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.

  • Dankry@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    52
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    They’re right to be concerned. There is simply no reason whatsoever to trust Elon Musk. He is an unhinged right wing extremist agitator.

    • hglman@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      That’s just how impactful reusability is. Buying a tank of gas vs a new car.

      • tagliatelle@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        10
        arrow-down
        6
        ·
        1 year ago

        Reusability had nothing to do eith 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.

        • hglman@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          Its only possible bc a launch is cheap enough for them to do it. Cost of of placing them in orbit is the whole reason there is a problem.

          • tagliatelle@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            0
            arrow-down
            6
            ·
            1 year ago

            Yes, but that’s not because of reusability. They’re not at that stage yet (willl they ever?)

              • tagliatelle@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                2
                ·
                edit-2
                1 year ago

                Yet the cost doesn’t go down. Spacex boss defined reuse as that the stage can be reused the next day with just an inspection. The reuse they avtually so is rebuilding it with the older parts. At least last time I checked the cost savings were just a few 10 % while they promised 90+

                Edit: did some more checking, and it appears third party(military and government) pay significantly higher launch costs ~100mill vs 60mill list price), so might be they’re subsidising the starlink cost by funneling money from the state.

                • DominicHillsun@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  Wow, I wonder why SpaceX which has a monopoly on reusable rockets are charging as much as they can from their customers.

                  Lol, lmao even

                • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  Cost didn’t go down because there’s no competition. They’re just pocketing the extra money. Why would a private company charge even less for something they’re already the cheapest and best at? Why not make extra money?

        • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          ULA I believe said reuse would be profitable for them after 12 launches. For SpaceX, it’s likely lower since they’re built more from the ground up for reusability. But they’re up to reflying 20 times, so it’ll be even more profitable for them.

          Also, starlink latches have been on older boosters, pushing the max reuses. So they benefit much more from reusability than the average falcon 9 customer.

  • Chainweasel@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    18
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    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.

  • flipht@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    6
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    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.

      • Dankry@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Well his own child disowned him for being a transphobic piece of shit. So I guess we could start there…

          • jcrm@kbin.social
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            1 year ago

            His constant lies about his products maybe? Like how we’re on year 6 of “all Tesla’s will be self driving” and it still hasn’t happened?

            Or the roadster that still doesn’t exist and we’ve had no updates on. Or the truck that’s years overdue and has been beat to market by several others.

            Or Hyperloop that he’s now admitted was purely to try to kill HSR development in California.

  • DarraignTheSane@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    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”“”.

    • Ashley@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      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.

      • girltwink@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        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.

    • echo64@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      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.

      • DarraignTheSane@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        Ah, well, “designed to run over the internet”. Okay then. I guess no ISP has ever been able to MitM intercept traffic.

        • echo64@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          That’s literally what I’m talking about yes. Well done. The internet is essentially open traffic and that’s what “designed for the internet” has to deal with, so you encrypt and kill mitm attacks in many many ways.

        • jcrm@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          1 year ago

          Yes, designed to run over the internet, as in they use end to end encryption, which has long been the way of defeating MitM intercepts.

  • Neato@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    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.

      • Goathound@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        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.

        • JasSmith@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          The U.S. isn’t a banana republic. That’s how they roll in Venezuela and it’s not working out so well. They’re certainly not going to undermine the integrity of the U.S. economy to provide marginally more intel security to Ukraine. The government can make an offer to purchase SpaceX, but I don’t see why they need to.

          • roguetrick@kbin.social
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            That’s such a strange way to use banana republic. Banana republics were created after the US instituted coups due to the threat of land reform (nationalization of US company owned plantation land). Denying the right to nationalize things is what creates banana republics. (Not that I think anyone should do something so stupid as try to nationalize satellites they have no access to.)