Russia is using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite devices in Ukraine, sources say::undefined

  • rdri@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    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.

      • rdri@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        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.

          • rdri@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            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”.

            • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              10 months ago

              Not at all my point. My point was that it can be unknowable. And we have no idea if anyone has tried.

              • rdri@lemmy.world
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                10 months ago

                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.

                • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  10 months ago

                  This isn’t some super difficult covert operation. The objective is to purchase a Starlink dish without it being obvious it’s being used by the Russian military. Apart from the fact that Russians were already living in Ukraine before the war, who likely already had Starlink, it’s trivial to purchase these things. They aren’t some super secret item, or locked down to government use only, it’s a consumer item that can be bought for “relatively” cheap, and doesn’t really have a method to do a deep dive into the background of every purchaser (not to mention, people would get pissed if a deep background check was done for every purchase.)

                  At that point, you cant tell the difference.

                  This is referring to the data. Unless you’re suggesting the Russian military is incapable of using a VPN, something literal children have used on their own to bypass school restrictions.

                  • rdri@lemmy.world
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                    10 months ago

                    Puchasing anything through Ukraine is unviable at the thought level from the perspective of Russian army. Hence why it’s much more likely to come from elsewhere.

                    Using VPN for what purpose exactly? VPN won’t deliver you a device from Ukraine. VPN won’t change your physical location.

                    Russian military was using Ukraine’s own mobile operators and its talks has been recorded (and locations discovered probably) many times thanks to that. Yes, they are stupid enough to not know about messengers sometimes.