Prof. Sam LawlerAlso, in case anyone is counting, Starlink is now 63% of all active satellites.
2 out of ever 3 satellites up there now are owned by that awful billionaire. He effectively controls Low Earth Orbit. That should terrify everyone.
...just in case anyone needs more to be terrified of. Sorry.
You know what you can do? Not buy Starlink internet. (And if Starlink is your only option, write to them as a customer and tell them that you are concerned about their safety practices on the ground and in orbit, and they need to make fewer satellites with longer functional lifetimes)
sebastian büttrichThere are so many reasons not to use #Starlink -
the atmospheric pollution,
being at the whim of a far-right tech-bro, to turn your communications on and off as he sees fit (and has done before),
contribute to his empire of launch industries (#SpaceX), communications (#Starlink) and propaganda (#XformerlyKnownAsTwitter),
its military interests,
the fact that it s not sustainable and will fall apart at some point (#Kessler),
damaging your own infrastructure
... and more:
Ms. Que Banh@sundogplanets Do you know Musk tries to gain influence with some rather naive leftist groups by offering them free Starlink gear for their direct actions/protest work? I know because he offered & then donated several full Starlink setups to activists in BC. People took them out of desperation because other communications gear was seized by RCMP CIRG. I heard similar things had happened with Starlink in NZ & a few places in South America too.
Darrin West@sundogplanets @PhoenixSerenity Not just influence. Being the transport, it would be easy to snoop their activity, and trivial to locate them. Not that great an idea for any kind of activist. If you know them, tell them about VPNs, at a minimum.
@obviousdwest @sundogplanets I tried to warn people that accepting would make it easier to track them but they didn't listen to me. I refused to use the gear. I moved camps a few times when people brought Starlink gear to where I was tenting.
@PhoenixSerenity @obviousdwest WHOA I had no idea they were "donating" starlink equipment to activists. Wow. Good on you for not taking it at face value...techbros NEVER give away stuff for free!
@sundogplanets @obviousdwest 100% - it's good to be wary of super rich techbros donating their gear. There's always a shitty catch to it.
Some activists found out that fact, the hard way. Remote comms stations with Starlink gear were the first to be heavily targeted by RCMP CIRG. They didn't search but beelined straight to stations in middle of forests & up in mountains. They knew exactly where they were since Starlinks are trackable.
Some activists found out that fact, the hard way. Remote comms stations with Starlink gear were the first to be heavily targeted by RCMP CIRG. They didn't search but beelined straight to stations in middle of forests & up in mountains. They knew exactly where they were since Starlinks are trackable.
@PhoenixSerenity @obviousdwest Wow that's terrifying.
@sundogplanets @obviousdwest All of the Starlink comms were found very quickly & seized. They didn't last long in the field. The accepting of that gear contributed to a lot of middle of night raids where RCMP CIRG went straight to the Starlinks & left everything else alone. That's why I kept moving where I slept, after that gear was brought to camps.
Dan Neuman 🇨🇦@PhoenixSerenity @sundogplanets @obviousdwest Not to mention Musk's habit of turning off access when it is needed most by the users. See Ukraine.
Matt Palmer@sundogplanets as the Trojans learned many years ago, beware of geeks bearing gifts.
Mrinappropriate
lurkingsquiddle@obviousdwest @sundogplanets @PhoenixSerenity VPNs only encrypt the content of what you are looking at and where you are looking at. Starlink still gets to track you as well as their system allows.
ITsec Agentur@PhoenixSerenity @sundogplanets WTF? That is evil.
@itsec_agentur It was pretty darn awful having to hear some naive activists praise the kindness & generosity of Musk.
I got called a downer, when I tried to talk some critical sense into folks, when warning people to not use the gear & why it's dangerous/likely a setup & not true charitable kindness gestures from a fascist/racist billionaire.
I got called a downer, when I tried to talk some critical sense into folks, when warning people to not use the gear & why it's dangerous/likely a setup & not true charitable kindness gestures from a fascist/racist billionaire.
@PhoenixSerenity That is bad.
@itsec_agentur It's often how some rich people can fool some not so rich people. By pretending to care/by "donating" when they're the evil ones doing many things that are killing humans & destroying living environments.
@PhoenixSerenity It sounds straight out of a story of @pluralistic
While the easy part is unfortunately very easy for me to imagine, I am wondering how can it be that some folks is still so naive?
While the easy part is unfortunately very easy for me to imagine, I am wondering how can it be that some folks is still so naive?
@itsec_agentur @pluralistic Too many people are still too credulous. They can be blinded by celebrities/expensive gear donations.
Eric LawtonI have, and use, another option but am afraid Starlink will drive local ISPs out of business as they only offer much lower speeds to any of us with trees between our home and their tower.
Gregaro McKoolIn our not-so-rural region region Elon was about to be the only choice. Then the big three Canadian telcos decided it was, in fact, cost effective to connect us and life has been peachy since. It’s almost like it wasn’t in fact that hard in the first place!
Mike@sundogplanets It's ok, terrified is way off in the rear view mirror at this point
Yvan@sundogplanets to add to the terror my first thought is: how hard would it be for him to have weaponised some % of that "fleet"? Is that feasible. Obviously the guy doesn't have the skills to do it himself, but I bet he has the mentality to try. It'd require some number of people working for him to be in on it and surely there aren't many who'd go along with something like that…
Have them launch some sort of tungsten rod perhaps? The old "rods of god" concept.
I may have read too much sci-fi.
@yvan @sundogplanets some are militarized, it’s not clear in what ways they’re weaponized: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starshield
I doubt they have large tungsten rods (too heavy), but they could easily have radio jammers and some sort of anti-satellite weaponry. Even the civilian model could navigate to block foreign launches, and to ensure safe windows for “our” launches; the military model might have more navigation capacity. I doubt we’ll know until the next war starts, and maybe not even then
@ShadSterling ah, great, so the bozo probably has some control of US government endorsed and tech equipped war satellites! Feeling even more terrified already.
🟥 Eveline Sulman 🇳🇱🇪🇺🇺🇦@sundogplanets how can I know if I use Starlink or not?
diego"Smash the looms"