station and your router. Everyone should be happy.
If this is just a ploy for them to hamstring Starlink while they get a competitive system up and running, it's likely that this solution will be rejected.
Re: (Score:2)
That's Fine!! (Score:2)
More bandwidth for the rest of us.
Coming to your country too, soon! (Score:2)
Because *somehow* all the cuntries in the world, how different they may be, lay down their arms and agree, to oppress their population with totalitarian surveillance. Ain't that one huge coincidence!
Re: (Score:2)
Given it's nature, it's understandable... (Score:3)
https://www.reddit.com/r/consp... [reddit.com]
https://www.reddit.com/r/consp... [reddit.com]
Souvereignty means having control over the governed area. Starlink and similar systems are tools for _global_ surveillance without governemtnal, much less public insight.
Re: (Score:2)
Tax (Score:3)
Those fines won't stop anybody.
They did the same thing with Telegram.
It's because they are insecure totalitarian fascis (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I mean, I wouldn't call them insecure. Putin is about a secure a position as one can be in. Xi seems to wield more power, but he's also more likely to face opposition in China over his lifetime than Putin will face in Russia in his.
starlink Russia (Score:2)
Using Starlink in Russia would be operating a radio transmitter without a license, or a license exemption, so they already have laws covering this.
Currently Starlink requires a ground station with a fiber internet connection that is located within about forty miles of the users (depending on local terrain such as mountains in the way).
Russia is big, currently Starlink could only cover small parts of Russia near the borders if a ground station is set up in a neighbouring country.
The satellites are in a low o
Law (Score:2)
Next law to come into effect in 2021 will ban all foreign toilet papers. All Russians will be mandated to use exclusively local voting ballots.
There is no use for them in new Russia anyway so I consider it to be very ecological way how to dispose of old democracy. Good law.
Good luck stopping it (Score:2)
That said I wonder if Starlink is going to be cheap or what the service quali
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: More double standards (Score:2)
You are completely and utterly and DELIBERATELY missing the point.
Give back Pelosi's laptop, and wipe off the cum stains first, would ya?
Re: (Score:2)
fibre link to Russa (Score:2)
...Or were you referring to them running a fiber optic cable from Russia to your house? I imagine the FCC would be fine with that, and mighty impressed if you could manage it.
I expect they'd be so impressed they'd buy some bandwidth from you, for certain nameless Federal agencies who would like to communicate with their agents.
Re: And Russian internet (Score:2)
Tell that to the Chinese or Saudis you ... VOTER!