Russia is using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite devices in Ukraine, sources say
Russia is using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite devices in Ukraine, sources say
Elon Musk’s company, once hailed for aiding the besieged country, now appears to be helping its invaders as well.
Russia is using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite devices in Ukraine, sources say::undefined
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It’s just data, which can also be easily encrypted and proxied to mask the fact that they are being used for military purposes.
It's not though. The data goes both ways. As long as the device id was not altered, its history of movement can be tracked down, provided such a data is being recorded.
Also, there may be caveats about how accounts are getting created and activated. Those devices bought by Russia may come with pre-activated accounts that can be tracked by origin.
Finally, billing. Unless Russia is not relying on stolen Ukrainian credit cards it should be easy to identify that a group of devices/accounts is being paid for by entities that are neither Russian nor Ukrainian.
Based on all of that, they could filter groups of devices by location, confirm it with Ukrainian forces and ban maliciously used ones.
Yeah. Russia crosses many lines but stealing credit cards is NOT one of them /s
Edit: Null User was right. But just the be sure I'll edit in the /s
What do you mean? They steal basically everything they can when destroying cities and killing people. Should I mention it's a crime to make it more obvious?
Pretty sure the person you're responding to didn't think a /s was necessary, seeing how obvious the sarcasm was.
I don't get such a sarcasm. It doesn't target any specific point in my arguments, they are about how Starlink could locate the illegal use of devices, not about how justified or not Russian crimes are.
Are you being intellectually dishonest or are you actually missing the point?
I seriously can't tell.
For reference, Russian hackers 'steal everything' and have agents in every country. Using a stolen UA credit card to purchase access to spacex sattelites and then insuring the direct operator(s) stay in UA as an intel relay is not difficult.
insuring the direct operator(s) stay in UA
The key point is right here. Staying in UA is not the same as using Starlink modules on the front lines. The UA territory is devided and it's visible on Starlink's availability map.
Russia has operatives worldwide. Just like every other country with any sort of intelligence agency. The idea that they aren’t able to come up with a credit card with a Ukrainian name that looks 100% legitimate to a billing company is farcical.
Let me just ask you point blank, do you think the CIA could manage to purchase a Starlink, activate it, and use it, without anyone having any idea it was the CIA that did all that? Because if so, it’s just as easy for Russia to do it.
Hell, I could likely do it.
Hell, I could likely do it.
LOL
Really? Let’s see…
- Purchase a prepaid Visa card from somewhere without cameras, preload it with $1k.
- Using a library computer, order a Starlink device to a post office, general delivery under a pseudonym.
- Pick up said order using a fake ID with the pseudonym previously mentioned.
Congrats! You are now the proud owner of a Starlink dish, under a fake name, with no traceable evidence left behind of who you actually were.
The idea that they aren’t able to come up with a credit card with a Ukrainian name that looks 100% legitimate to a billing company is farcical.
I see you don't know how credit card numbers work. You may also not be aware of the fact that credit cards aren't working in Russia for almost 2 years.
Let me just ask you point blank, do you think the CIA could manage to purchase a Starlink, activate it, and use it, without anyone having any idea it was the CIA that did all that?
Just one or two is easy to manage. A dozen is much more difficult already, provided Starlink manages some security and has access to metadata (data that ultimately can't be faked such as location, accounts, device id).
… meaning that one of their many worldwide operatives could just get a credit card. Like, say, in Ukraine.
You’re focused way too hard on “following the law and doing things by the book” without realizing Russia is more of a “do what it takes.”
Yeah okay. Let's say we covered the billing. What about devices id, their origin and location? Those are not purchased through Ukraine and Starlink is ought to know that.
Who says they weren’t purchased in Ukraine?
They can't be. Ukraine must have them under full control because they rely on them too much.
Also it's much easier to assume that these modules, like any other modern tech these days are bought by Russia through other countries who it still does business with like China, Turkey etc.
You’re essentially saying “Tesla has to know, because it’s easier to believe that they do.”
Welp, Musk clearly isn't even interested in exploring the possibility and just calls it fake news. I guess you won the argument by essentially saying "Nobody knows and no one needs to try".
Not at all my point. My point was that it can be unknowable. And we have no idea if anyone has tried.
You literally said it in your first comment here:
At that point, you cant tell the difference.
I also don't exactly buy the possibility of Russian intelligence agencies being able to do stuff like this adequately. As anything else in Russia, they degraded seriously under Putin's regime. They might not even be involved - I wouldn't be surprised if those Starlink modules were just a nice opportunity found by whatever volunteers buying stuff like drones from Aliexpress and sending it to Russian army. Reports say they were purchased from UAE.
Since when can you not spoof any of that? Grab a used android phone from local used market. Put any rooted rom on it. Spoof the gps... Device id is irrelevant at that point. As for origin, not sure what you mean by that, you can just order the starlink equipment to a random address in a different country, it will look legit. As others said, it's trivial to bypass/spoof all that metadata.
Once you got the connection up and running you just use a vpn to hide everyrhing.
The only thing they could do is block starlink for a whole region, that would affect everyone in there. But you still couldn't distinguish who is using the service.
you don't even need to root to spoof gps, you can just do that on android
Since when can you not spoof any of that? Grab a used android phone from local used market. Put any rooted rom on it. Spoof the gps… Device id is irrelevant at that point.
Starlink modules are not Android devices.
Device ids should be required for pairing with the satellite from my understanding. Same with IMEI on smartphones - except it should be useless to try to fake it as the number of devices is magnitudes lower than smartphones and it should be possible to pin-point any misbehaving device.
Spoofing GPS is not exactly useful. Starlink satellites are very low-orbit so again misbehavior should be detectable. I mean you can connect to some satellite but if you report location that should be served by a different satellite then you got yourself caught.
you can just order the starlink equipment to a random address in a different country
Starlink is shipping devices to Ukraine directly for the military it seems. It should know the difference between these and others that are shipped all over the world by anyone.
Once you got the connection up and running you just use a vpn to hide everyrhing.
VPN is out of scope for this I think. It's about locating the device physically by the provider, not about specific sites trying to watch actual internet activity.
they could do is block starlink for a whole region
They are already doing this but not the whole region. Occupied territories of Ukraine are selectively blocked according to their own availability map.
This is kinda scary. Sanctions are one thing, but do you really want your internet provider to investigate people and act like an intelligence service for the state?
It's not about what I want. It's about what Starlink can do to make sure their help to Ukrainian army (which is paid by the US department of defense) goes only to Ukrainian army.