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The Internet Censorship

Smuggled Starlink Terminals are Beating Iran's Internet Blackout (bbc.com) 130

Posted by EditorDavid from the network-effects dept.
An anonymous reader shared this report from the BBC: "If even one extra person is able to access the internet, I think it's successful and it's worth it," says Sahand. The Iranian man is visibly anxious, speaking to the BBC outside Iran, as he carefully explains how he is part of a clandestine network smuggling satellite internet technology — which is illegal in Iran — into the country. Sahand, whose name we have changed, fears for family members and other contacts inside the country. "If I was identified by the Iranian regime, they might make those I'm in touch with in Iran pay the price," he says.

For more than two months, Iran has been in digital darkness as the government maintains one of the longest-running national internet shutdowns ever recorded worldwide... Sahand says he has sent a dozen [Starlink terminals] to Iran since January and "we are actively looking for other ways to smuggle in more". The human rights organisation Witness estimated in January that there are at least 50,000 Starlink terminals in Iran. Activists say the number is likely to have risen...

Last year, the Iranian government passed legislation that made using, buying or selling Starlink devices punishable by up to two years in prison. The jail term for distributing or importing more than 10 devices can be up to 10 years. State-affiliated media has reported multiple cases of people being arrested for selling and buying Starlink terminals, including four people — two of them foreign nationals — arrested last month for "importing satellite internet equipment".
"The BBC contacted SpaceX for more details about the use of Starlink in the country but did not receive a response."

Smuggled Starlink Terminals are Beating Iran's Internet Blackout More | Reply

Smuggled Starlink Terminals are Beating Iran's Internet Blackout

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  • anyone found to be using Starlink
    (anyone that isn't "elite")

    • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

      by noshellswill ( 598066 )
      Imagine huge numbers of Iranian Starlink owners ... each family armed with both a scoped Swedish Mauser and well-tuned M-14. A howling fanatic mob or political thugs appear at a doorstep .. and in every case are immediately butchered out. Good result .. a long-overdue civil war won by a "liberty" alliance. Now ... can you grok the parallels in American culture, seeing why personal gun ownership is so important ? All that's lacking is a requirement that each family maintains a m

      • an you grok the parallels in American culture, seeing why personal gun ownership is so important ?

        Tell me, how successful are armed Americans at beating SWAT units sent to get them? You probably share the typical American view that "the government should be afraid of the people". It might have worked a century or two in the past, when outlaws were playing level with the Sheriff. Right now, personal gun ownership in the context of a rebellion equates to suicide by police.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by deKernel ( 65640 )

          I am going to imagine that the overwhelming number of SWAT assisted arrests are by idiots who have no idea even how to shoot a gun. Now if you have even a single guy who is motivated changes everything. Don't believe me, look at how horrible the police respond to any of the shoot shootings.
          What a fool you are to believe that governments should NOT fear the people. The government is funding by the people and should serve the peoples needs....not the other way around. The only fools that don't believe that ar

          • What a fool you are to believe that governments should NOT fear the people.

            Alright, I concede you that point. I did not really want to take a stance on whether the government should/should not be afraid. My point is that since this stance was very sensible two centuries ago, and independently of its value as a concept, is simply inapplicable today. You're fooling yourself if you believe "government should be afraid" argument has any *practical* relevance.

            Governments have tens of thousands of staff, hundreds of billions in budget, and designed to be prepared to any adverse eventual

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by cusco ( 717999 )

          Remember the "standoff" at the Cliven Bundy ranch? Do you know why it suddenly broke off? Someone started a rumor that the Pentagram had dispatched a couple of Predator drones and they scattered like rabbits.

      • You are misinformed about the "swizz marmansship".
        Only a very low percentage of the citizens are in the military: and the guns are locked away in an arsenal. Habit since nearly 2000 years. A citizen in his own city is not supposed to be armed.

  • .... that's what real "fascism" looks like.

    as he carefully explains how he is part of a clandestine network smuggling satellite internet technology — which is illegal in Iran — into the country

    It doesn't just mean "me unhappy that other political parties exist and occasionally win".

    • Currently, the US government is banning any non-backdoored home routers, requiring pre-clearance to run news stories, and using religion to justify its war.

      Yes, fascism really does look like that.

  • > The UNâ(TM)s top human rights official warned on Wednesday that Iraniansâ(TM) rights are being eroded in âoeharsh and brutal ways,â citing a surge in executions, mass arrests and alleged abuses amid a widening crackdown on dissent

    https://news.un.org/en/story/2... [un.org]

    Iran is not the innocent place the media portrays it as.

    • Iran is not the innocent place the media portrays it as.

      I'm not aware of anyone portraying Iran as an innocent place. The claims I'm seeing are about having Israel invade other countries with American support not being beneficial in the short or long term.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by phantomfive ( 622387 )

        The claims I'm seeing are about having Israel invade other countries with American support not being beneficial in the short or long term.

        This is an extremely worrisome point. Trump is walking a narrow line, and he is not known for competence.

        • I think America had been on a "narrow line" for a generation or three... no actually, they've been solidly fucking it up the whole time. The religious crazies only came to power after the US destabilized their previous, non-psycho government, in an effort to protect British oil holdings.

          I'm reminded of a quote a few days ago by the British ambassador to the US. He said America's "special relationship" was no longer with the UK, but with Israel.

          • I think America had been on a "narrow line" for a generation or three... no actually, they've been solidly fucking it up the whole time

            You can't be on a narrow line and fuck it up for three generations. Either you're not fucking it up solidly or the line isn't so narrow.

      • It is the whole the ends justifies the means argument. Not very persuasive. The reputational damage this has caused the US is incalculable. The world will be unrecognizable by trump's end. I expect China will be the big winner.

    • Wait can someone remind we, are we pro-World Police now or anti-World Police now?

      Or does this opinion for conservatives literally depend on what mood Trump is in today?

      "No New Wars! (unless my polling dips below a threshold)"

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Sethra ( 55187 )

        Nowhere in my comment did I mention America or Trump or any "conservative" view. It's a quote from the UN regarding the Iranian theocracy arresting, torturing, and murdering their own people for the crime of talking about what's happening there.

        Iran was murdering their own people by the tens of thousands long before this conflict with America started. Perhaps your focus should be on the atrocities being committed there rather than trying to blame them on the US?

        • Notice you're not denying it either so I think I was spot on, you do know as human beings we can use our brains to infer things even if they are not said. You're just doing justification so it's a fair guess. Notice how you infer that I am blaming the US even though I didn't say it so you do understand the concept.

          Here I will do my part and deny that I am blaming the US for those crimes of the regime. I do however blame the US historically for the regime being in place and moreso this war being particula

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Sethra ( 55187 )

            Why would I set out to deny something I never mentioned. This is all in your head friend, you need to clean house and join us back in reality.

            • Are you for real? You just mentioned it. You could have denied it right there in your response but you just got indignant but did not deny it.

              So my inference stands, unless you voted for Harris and are voting straight Democrat this November? I'll happily eat crow if that's the case.

        • Perhaps your focus should be on the atrocities being committed there rather than trying to blame them on the US?
          Difficult, as the current regime was put into power by the US.
          Read a book about history.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by cusco ( 717999 )

          by the tens of thousands

          You really should ignore Israeli propaganda, I don't think their government is capable of telling the truth even if it were in their own interest.

    • At the risk of getting a "redundant" mod...

      Your fallacy is False Dichotomy [dictionary.com]. Pointing out the stupidity in an ill-thought-out war does not imply agreeing with the Iranian regime or denying that it is bad or claiming that it is "an innocent place". If anything, the ill-though-out war has strengthened the control that the Iranian regime has over the Iran.

      ...and, for reference, I don't think I've ever seen the media portray Iran as "an innocent place." (They possibly could portray the Iranian people as innoce

  • This is an astonishingly bad idea (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Arrogant-Bastard ( 141720 ) on Sunday May 03, 2026 @10:39AM (#66125574)
    All it would take is one phone call from Diaper Donnie to his pet fascist Elmo and every bit of data/metadata available on those terminals would be furnished to the Russians and thus would shortly be in the hands of the IRGC. (And if you're about to ask why in the world he would do that: keep in mind that we're talking about a moron with accelerating dementia who is incapable of understanding ANY concept, who cannot formulate a coherent plan for anything, and whose only values are his ego and his money.)

    Less dramatically: if you're an insurgent force in a modern country, the last thing in the world that you want to do is communicate by any form of electronic network. Surveillance and detection methods for these are well-known and readily available. And even if the communications themselves are encrypted, the metadata available enables traffic analysis, correlation with external events (including those arranged for the purpose), and endpoint identification.

    In such an environment, it's much better to use encrypted memory cards distributed by couriers and dead drops. The cost of attempting to disrupt such an effort is many orders of magnitude higher, both in terms of money and personnel, than the cost of disrupting electronic distribution.

    • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

      by BytePusher ( 209961 )
      Your TDS is off the charts(IMO, people who both despise Trump and love Trump have TDS). The US is still fighting with Russia, under the Trump administration. The only contradiction within the US is how to divide and conquer China-Russia-North Korea-Iran. Trump wants to do it by being slightly less antagonistic towards Russia, but maximum antagonistic to China. The Democrats want to do it by being maximum antagonistic to Russia and less antagonistic to China. Iran is the weakest link, so they both can get do

      • Re:This is an astonishingly bad idea (Score:5, Informative)

        by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Sunday May 03, 2026 @12:14PM (#66125722)

        Except that isn't true, that's just a conservative media telling of what Republicans want people to believe Democrats are doing.

        Trump is being friendly to both China and Russia, despite what they say. Trump will never... EVER... say what Biden did which is that the US will defend Taiwan in the face of Chinese invasion which is a very strong and even somewhat antagonistic stance towards China. The fact Trump is blaming the war on Ukraine and basically repeating Putin talking points is proof he's not just less antagonistic, he's practically sympathetic to Russia. He agrees with Putin's concept of 19th century spheres on influence.

        Everything else is just cope and mental justification for people who supported Trump but are far too in the conservative media machine to ever side with or vote for "the libs". To them admitting Democrats might be right or the better choice is something they would rather die than accept. This isn't just MAGA either, this is 90% of "centrists". The "both sides" schtick is well worn out and past it's due date.

        See the thing about TDS is the people back in 2016 who we all made fun of for having it? They were 110% right about everything.

        • But, the U.S. is fighting both China and Russia through proxy wars and sanctions. No matter how much you insinuate that Trump is Putin's puppet it won't be true.

          This is from the perspective of someone who is supportive of both China and Russia. I want the U.S. to leave them alone. I don't want the U.S. to be involved in Iran. I don't want the U.S. to be involved in Ukraine. I don't want the U.S. to be involved in Taiwan. I want the U.S. to be involved in making the lives of U.S. citizens better.

          • This is from the perspective of someone who is supportive of both China and Russia. I don't want the U.S. to be involved in Ukraine. I don't want the U.S. to be involved in Taiwan.

            If you support Russia move there and join the SMO. They will give you citizenship and a signing bonus of several million rubbles.

        • Wait, he has the nerve to try and understand the interests of the people he's negotiating with? How horrible.

          If only he would try and isolate and cripple both Russia and China by taking out their only actual allies, Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela.

          • 1. None of those countries are crippled, weakened sure but their regimes are intact.
            2. He's shown little understanding of America's interests much less how that intersects with theirs. Who is he negotiating with and how do you think he's understanding their interests? What has he successfully negotiated?
            3. Russia us already isolated and Trump has been trying to un-isolate them.
            4. China has been gaining more presence in international affairs, more countries are warming to China while the US becomes unhinged

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ksw_92 ( 5249207 )

      Care to explain the recent Starlink whitelisting event that locked most Russian terminals out of the network and arguably resulted in the collapse of a number of their offensive operations while giving Ukraine a large operational advantage?

      • Care to explain the recent Starlink whitelisting event that locked most Russian terminals out of the network and arguably resulted in the collapse of a number of their offensive operations while giving Ukraine a large operational advantage?

        Everyone has been calling for whitelisting terminals for years. Musk only now kicked Russians offline due to the imminent SpaceX IPO.

        While Trump and Musk are untrustworthy amoral asshats they are unlikely to act in contravention of self interests. There would be hell to pay especially in future administrations once such a betrayal became known likely in exchange for nothing substantive on the other side of the ledger. It might not even mean all that much in practice due to heavy use of overlays like Cond

  • That's all she wrote... (Score:3)

    by Ostracus ( 1354233 ) on Sunday May 03, 2026 @10:52AM (#66125596) Journal

    The end state probably isn't any single technology defeating state censorship. It's the cumulative weight of microSDs, Starlink terminals, VPNs, mesh radios, and eventual low-cost cubesats making comprehensive control economically and logistically unsustainable. The cost of enforcement keeps rising; the cost of circumvention keeps falling. That's a losing trajectory for the censors.

  • It's always keyboard warriors from outside that want to change something on the inside.
    People forget that Iranians and their revolution overturned one of the worst dictatorships back in 1978. Homeini used that oportunity and slipped in to establish himself as the religious "leader" even though Islam DOES NOT reckonise any individual between the believer and god unlike Catholicism where you have the Pope as a "broker" or "interpreter" between people and God.
    So, Homeini was there under false pretense but peop

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