Ukraine’s Starlink problems show the dangers of digital dependency | Hacker News Reader

Ukraine’s Starlink problems show the dangers of digital dependency

ft.com

11 pointsbelter15 comments

Not to say that Ukraine has good, easy alternatives to Starlink.

Nor that Elan is in anything resembling a comfortable situation. (Any bets on whether he's checked his food for Polonium-210 a time or few? Or keeps his private planes far, far away from possible Russian missile launchers?)

But if I were running the U.S. DoD, I'd be looking d*mned hard for some good alternatives to SpaceX and Starlink. Elan's recent behavior, especially his statements about Taiwan, suggests that he doesn't much care about faking the sort of "mindset" that you want in your mission-critical military suppliers. (Or he cares, but lacks the emotional stability to successfully fake it. That's hardly better.)

Here is a new interesting perspective on this story...

"...Despite that, I have not seen ANY StarLink which was bought by the governments, or by SpaceX. All the Starlinks I have seen / used - were bought either by volunteers like myself, or soldiers put their personal money in. The subscription price is also paid out of the pocket..."

https://nitter.net/dim0kq/status/1580827171903635456?t=A6a9F...

Starlink is from the timeline trajectory when NASA was to land humans on Mars by the beginning of the 80s. Ukraine and Taiwan out of control may in the worst case end of life on Earth.

Or cause dissolution of remaining colonials empires like Russia.

It's worst...

"Elon Musk suggests he is pulling internet service from Ukraine after ambassador told him to ‘f** off’" - https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/elon-musk-starlink-intern...

Glad at least he can fess up to denying a lifesaving service because his feelings got hurt. Recognizing that you’re acting out due to negative emotions is the first step in bringing your emotions under control.

Most people learn this when they’re ten, but we all have our lessons to learn.

Starlink Alternatives:

=============================

AT & T Satellite Internet - https://www.att.com/internet/fixed-wireless/

Earthlink Satellite Internet - https://www.earthlink.net/

European Union... - https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/eu-takes-on-s...

Geespace (Chinese) http://global.geely.com/media-center/news/geespace-successfu...

Hughesnet - https://www.hughesnet.com/get-started

Oneweb - https://oneweb.net/

Project Kuiper - https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/tag/project-kuiper

Telesat - https://www.telesat.com/canada/

Viasat Satellite Internet - https://www.viasat.com/satellite-internet/

So why is none of that used? Perhaps, it's not nearly as good, or can't be used at all for the purposes?

Ukrainians are streaming live full HD drone camera footage to mission command via Google Meet. Show me how to do that with a geospatial link with 3 Mb/s uplink bandwidth and 1000ms latency.

The other LEO ones don't exist at all AFAIK. Projects on paper don't count. Only working networks do.

The post shows possible current or future alternatives. Does not imply they are better.

These are not alternatives if it can't do anything they're doing now.

Ad future - the question wrt. these particular projects is much more "if ever" not "when", and definitely not anytime soon.

They will not stream drones real-time video, but will be able to send 10Kb encrypted data of Russian positions to troops on the field in real-time. Plenty of lives saved.

Cool indeed, but not an alternative. I'd be surprised if they're not doing that already. The actual battlefield transformation came from being able to stream video. You're saying "back to the old times" and calling it an alternative.

Interestingly, there's a few LoRa messenger projects out there. They wouldn't provide high data rates, just messenger capabilities, but it would be long range and practically untraceable.

This merely shows the dangers of depending on a company run by an unhinged man child. Last week there was a twitter exchange where the man-child proposed some idiotic “solution” to the conflict. Ukraine rightly told him to fuck off. And now magically starlink availability to Ukraine is in question.

We can all see the causal chain of events. The real takeaway is to not depend on unhinged and emotionally fragile people who never grew up. And by “not depend on” I mean don’t allow them to be in charge of anything important.

https://archive.ph/jRgJv

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