Elon Musk "secretly" disrupted a Ukrainian sneak attack on a Russian naval fleet by turning off Starlink's satellite network near the Crimean coast last year.
  •  magnetosphere   ( @HappyMeatbag@beehaw.org ) English
    16•10 months ago

    “How am I in this war?” Musk allegedly told Isaacson. “Starlink was not meant to be involved in wars. It was so people can watch Netflix and chill and get online for school and do good peaceful things, not drone strikes.”

    I might buy this naive, peaceful act IF he hadn’t given Ukraine the hardware after the war had already started, and he hadn’t become personally involved in the war.

    He didn’t intervene because he was trying to protect us from the consequences. He did it because of his enormous ego.

    Does anyone know if/how the Starlink system is currently used in Ukraine?

    •  useless_modern_god   ( @useless_modern_god@aussie.zone ) 
      6•10 months ago

      The Drive Warzone article A Sobering Analysis Of Ukraine’s Counteroffensive From The Front

      👉There is evidence of tactical cyber operations supporting closing of kinetic kill-chains. That is cyber ISR contributing to identifying and tracking targets on the battlefield. Starlink remains absolutely key for Ukrainian command and control.

      Defence One Article Using Starlink Paints a Target on Ukrainian Troops

      👉The soldier, an ex-French Foreign Legionnaire who now operates as part of a reconnaissance-and-sabotage unit, is just one of Ukraine’s many soldiers for whom the Starlink service is a double-edged sword. Like other soldiers interviewed for this article, Boris asked to be referred by his call sign for security reasons.

      On the one hand, Ukrainian soldiers say the device is key to their operations, notably its ability to help coordinate devastating artillery strikes. On the other, they report a variety of ways in which the Russians can locate, jam, and degrade the devices, which were never intended for battlefield use.

  •  ReMikeAble   ( @ReMikeAble@beehaw.org ) English
    13•10 months ago

    How the fuq did he know about the proposed attack, unless he has the ability to see any, and all communication relayed through his cloud of satellites. Or alternately he’s a Russian operative, should be stripped of all his wealth, thrown in jail and left to rot. As far as our species go, he is a pretty crappy example of humanity.

    •  zero_gravitas   ( @zero_gravitas@aussie.zone ) English
      7•10 months ago

      How the fuq did he know about the proposed attack, unless he has the ability to see any, and all communication relayed through his cloud of satellites.

      The data would all be encrypted, but Starlink can see

      a) who is using the data (i.e. it’s the UA military),

      b) where the data is being used (each starlink satellite covers a relatively small area to begin with, then you also have triangulation),

      c) patterns of data traffic (bit trickier to figure out, but I imagine drone-control traffic will look different to web browsing or watching YouTube), and

      d) the schedule of starlink satellite availability for that area (presumably any attack relying on starlink will be timed so that there is a good number of starlink satellites overhead for the duration of the attack, to ensure reliable connection)

      Even just with (a) and (b), if you see a bunch of UA military-owned connections heading out into the Black Sea, it’s pretty obvious that there’s an attack in progress.