2y ago

Starlink has become the 'blood' of Ukraine's communication infrastructure, but officials are reportedly growing concerned about relying on Elon Musk's tech

www.businessinsider.com

Ukraine's digital minister has reported concerns about the country's overreliance on Elon Musk's Starlink satellite internet system amid the war with Russia, The New York Times reports.

61 comments

They’re right to be concerned. There is simply no reason whatsoever to trust Elon Musk. He is an unhinged right wing extremist agitator.
- I read that as unhinged right wing extremist alligator, and was wondering what you know that we do not lol
- Who will apparently go to bat for anyone that strokes his ego a little bit.
- Similar to Tesla, his bullshit has the potential to cost lives. Only now on a much greater scale. Gdi.
They should be concerned. He has the mentality of a 5 year old and could just decide to cut off their infrastructure on a whim.
- Thankfully he seems to be distracted fucking around with Twitter instead
- And has!
- Or keep feeding the data to Putin.
  <i>
  </i>
I’d be concerned too.
- 100%
Starlink satellites make up the majority of satellites orbiting Earth
This is so wild to me.
- That's just how impactful reusability is. Buying a tank of gas vs a new car.
  
  Reusability has nothing to do with it. Hardly any of the rockets have been reusable (in terms of saving significant money on launches). It's just that spacex is dumping enormous amounts of satellites in LEO. It's going to become a huge problem when other companies/countries does the same.
Breaking news: Starlink to be renamed to X.
Can't imagine why, he seems like such a stable genius...
Relying on Musk is a deal with the devil. I get Ukrainians desperation though, obviously.
The way you know that Elon is a chaos agent: now that this is reported, he will not feel the need or desire to assure them of his good intentions; he'll say some crazy, bombastic shit and then do something unhinged and blame the Ukrainians somehow.
I'm not saying this is happening, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if we found out that Musk was leaking any and all traffic from Starlink, including Ukraine military comms, in the name of """free speech""".
- That not really possible though. In the same way your isp can’t see what YouTube video you’re watching, encryption stops musk from seeing what the military sends to each other. Unless of course the Ukrainian military doesn’t to the whole security thing, which is doubtful.
  
  DNS can be used to leak some information, but DNS over HTTPS is maturing, and hopefully Ukraine is using something like PGP or the signal protocol.
- I hate musk as much as every self respecting person, but this isn't possible. These systems are designed to run over the Internet, and thus heavily encrypted.
  
  Ah, well, "designed to run over the internet". Okay then. I guess no ISP has ever been able to MitM intercept traffic.
Never put all your eggs in one basket...
- Fair. But name me one time Elon Musk has let anyone down?
  
  Well his own child disowned him for being a transphobic piece of shit. So I guess we could start there...
  
  He hasn't let me down, all the satellites we have launched w/ him went perfectly. But only having one line of comm's in a war is insane. Thats the point I was making, not shitting on Elon.
Even if he wasn't a fragile narcissist, having one point of failure would be bad.
Elon is when Ironman decided to be evil instead.
- and stupid
  
  Mostly stupid
- Justin Hammer, except he unfortunately isn't played by Sam Rockwell.
yeah, I can understand.
like, if this were, say, 1942 and I wanted to take aspirin for my headache, I’d try to find another manufacturer than Bayer.
I still do, for that matter.
Wait till he enables a rate limit on that internet.
They're right to. He might start cutting service off to those who express the rights over their own body.
- But that’s totally legal so you’re cool with it.
  
  Lol what
I am also concerned. About that.
All monopolies are bad but I do not see a way for other private companies to break into this industry to compete with spacex. I also don't think I want them too, we've too many satellites just waiting for china or russia to fuck something up as it is. Can't wait for kessler syndrome to permanently lock us onto an overheating planet.
Nationalize that shit. Imminent domain Starlink and pay Musk its value. Let him sue if he thinks it's not enough. It's not about the money, but having that important tech in the hands of a bureaucracy that will delay political maneuvers and temper tantrums alike from hindering the Ukrainian military.
- It's not a Ukrainian company is the problem. You can't just nationalise a foreign entity.
  
  You can do anything...belive in yourself
  
  Couldn't the US nationalize it and then set up an agency to maintain the network/ensure it doesn't get shut off again by Elon Musk?
  Edit: Obviously I mean the US should do an imminent domain / purchase first, so they have access to the satellites first, smh.
  
  Should belong to the UN.

61 comments