As much as I hate Elon for all the shit he says and does, but it also shows the sanctioning for stuff like this is not waterproof. These units can be bought by company X in country X and sells it to company Y in country Y who is friendly with Russia. Also depending where they get launched from (for example from occupied Ukraine) it makes it also difficult to tell "friend" from "foe". Can that be prevented ? Probably, but it's not as straightforward as armchair generals may make it sound.
Now, could spaceX do something more about this ? Most likely. But that is resources you need to put on this, which is not profitable. So long story short. It's more than Elon bad here.
But Moscow has ways of avoiding bans – as does Iran – and could have found a way to build Starlink-equipped kit that only becomes active once it crosses the border into Ukraine where SpaceX's service is allowed.
Yeah, but it's not a government satellite system, it's an independent Internet provider. It is always possible that the US government/military has access on the back end, but that's not guaranteed. And since Ukraine is using Starlink, they can't exactly just disable all access in the region.
Kind of makes sense for Russia to try and use Starlink at least a bit to test the waters and see what sort of Intel the US has access to directly through it.
If the item is indeed Starlink hardware, it should be possible to prove its origins – perhaps even where it was bought, and by whom.
sheeeeeeeeeeeit. Starlink isn't going to say shit, maybe someone else controls the database of serial numbers?
Has Tesla even identified that TX CyberFuck that killed it's unidentified (?) driver in early August? I can't find any followup on that, except that the wreck was going to be auctioned at the end of August. It's the one truck that has gone dark in all of TX that month... easy to figure it out on Tesla's end.
Remember they fired their corporate communications and even municipalities mid-project can’t get anyone on the phone. It’s burning down.
That said, I would not be shocked at all to find Elmo with his fascist oligarch mitts on this. That fucker needs a serious regulatory beatdown. (Not an actual, like, punching him in the head beatdown.)