Russia Still Using Black Market Starlink Terminals On Its Drones (behindtheblack.com) 76
schwit1 shares a report from Behind The Black: In its war with the Ukraine, it appears Russia is still managing to obtain black market Starlink mini-terminals for use on its drones, despite an effort since 2024 to block access. [Imagery from eastern Ukraine shows a Russian Molniya-type drone outfitted with a mini-Starlink terminal, reinforcing reports that Russia is improvising satellite-linked UAVs to extend their communication and operational range.] SpaceX has made no comment on this issue.
According to the article, Ukraine is "exploring alternative European satellite providers in response, seeking more secure and controllable communications infrastructure for military operations." While switching to another satellite provider might allow Ukraine to shut Starlink down and prevent the Russians from using it within its territory, doing so would likely do more harm to Ukraine's military effort than Russia's. There isn't really any other service comparable at this time. And when Amazon's Leo system comes on line it will face the same black market issues. I doubt it will have any more success than SpaceX in preventing Russia from obtaining its terminals.
Overall this issue is probably not a serious one militarily, however. Russia is not likely capable of obtaining enough black market terminals to make any significant difference on the battlefield. This story however highlights a positive aspect of these new constellations. Just as Russia can't be prevented from obtaining black market terminals, neither can the oppressed citizens in totalitarian nations like Russia and China be blocked as well. These constellations as designed act to defeat the censorship and information control of such nations, a very good thing.
According to the article, Ukraine is "exploring alternative European satellite providers in response, seeking more secure and controllable communications infrastructure for military operations." While switching to another satellite provider might allow Ukraine to shut Starlink down and prevent the Russians from using it within its territory, doing so would likely do more harm to Ukraine's military effort than Russia's. There isn't really any other service comparable at this time. And when Amazon's Leo system comes on line it will face the same black market issues. I doubt it will have any more success than SpaceX in preventing Russia from obtaining its terminals.
Overall this issue is probably not a serious one militarily, however. Russia is not likely capable of obtaining enough black market terminals to make any significant difference on the battlefield. This story however highlights a positive aspect of these new constellations. Just as Russia can't be prevented from obtaining black market terminals, neither can the oppressed citizens in totalitarian nations like Russia and China be blocked as well. These constellations as designed act to defeat the censorship and information control of such nations, a very good thing.
Re:Of course it does (Score:5, Insightful)
SpaceX knows exactly where each terminal is because they have to for radio timing to work correctly with the moving satellites. Russia has to test those terminals somewhere. SpaceX could be giving that location to Ukraine. SpaceX could be permanently destroying any terminal that turns up near there and hasn't been cleared by Ukraine. SpaceX could be reporting the incoming locations of missiles and could be cutting service as soon as they realize that there's a surprise terminal moving rapidly towards a Ukrainian city.
Due to their lack of accuracy which makes them ineffective against hardened military targets, most of the Russian missiles are used in strict terror campaigns against civilian buildings: Power stations providing neighborhood heating, residential tower blocks with hundreds of families living in them, independent churches, nurseries often at times of maximum use and of course hospitals.
Getting on top of this and ensuring that Ukraine is a key supported customer that feels it gets what it needs could have allowed a real feel good story showing a company that took abuse and murder seriously. In fact it's pretty clear that some working at Starlink tried to do that at times and the management made it more difficult. Elon Musk is literally a baby killer.
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SpaceX could be giving that location to Ukraine.
Yeah, also the pigs could fly and elona could be a regular nice guy and not a Nazi on a wegovy diet.
But none of these are actually happening.
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Given dynamic battlefield, I don't think that is as easily done as you think, and the moment SpaceX makes a mistake and knocks out a Ukrainian drone on a mission, they'll be guilty for everything. There's not really a winning position for them here.
Russia isn't hiding that it targets civilian infrastructure. They still wage war the way everyone did it in 1939-1945. US and UK bombers essentially just opened the doors above German cities and let the unguided bombs fall wherever. We're not doing that anymore b
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Indeed. The Germans started strategic bombing of civilian areas about 88 years ago, and in fact, the German president was just in Guernica paying his respects to the victims of that attack: https://www.theguardian.com/wo... [theguardian.com].
We haven't stopped strategic bombing of civilian areas just because they don't work, it's also because it amounts to war crimes. Britain bombed Germany like that as a response to Germany doing it to Britain and that being the only response Britain could muster at the time, but RAF Bomb
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the moment SpaceX makes a mistake and knocks out a Ukrainian drone on a mission, they'll be guilty for everything.
Simple solution to that, give the Ukrainian government control/access to the services operating over their territory. Provide them the tools and let them make the mistakes.
US and UK bombers essentially just opened the doors above German cities and let the unguided bombs fall wherever. We're not doing that anymore because most of the world learned that despite all this, they didn't exactly surrender.
Technology of the time made accurate targeting very difficult and far more dangerous. Even today, accurate weapons are significantly more expensive than inaccurate ones.
Re: Of course it does (Score:2)
Simple solution to that, give the Ukrainian government control/access to the services operating over their territory. Provide them the tools and let them make the mistakes.
You guys are working on the very bad assumption (made by a guy who has no idea what he's talking about) that this information is even available to SpaceX to begin with. The only way to determine the precise location of a terminal is with plain old GPS, and that isn't at all foolproof.
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You guys are working on the very bad assumption (made by a guy who has no idea what he's talking about) that this information is even available to SpaceX to begin with.
The only way to determine the precise location of a terminal is with plain old GPS, and that isn't at all foolproof.
This is utter nonsense. Ukraine is huge, all 8k+ starlink satellites are in LEO and both satellites and ground terminals use phased array antennas in the Ku band. Locations of starlink terminals can be attained with relevant specificity even without multilateration.
Re: Of course it does (Score:2)
Nothing you said goes counter to my comment. You assume that all 8k birds are serving one dish at a time. They aren't. You probably also assume that Will Smith movie enemy of the state is a documentary about satellites. It's not, it's fiction. Satellites don't work that way.
The dish uses phased array to direct its antennas to the bird, not the other way around. This is so that the dish doesn't have to move. The bird aims a spot beam at the cell where the dish is located. The antenna compensates for Doppler
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The only way to determine the precise location of a terminal is with plain old GPS, and that isn't at all foolproof.
Just wrong. The spacex satellites themselves provide location independent of GPS and 8 m accuracy has been demonstrated even without SpaceX cooperation [spacenews.com]. SpaceX themselves could probably achieve 1m accuracy if they wanted to, but in any case 50m accuracy would be enough for target location.
Re: Of course it does (Score:2)
Did you even read that? Because if you did, you certainly didn't comprehend what it's saying. They're talking about being able to get a fix on your own location on earth by looking for signals in space, not the other way around.
You're also somehow oblivious to the fact that the dish is always actively aiming its antenna to track the satellite. And somehow you're expecting adjacent satellites to get a good enough signal to do anything at all with, especially when the adjacent satellites aren't even making th
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You're also somehow oblivious to the fact that the dish is always actively aiming its antenna to track the satellite. And somehow you're expecting adjacent satellites to get a good enough signal to do anything at all with, especially when the adjacent satellites aren't even making the same Doppler adjustments.
The Starlink Dish isn't moving. It's an active array and it's completely possible for that to either "point" in two directions simultaneously or to time switch so that it measures first one satellite then moves to the other.
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The Starlink Dish isn't moving.
I didn't say it does.
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> and the moment SpaceX makes a mistake and knocks out a Ukrainian drone on a mission
SpaceX doesn't need to do any such thing - they really just need to supply up to date location information to Ukraine. Ukraine can then send drones or whatever to any locations it doesn't like the look of, taking out testing and launch locations in the process. A large explosion ought to stop the terminal working, so SpaceX really doesn't need to do anything about it at all.
Of course, if SpaceX worked with the Ukrainians
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[T]he moment SpaceX makes a mistake and knocks out a Ukrainian drone on a mission, they'll be guilty for everything.
Musk alread did that. [theguardian.com]
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The USAID cut related death toll is already up to 500k+, mostly children. If Elon isn't losing sleep already then I can't even imagine what would give him pause.
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People are modding me flamebait for this comment, which is interesting. Maybe rightfully so, maybe pointing out death tolls is inconsiderate to people who would prefer to ignore them. Whether you're pro USAID cuts or against them though, you are simply lying to yourselves if you think there isn't a real human cost to this issue that's being measured in the millions of lives that are being lost and the even more that are being projected to be lost.
And Elon is the beating heart of that entire operation. It *w
Stop thinking of Musk .... (Score:1, Flamebait)
... as some well meaning albeit flawed tech hero. He's not.
He's just another corporate sociopath - the only thing that matters to him is money and power. He'll only help out when its suits his purposes such as for Good PR , but like a lot of bullies he's also a coward to so won't put up when he really needs to such as in blocking starlink inside parts of russia.
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I'm pretty sure Starlink is already blocked inside Russia.
Re: Of course it does (Score:4, Informative)
SpaceX knows exactly where each terminal is because they have to for radio timing to work correctly with the moving satellites.
This is quite false. It can only be known which cell the dish is in. You're thinking (likely without realizing) about Doppler. It doesn't work that way. And even then, it can still be slightly outside of that area. Photons don't work the way you think they do. The cell only guarantees where you'll get an adequate signal for service, it does NOT guarantee that you won't get an adequate signal outside of that area.
Russia has to test those terminals somewhere. SpaceX could be giving that location to Ukraine. SpaceX could be permanently destroying any terminal that turns up near there and hasn't been cleared by Ukraine. SpaceX could be reporting the incoming locations of missiles and could be cutting service as soon as they realize that there's a surprise terminal moving rapidly towards a Ukrainian city.
You're making a ton of wild assumptions here, and no doubt you're predicating even those on top of your first assumption, which itself is very wrong.
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It doesn't work that way. And even then, it can still be slightly outside of that area. Photons don't work the way you think they do.
Teach your grandmother to suck eggs. Some phrases for you to look up to start to dig yourself out of the hole of your ignorance.
"timing advance"
"round trip time"
"propagation delay"
"triangulation"
You might study how Malaysia Airlines Flight 370's flight path has been investigated to get some popular and simplified explanations that will help you with imagining how this could be done.
You're making a ton of wild assumptions here, and no doubt you're predicating even those on top of your first assumption, which itself is very wrong.
In the meantime in this house we follow the laws of science and the experiment is in. 8m location accuracy has been demonstrate [spacenews.com]
Re: Of course it does (Score:2)
And so tell me, what gives you the idea that a method of getting your own fix, from the ground, will surely work from space?
It's hilarious that you think you have the slightest idea how this works, and to "prove" it, you're throwing words at me that you don't even understand. Meanwhile, you have no idea why what the piece you linked has no relevance to your original post.
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what gives you the idea that a method of getting your own fix, from the ground, will surely work from space?
a) The fact that Starlink controls the software on the terminals and is allowed to send the location from the terminal to their system.
b) The fact that Starlink clearly states that they know, and need to know, your exact terminal location in order to allow handovers to happen correctly.
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a) The fact that Starlink controls the software on the terminals and is allowed to send the location from the terminal to their system.
You're assuming that it cannot be and has not been tampered with or that GPS spoofing has not been employed (neither of which are really even necessary.) You're also assuming that there must be a constant GPS fix. These are really bad assumptions to make, especially in a place as unpredictable as a warzone. Even if what you claim is true (it's not) you're also asking Ukraine to rule out the use of its own Starlink aviation systems, which probably isn't a good idea.
b) The fact that Starlink clearly states that they know, and need to know, your exact terminal location in order to allow handovers to happen correctly.
Where do they state that they need it for t
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It's a bit late for that now: there are already four* NATO members which have a land border with Russia (not counting Poland and Lithuania, which only border Kaliningrad).
*Although I'm not sure that Norway's border is very relevant in practical terms
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Thanks, Oleg.
Putin is one of the richest guys on the planet. He could have retired to, say, a chateau along the French riviera and lived out his remaining years in relative obscurity. Instead, he's a sadistic old man.
Vladimir can finish this tomorrow by sending his troops back across the border.
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The only people benefiting from this war are putin and his "Lake cooperative", who remain in power because of the war.
Without the war, the so-called "economy" of putinland, which is now 146% war-driven, will collapse and that, the regime will disappear.
"Suing" for peace won't work just like it didn't work with Nazi Germany, whose economy was driven to near collapse by Hitler's attempts to establish an autarky.
No za staranie - spasibo, tavarisch voin tikhogo fronta.
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the mic benefits for sure, but not alone, and not even the most. most of those hundreds of billions the us "gave" to ukraine were indeed new contracts for the mic to renew the stock of older equipment sent to ukraine. so that stays in the us and is a lot of taxpayer money indeed. so good old whealth concentration form the worker class to the elites, business as usual. but even if their stuff is vastly overpriced, they'll still have to produce it. over 5-10 years, that is (china willing to keep providing rar
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Funny, when Russia invaded Crimea, nothing was done, so that emboldened Putin to decide to invade the rest of Ukraine. You want peace with Russia, make Russia give back the land it STOLE, then make a 300 mile buffer zone IN RUSSIAN LAND, because Putin is entirely at fault for what has been going on over there. Ukraine wouldn't feel a need to join NATO if Russia hadn't invaded and taken land from Ukraine.
Musk shut down Starlink in Ukraine (Score:2, Insightful)
In September of 2022, when Ukraine was counter-attaking in the Kherson oblast and making significant headway, Musk ordered Starlink service shut down [reuters.com] in that area. Not all of Ukraine, just the Kherson and surrounding areas.
As a direct resutl, an attempted encirclement of Russian troops in the town of Beryslav stalled. This encirclement would have seriously dented Russia's attack as their incompetence was already highlighted throughout the summer. Instead, because of Musk's orders, Russian troops were abl
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Yep, this has to be pointed out every time people say "spaceX is there to help Ukraine".
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Re: Musk shut down Starlink in Ukraine (Score:2)
You're calling yourself stupid then given Tesla, not SpaceX, gave him that trillion dollar pay package.
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...Don't tell me you actually believe that shares have to be sold before they're considered part of a person's net worth? Because if so, you literally erased all doubt just now. And if not, then what the hell are you even talking about? Why would you even think for a second that he has to sell anything at all? Unless you're suggesting that if SpaceX has its IPO, it would push his net worth above that amount? And if so, and that was the only goal, wouldn't it make more sense to have gone public a long time a
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Re: Musk shut down Starlink in Ukraine (Score:2)
Let's do it this way:
He will need to sell a piece of spacex on the market to cross that magic threshold.
Why would he have to sell anything at all? These are your words.
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And his Chinese investors.
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The guys who make the most noise are usually the ones with the smallest balls.
Re: Musk shut down Starlink in Ukraine (Score:1)
In September of 2022, when Ukraine was counter-attaking in the Kherson oblast and making significant headway, Musk ordered Starlink service shut down in that area. Not all of Ukraine, just the Kherson and surrounding areas.
That wasn't Elon's decision.
https://spacenews.com/shotwell... [spacenews.com]
If that was arranged though the Pentagon, it probably would have gone off without a hitch as it would have absolved SpaceX of any legal liability.
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In September of 2022, when Ukraine was counter-attaking in the Kherson oblast and making significant headway, Musk ordered Starlink service shut down [reuters.com] in that area. Not all of Ukraine, just the Kherson and surrounding areas.
I'm flummoxed; Is the Starlink service incapable of authenticating terminals? Is it less advanced than 90's era satellite TV? IE: how do Russia's black market Starlink terminals get any access in the first place? (FWIW, this isn't a direct response to the parent post... just seemed like a natural progression to ask about individual terminals versus geofencing)
If one lives in the US and has a Starlink terminal, can you access the network even if you are not an active subscriber? I'm certain that's a no. So h
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I'm flummoxed; Is the Starlink service incapable of authenticating terminals?
I'm sure these are authorized terminals being sold to Russia. They might even be coming from Russian sympathizers in Ukraine .
Why would you think that? The fuckin slashdot page title even says, "... Black Market Starlink Terminals ...". Starlink isn't even active anywhere in Russia.
Regardless, if they were authorized terminals, then they'd certainly be able to disable them and be well aware of what all terminals are connecting.
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Would this be the Starlink system Musk rushed to Ukraine and afaik continues to allow UKR to use free if charge? (I believe that some donor nations do pay sub fees for the systems they've purchased for Ukr, to be clear.)
Musk repeatedly said that he won't allow Starlink to be used to support offensive operations. Yes, sometimes free gifts come with strings attached.
Your insistence that because Musk doesn't do everything Ukraine wants without question, "we know where his sympathies lie" is childish.
Yes, I c
Bullshit! (Score:5, Interesting)
These constellations as designed act to defeat the censorship and information control of such nations
Bullshit! These constellations are explicitly designed to enable censorship and control. It can be controlled by the the country, by the U.S., by Starlink, by Musk himself. They can turn off everything, a whole continent, a remarkably small region - I think three mile precision - and Individual terminals. And that's just Starlink's control. Then there is jamming, allowing external parties to control/censor.
And there is absolutely no reason to expect Amazon Kuiper to be any different.
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There's a huge difference:
Our governments, at least in theory, are controlled by us, the people. Ok, the 1% who make the major campaign contributions. But that's still a lot of people.
The number of SpaceX or Amazon shareholders who have enough shares to have a say in these matters is single-digits. So power is concentrated in much fewer hands.
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> Our governments, at least in theory, are controlled by us, the people
Whenever you go vote, tell yourself "this might be the last election" . Doing that puts technologies and power structures in perspective...
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The number of SpaceX or Amazon shareholders who have enough shares to have a say in these matters is single-digits.
You think shareholders have a direct voice in day-to-day operations of a company? What is that mechanism?
Last I heard of something like that happening was when Roy E Disney was pissed that Eisner was screwing up the Disney-Pixar deal. He had to gather a dozen other large investors, overturn a good chunk of the board, then have them vote Eisner out to fix that deal.
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And commercial operations are beholden to governments giving them the right to operate within their territory.
There are many countries where starlink is not available, because their governments have not agreed terms for it to operate.
Take action? (Score:5, Interesting)
One thing Starlink could do is give the ukrainian government temporary (until the war ends) full access/control of all data flowing through the starlink network from any terminals within internationally recognised ukrainian territory.
Make it too dangerous for the russians to use, but still usable for ukraine.
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As one comment said, "It also shows that even Russia cannot block the terminals from its citizens" Besides, the Starlink network isn't a "military" network. Ukraine using it is because they were never prepared for this kind of attack. The Russians... well, honestly, don't they have sats and jamming networks?
Also we don't know how the uplink/downlink works. It could be there is a large transmission area with overlapping sats that don't triangulate individual radios on the downlink. Maybe the radios hi
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Any communication technology can be tracked - cell towers can pinpoint your location, hard lines obviously are laid to a specific address so the idea that your location can be tracked when your using a particular service is nothing new, and many governments already require the ability to locate an individual subscriber when presented by an appropriate warrant or court order.
A service which cannot pinpoint users would be illegal in many countries and would not gain regulatory approval.
Whitelist Ukranian terminals (Score:1, Troll)
Starlink knows the location of its terminals. They can simply whitelist Ukrainian terminals and geofence everything else so that it does not work in Ukraine.
Censorship comments make no sense because here terminals are only being switched on where they are allowed. This condition would not apply to people in countries seeking to evade censorship given Starlink is complicit in facilitating censorship in places like China.
Geofencing is baked into their business model so they very much have the capability. F
Nobody here really understands (Score:5, Interesting)
This actually suits Putin because hes got no exit strategy. His best option is to hang on and hope that luck turns his way. Thats not a strategy thats a prayer session. The second he pulls back, the scale of how badly he f$&ked his own country will become obvious. The options will be collapse or to ramp up the repression even harder. Option b is almost certainly the way itll go. Russia is well and truly boned for the rest of the century.
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the land is very valuable, that's where Ukraine's resources are. Couple that with control of the sea front and Russia will get centuries of return on its "investment" (they don't care how many of their soldiers get killed)
The "exit strategy" is Russia controls a valuable chunk of Ukraine.
How do you imagine we could "end the war anytime we like"? Seems you're disconnected from reality and maybe ignorant of the subject of warfare.
Just as you live on land that was taken from someone else by killing, so it is
Black market? (Score:1)
Muskrat is openly on russia's side and using spacex to act against Ukraine! He bent the knee back in 2023, I think it was, by ordering Starlink blackouts strategically crafted to prevent Ukraine's communications in their defense from russia. And it's not even a general lack of service or anything he could blame on profitability or whatnot. He targets specific Ukrainian military operations and cuts the communications support for those. The only thing that's "black" about this "market" is the ink on the check