SpaceX disables 2,500 Starlink terminals allegedly used by Asian scam centers

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/10/starlink-blocks-2500-dishes-allegedly-used-by-myanmars-notorious-scam-centers/

140•jnord•4h ago

Comments

perihelions•3h ago

The title is underselling the nuance—there's the entire Myanmar civil war hiding behind the word "allegedly". The group in power claims a group trying to overthrow them is operating scam centers (they deny it); this SpaceX intervention cuts off communications on a large scale, presumably aiding one side or the other in some unclear way.

> "“Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, the spokesperson for the military government, charged in a statement Monday night that the top leaders of the Karen National Union, an armed ethnic organization opposed to army rule, were involved in the scam projects at KK Park,” the AP wrote. The Karen National Union is “part of the larger armed resistance movement in Myanmar’s civil war” and “deny any involvement in the scams.”"

iknowstuff•3h ago

A scam is a scam right

boringg•1h ago

Right - shutdown the scam centers. Why is this so hard? If one group is using the scam center to power their resistance ... that resistance is built on a really bad foundation.

I get that if you are shutting down comms for an an org thats different - but if its a known scam center not a tough decision here.

ralfd•3h ago

The nominal group in power should be able to deny/allow communication from the space above their country though.

perihelions•3h ago

But the US (who has jurisdiction over Starlink) isn't bound by Mynamar laws, and (IMHO) shouldn't give the time of day to the requests of a junta commiting crimes against humanity, systemic extermination[0] of ethnic minorities.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_genocide

buran77•3h ago

> But the US (who has jurisdiction over Starlink) isn't bound by Mynamar laws, and (IMHO) shouldn't...

Should everyone else be allowed to do anything they want in a country as long as it's from a distance because "your laws don't apply to me"? Is it fine when Russian, Chinese, or NK hackers are operating against the US?

If a country is good enough to sell to and provide a service there, it's good enough to obey its laws.

IshKebab•3h ago

Starlink isn't sold to Myanmar.

simiones•2h ago

Sold in, not sold to. The GP meant: if you consider it legitimate to sell your product in Myanmar, you should obey the laws of Myanmar. If you consider the government is illegitimate, don't do business there.

perihelions•2h ago

What if a "legitimate" government is committing genocide, as Mynamar's is? Should international companies respect its sovereign laws?

This thread baffles me, that people are somehow capable of ignoring the elephant in the room of the massacring of civilians, to tunnel-vision instead on some trivial and insignificant technicalities about satellite law.

logicchains•2h ago

Because a good chunk of people on this site have so little moral development that to them "whatever the law says is moral".

buran77•2h ago

> What if a "legitimate" government is committing genocide

That's an interesting question, I'll say. I can't say yes or no but I can say that the answer should be consistent. You either support genocidal regimes, or you don't.

So you have Starlink operating in Israel and in Myanmar.

> that people are somehow capable of ignoring the elephant in the room of the massacring of civilians, to tunnel-vision instead on some trivial and insignificant technicalities about satellite law.

Imagine the bafflement when some people stick to their tunnel vision while writing about other people's tunnel vision on the same exact topic.

andsoitis•2h ago

> What if a "legitimate" government is committing genocide, as Mynamar's is? Should international companies respect its sovereign laws?

Yes. The answer is not to act lawlessly, but instead to not be in that country at all or be there and apply pressure for change. But breaking the laws in ad hoc ways is not the way.

Several international companies have divested or exited due to political risk, sanctions, or human rights concerns.

> people are somehow capable of ignoring the elephant in the room of the massacring of civilians

To consider, the following countries, amongst others, retain embassies in Myanmar: Australia, Brazil, China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Israel, Japan, Nepal, Singapore, UK, USA.

Should embassy staff break the country's laws?

watwut•2h ago

> The answer is not to act lawlessly, but instead to not be in that country at all or be there and apply pressure for change.

Oh, that is the novel idea. For people being genocided to not be there and for those who are against genocide to let themselves be killed in the first step.

> But breaking the laws in ad hoc ways is not the way.

Breaking the laws is frequently necessary in the genocide situation, because the laws were designed to create and facilitate the genocide. Genocides do not just happen out of nothing.

andsoitis•2h ago

>> The answer is not to act lawlessly, but instead to not be in that country at all or be there and apply pressure for change.

> Oh, that is the novel idea. For people being genocided to not be there and for those who are against genocide to let themselves be killed in the first step.

>> But breaking the laws in ad hoc ways is not the way.

>Breaking the laws is frequently necessary in the genocide situation, because the laws were designed to create and facilitate the genocide. Genocides do not just happen out of nothing.

My response was to this question: "Should international companies respect its sovereign laws?"

Nothing about the people of Myanmar.

My answer is different if you're a Myanmar person. But you still face the moral question of which laws you should disregard vs. which to follow.

jacquesm•2h ago

Agreed. I think I have an explanation (a partial one, at best). The tech world is so adept at abstraction that we have made it one of our primary tools in the box. Everything gets abstracted away until we have a nice, clean, uniform representation of the underlying item. Whether that item is people, vehicles, road accident data or private communications doesn't really matter any more once it is abstracted. Then it's just another record.

Ethics and other moral angles no longer apply, after all, how could those apply to bits, that's for 'real' engineers. It's also at the core of the HN "'no politics', please." tenet.

I see a similar deficiency in the legal profession, they too tend to just focus on the words and the letters and don't actually care all that much about the people.

IshKebab•2h ago

Starlink isn't sold in Myanmar either. SpaceX does not do business in Myanmar.

buran77•2h ago

Starlink has the precise terminal location and gets paid for the subscription for that terminal. They know where it is and who pays for it. From the article they say that they were selling a service there and stopped in order to comply with local laws:

> SpaceX proactively identified and disabled over 2,500 Starlink Kits in the vicinity of suspected ‘scam centers.'”

burnerthrow008•24m ago

I think the point (which you seem to have missed) is: How do you distinguish between a terminal under the control of a scam center versus, say, a journalist who has traveled to the vicinity of the call center to interview people and make a report (The Economist recently had an excellent series of articles about these call centers).

Neither terminal was bought in Myanmar. Both have been transported to and used in the vicinity of the scam center. The difference is purely the intent of the person controlling the terminal. But you can't infer that intent from only the location where it was purchased and the precise location where it is being used.

> > SpaceX proactively identified and disabled over 2,500 Starlink Kits in the vicinity of suspected ‘scam centers.'”

Sure, because it's currently in the news and it's any easy way to say "we fixed the problem". Maybe some Economist journalist just lost internet access. Oh well. Guess they'll have to find their way out of Myanmar without internet. Sucks to be them, right?

IlikeKitties•2h ago

> Should everyone else be allowed to do anything they want in a country as long as it's from a distance because "your laws don't apply to me"? Is it fine when Russian, Chinese, or NK hackers are operating against the US?

Yes absolutely, see the ridiculous censorship the British government is trying to establish against us companies.

Companies should be forced to comply with local law when they have a physical office there or there is a government to government contract that regulates how commerce should be done between those countries. Now, Myanmar or the british or whoever can block, deny payment services or make it illegal to use such services for their locals but it is ludicrous to accept the laws of foreign countries just because.

close04•2h ago

> Companies should be forced to comply with local law when they have a physical office there

What happens when they send signals in that country, like Starlink is explicitly doing? What if companies in Mexico or Canada started blasting signals on frequencies used in the US for critical communication, would that fall under "they should comply with US law"? What if Russia does the same with boats on the border?

IlikeKitties•2h ago

First, consider separating state actors from companies. Countries actively sabotaging critical infrastructure is an act of war like russia is doing with GPS Signals. It's not a matter of legal or illegal but a matter of are you willing and able to either sanction or bomb the country into changing their behavior.

As for what companies are doing: If i'm legally allowed to send a signal inside mexico that interferes with US Signals, sucks to be an US Person relying on that signal but me as a company wouldn't give a shit. Doubly so for space based assets.

This is where inter country contracts come into play. If your country and my country have a contract that designates some signals for public use and others not, than local law can be changed to comply with those contracts. Everything else is just a matter of tragedy of the commons or questionable encroachments into another countries sovereignity.

close04•2h ago

> First, consider separating state actors from companies

Can you? Ok, "definitely private company who doesn't operate at the behest of the state". That's a loophole you can fly a country through.

> Countries actively sabotaging critical infrastructure is an act of war

> If i'm legally allowed to send a signal inside mexico that interferes with US Signals, sucks to be an US Person relying on that signal but me as a company wouldn't give a shit.

So is it "an act of war" or a "don't give a shit" situation?

IlikeKitties•1h ago

> Can you? Ok, "definitely private company who doesn't operate at the behest of the state". That's a loophole you can fly a country through.

Yeah, no one is making money sabotaging GPS Signals. The reality is that there are numerous agreements that regulate the use of frequencies. If a country tolerates misuse that actively interferes with another countries critical infrastructure that's pretty blatant. And again, you as the country being interfered with can do everything from tariffs, sanctions to destroying boats to make the other country interested in enforcing their laws and stop you from interfering.

> So is it "an act of war" or a "don't give a shit" situation?

This isn't as hard as you try to make it. If country a allows commercial use of a frequency band, any company in that country wouldn't have to give a shit about using it. If you as a country deliberately chose a frequency band for commerical use that just so happens to interfer with your neighbours police signals, enjoy the sanctions, diplomacy or war that follows.

But trying to make companies in country a follow the laws in country b is not going to happen by fiat just because. Imagine Saudi Arabias anti atheism laws being enforced in the USA because they might be able to receive your website. Ridicolous.

nradov•26m ago

As a point of law, when Russia interferes with GPS signals in some third country (like Ukraine or whatever) that wouldn't be considered an act of war against the USA. An act of war would be something like a direct kinetic or cyber attack against our Navstar satellites.

Cthulhu_•31m ago

It gets more complicated with international relationships though. If two countries have any kind of relationship, e.g. trade, then a conflict between a company and a government can escalate and bleed out to other relationships.

In this case, the Myanmar government could tell the US that "hey buddy, SpaceX isn't playing ball, make them or we'll kick out your embassy, tourists, and trade relationships". I don't know if they have any of that, but take that as an example.

Ray20•1h ago

> because "your laws don't apply to me"?

That's exactly how it works, via ability to apply laws. If there is no abiliyt to apply the law, then yeah, everyone allowed to do anything they want.

Cthulhu_•34m ago

Allowed, no, but there's also no direct consequences. Indirect consequences though, like counterattacks, sanctions, export restrictions, etc are a thing. But a country like NK doesn't care about relationships with the US or Europe, since they benefit more from their relationship with China and Russia, their close neighbours (physically and culturally).

Anyway, it's like free speech, I can say anything I want on the internet because what are you going to do, huh? But it'll also mean that if I were to contact you for a job later on you'd be like "nu uh you insulted my mother". Plus I'd get banned from HN.

Cthulhu_•37m ago

It's not fine I think, and I'm honestly surprised that years of continued cyberattacks haven't led to an escalation outside of the internet yet. Can't be economic sanctions because the US already doesn't deal with NK for example. I am not aware of the victims of state sponsored cyberattacks doing any cyber-counter-attacks either, but that's likely down to a lack of reporting.

That is, cyberattacks are seen as a victimless or economic only thing, not unlike economic sanctions.

jacknews•2h ago

I think you'll find this is not 'at the request' of any government but part of a much wider policy being implemented.

Eg, Cambodia just had $15B in crypto confiscated (ostensibly illegal proceeds of the 'Prince' group, but IMHO they are just a front for the state), and is facing a financial blacklisting.

China were pressuring the area to crack down on this stuff early this year, but it's quite possible the trigger for the west to get more involved was the Cambodia/Thai conflict, which was a simple personal feud over this business, provoked by the Cambodian leader, but which risked spreading into a much wider conflict.

kube-system•2h ago

Starlink's base stations follow the laws of every country they are on the ground in.

elif•3h ago

Really? Even Darth vader?

Who defines "should"?

alt227•3h ago

> Who defines "should"?

The group in power of the country

maxerickson•2h ago

No, it's the group in power in outer space.

alt227•2h ago

I agree with the parent comment, each country should control the communications in its own airspace. Surely this is how it works? Starlink cant just start selling internet in countries it has no jurisdiction or communications license in?

IAmBroom•2h ago

Why not? Isn't the entire point of the internet to make access to communication of information equal?

We're playing around with the word "should" here, but from a moral standpoint, I disagree with any opinion that a sovereign power should(morally) be able to control communication at all - short of immediate threats to public safety (yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded theater).

maxerickson•1h ago

Control vs want. If you don't have power in outer space, you simply don't control what happens. You can hope that whoever has power respects your desires.

Cthulhu_•28m ago

If the country can't control it, what power do they have? GPS and sattelite TV can also be received anywhere, as long as you can somehow get a receiver for it there's little that can be done about it except maybe jamming. (I don't actually know if systems like GPS can be turned off on a per country basis)

That said, Starlink can be turned off on a per country basis, so the government can ask (or demand) that to be done. If they refuse, there may be consequences that can be escalated to a political level.

Mountain_Skies•1h ago

9/11 was perpetrated by people who couldn't have knocked out Starlink or anything else in space but still found a way to harm their enemies. Simply not being a superpower doesn't make one entirely harmless. Starlink has assets, soft and hard, all over the globe, in easy to destroy places. No one even needs to claim responsibility for the damage. It just needs to be understood that it was the result of ignoring the threat of retaliation by those being imposed upon. Whether or not that imposition is moral in a particular set of eyes doesn't change the reality of what happens when those imposed upon decide to lash out.

elif•2h ago

So Israel should control Palestinian communications because they are in control and dubiously claim legal ownership of settlements?

Communication is a tool of freedom and these comments seem so willing to give it away.

nickdothutton•2h ago

Sovereign is he who decides the exception.

churchill•2h ago

Schmitt is so quotable, haha.

esafak•2h ago

Churchill would not have approved quoting a Nazi to buttress an argument.

churchill•1h ago

I can denounce Nazis while admitting an objective point made by Schmitt. Churchill himself was a ghoul who considered Indians, Africans, etc. inferior and while he denounced the Nazis' tactics, he had no problem using similar ones to suppress colonized natives.

In other words, Churchill might have hated the Nazis (because they threatened his beloved England), but he believed in the state of exception they promoted. He believed he wasn't obligated to obey basic decency when dealing with non-European natives because, like Schmitt would say, "sovereign is he who determines the exception."

nickdothutton•50m ago

Could equally have quoted G.Mosca, that power must sometimes circumvent norms or use extra-legal means to preserve the system.

elzbardico•3h ago

They can. They can have laws and try to enforce them. International Law and Companies should not be in the business of doing jackbooted thugs work for them.

The same apply for other stuff like chat cryptography. No, we shouldn't fuck everyone's right to privacy because your fat policemen are unable to conduct an investigation on meatspace and prefer to just have a digital panopticon.

obs: I upvoted you because while I consider your position absolutely abhorrent, I believe you're entitled to it and we should not downvote comments just because we don't agree with them.

croes•2h ago

Would SpaceX comply if it was an order from a Brazilian court?

ferbivore•2h ago

You think resistance movements should never have telecommunications access?

sbarre•2h ago

You think the issue is that black and white?

swarnie•2h ago

That's not what OP is saying.

An entity truly in control should be able to deny access to insurrectionists because of you know, being in control.

jacquesm•2h ago

Clearly, they are not in control of SpaceX.

IAmBroom•2h ago

They are in control of the military, and presumably the capital city area and a majority of the country's resources.

That says nothing about their power to control the satellites overhead.

bilbo0s•1h ago

I think the commenter only meant that there is such a thing as RF engineering. But that to be effective, RF engineering would require the local authorities to have some level of control over the region they want to shut down.

Thus, the authorities must not have that control.

I agree with the commenter from a technical perspective. It's extremely easy to cut off SpaceX terminals in some area if you control that area.

I just don't think that's relevant. It's not the local authorities the rest of the world is lining up behind, it's the regional players around Myanmar. The regional players can countenance the local authorities only slightly more than the warlords and gang leaders. What the local authorities want is almost completely irrelevant to the regional players.

heisgone•2h ago

One's freedom fighter is someone else terrorist.

ferbivore•2h ago

One's nominal group in power is someone else's genocidal occupier.

bilbo0s•1h ago

Again, this is often the case in civil conflicts (factional fighting). But the subjects of this action are undeniably bad actors. Are the authorities bad actors as well, yes, very likely. But the regional players want the targeted subject's abilities degraded and their options strangled regardless of what the local authority wants. I think the rest of the world is simply lining up behind the regional players. Which was inevitable really.

watwut•2h ago

And frequently the so called terrorist is not a terrorist by any reasonable meaning of that world. Like, frequently they are non violent.

antonymoose•2h ago

However, in this specific situation, they are definitely terrorists.

gruez•2h ago

"armed resistance movement" sounds pretty close to terrorists to me

jeromegv•1h ago

Was the US revolution against the British empire terrorism?

catlikesshrimp•1h ago

Nowadays talking about independence would be considered "Terrorism" This word is a new "Catch all" for everything you don't like (immigrants, antifa, any protest...)

FridayoLeary•23m ago

Yes, although the term hadn't yet been invented:)

SoftTalker•17m ago

Only if you redefine "terrorism" to include any armed resistance/revolution.

pyrale•1h ago

Unless, of course, they're freedom fighters.

toss1•1h ago

That is definitely an "It Depends"

It depends a lot on who they are shooting

If they are shooting irrelevant and innocent civilians (with the goal of introducing broader fear in the population to somehow change their minds), then definitely terrorists.

If they are shooting only govt/regime military/police/enforcers or officials, much more like an opposing power.

philistine•47m ago

I'm going to hard disagree here. You're part of this whole sliding of the word terrorism from its classic meaning of using organized violence to inflict fear for political gains to its insidious fascist interpretation as using violence against the current political status quo.

Using violence to overthrow the Myanmar government is not automatically terrorism at all. Groups throughout history have used organized violence without resorting to inflicting fear to achieve their goals.

burnerthrow008•31m ago

Exactly! And that's why we all agree that Nelson Mandela, the WWII French resistance and Native Americans are clearly terrorists!

bilbo0s•1h ago

Frequently they are nonviolent.

In this particular case however, they are decidedly violent and dangerous. So why not cut them off?

vintermann•2h ago

Why?

itchyjunk•2h ago

Law of the land. Must follow it to operate in that jurisdiction

Ray20•2h ago

Or what?

We're not talking about Russia or China. They don't have the capability to destroy satellite constellations.

ta1243•58m ago

Might makes right?

That kind of arrogance is what leads to 9/11, the most successful destruction of a western country since ww2.

Cthulhu_•40m ago

But they can fly a plane that detects Starlink signals (...I presume, I don't actually know how it works) and target the areas that have them.

But that's an escalation, it's better to talk about it first with the party in question, if they don't answer there can be further legal recourse. International law and -lawsuits are a thing.

But this comment thread sounds like reason and legal systems aren't working, and suppression and military action are the only recourse left. I mean to a point I agree, but at the same time we (as humanity) are not (or should not be) savages.

pixl97•2h ago

Because that's how a sovereign nation works. Have a problem with it? Talk to the gun.

vessenes•1h ago

Hard no. Communications is a human right. I’d say routing communications as a private company is a privilege that can be extended or denied, but this perspective is poison IMO.

jayd16•1h ago

It's wild to me how many of these comments are appealing to local law without any thought to what is just.

If the local law was to deny all women or some ethnic group access to communication, the world should do it without question?

Workaccount2•1h ago

>If the local law was to deny all women

Palestine gets widespread support

jonah•54m ago

In that case, they're probably the lesser of two evils. Women can't campaign for more rights if they're dead...

Rover222•40m ago

Queers for Palestine is so hard to wrap my head around.

arczyx•37m ago

it's not hard to understand. people simply not liking queers doesn't mean they deserve to be bombed. also there are queers in Palestine and they are getting bombed too by Israel

FuriouslyAdrift•25m ago

'not liking' you mean actively hunting down and murdering on a consistent basis.

https://www.queermajority.com/essays-all/queers-for-palestin...

arczyx•38m ago

Do you have an objective source about what law in Palestine denying access to all women?

maccard•1h ago

Whether or not you like it, that's how international relations works.

The US famously has gripes with Cuba, Iran, HK, Afghanistan and others, that affect those countries unfairly. If another country decides to side with Iran, they'll find themselves on the US sanction list. So is it more just to deny the people of your country access to trade and interaction with the US?

charcircuit•1h ago

Yes, if they are operating within that region, then they should be following local laws. Allowing companies to break laws they don't agree with is a bad precedent to set.

infthi•1h ago

The precedent seems to be that anyone can broadcast anything without caring what territories can receive your broadcast (see Voice of America broadcasts during the Cold War or GPS jamming in the Baltic nowadays). This seems to be extendable to broadcasting from space. The nominal group in power may ban/jam _receiving_ equipment on their territory though.

fnfs2000•7m ago

US law prohibits Starlink from transmitting into countries that don't permit it, with exceptions as directed by the US Government. If this was not the case, Starlink would have made its product available globally instead of having to seek permission from every country they want to service (called "landing rights")

nradov•55m ago

There is no single group which has power over all of Myanmar. It is a failed state.

Cthulhu_•46m ago

Depends if your country claims to be free or not, or what your own morals and values are - if you believe in "might makes right", then sure, the ones in power get to suppress freedom of information to the rest of the country. If you believe in a free democracy, then information and communication should be free (think freedom of speech, press, information, etc).

jacknews•3h ago

They may well deny it, but there's plenty of international documentation showing it is indeed a thing, and presumably starlink have even more evidence.

altacc•2h ago

The truth is more likely that both the junta and local militias have ties to different scam centres. The Myanmar government never does anything for its people, it's motivated by power and money and they were profiting heavily from scam centres until China's patience broke, due to large numbers of Chinese being trafficked and imprisoned at these scam compounds. The junta needs China's support in order to survive. As the junta lost control of the border regions the local militias stepped in to either profit from scams or close them to please China, depending upon what they thought would benefit them most.

whimsicalism•13m ago

i haven’t seen any good evidence tying the Tatmadaw to these large-scale scam operations, while I have seen a fair bit of evidence tying a few of the regional militias.

wraptile•52m ago

It's a very well proven fact that the scam centers are operated by Chinese given that before covid they were all Chinese casinos that transitioned to online scams because no Chinese could leave China to spend their money there.

Cthulhu_•49m ago

If it's a very well proven fact, can you link to some objective sources to your strongly worded claims? Given that clearly this is a very politically sensitive subject, I'm not going to trust a commenter on the internet on their own.

wraptile•38m ago

Wikipedia is a good start:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KK_Park

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shwe_Kokko

Statement by US Treasury: https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0237

If you ever been to Myanmar you'd know that Burmese simply have no capability of operating something like this, especially now.

moralestapia•43m ago

>presumably aiding one side or the other in some unclear way

"I'm strongly opposed to one side or the other gaining a possible advantage or disadvantage in some unclear way"

LOL

01HNNWZ0MV43FF•41m ago

It's important to know that anything Elon or Tesla or SpaceX says about freedom of speech or libertarianism, is subject to either the US government or President Trump or Elon's personal beliefs about freedom of speech.

Which so far have been "I support complete freedom of speech. (for myself, and censorship for others)"

They aren't going to sell a product that could be used against them. Our allies are reasonably asking if the high-tech F-35 fighters have kill switches too

whimsicalism•10m ago

Any topic related to Elon Musk seems to get flooded with low-entropy uninteresting comments.

whatsupdog•3h ago

These scams are getting really really out of hand. I mean the ones out of India were pretty bad, but at least there was no slavery/human trafficking/torture involved. Also, most of the Myanmar ones are "pig butchering", so they even play with the victims emotions for a long long time, and it's much much more difficult to get your life back on track after being scammed by someone you thought was the love of your life.

contrarian1234•2h ago

The ones in Myanmar target the Sinosphere. They kidnap Chinese tourists and enslave them. It's run by Taiwanese and Chinese mafia. It's possible they have native English speakers there.. I haven't heard of it before though.

notahacker•2h ago

It certainly started focusing on the Sinosphere, but the DW investigation last year talked to Africans who had been persuaded of "job opportunities" at KK Park, who would be far more likely to be fluent in English than Chinese

zyf•3h ago

Not advocating for either side here, but the ability for US gov to control/influence internet access on a global scale is, to me, the main driver behind Starlink. tinfoil hat off

alt227•3h ago

How do Starlink IP addresses work with Geolocation? Does Starlink have access to IP address blocks for all coutnries and issue them out based on registration and/or GPS data? Or do all starlink customers worldwide get issued US IPs?

fluoridation•2h ago

Note that there's no such thing as "US IPs". GeoIP works by induction: "OK, this operator is in France, so all addresses in this range are probably in France; these ones are probably close to Paris, which is where this internal router is;" etc.

If I had to guess, you probably get the address of the base station whose signals reflect off the satellite, which is probably not very far from you, given the satellites are in LEO.

EDIT: I meant to say that you get an address in the ground station's subnetwork. I don't know if Starlink uses NAT.

alt227•2h ago

I hadnt even considered that there were multiple ground stations. I just assumed the Starlink satelites would just all bounce the signal back to base in the US.

pixl97•2h ago

That would have a decent amount of latency as you'd have a space trip around the world, then a ground trip to any EU/Asia site.

kube-system•2h ago

GeoIP works by many different means. There are many different GeoIP databases which contain different data based on different opinions. Some are voluntarily reported, some by ping timings, some based on the registered address of the owner of the block of IPs, some based on business records, some based on third party reporting of other direct measurements, etc.

Starlink, in particular, reports their base station locations: https://geoip.starlinkisp.net/feed.csv

yardie•2h ago

Starlink IPs are assigned to the closest ground station. I used Starlink during a transatlantic crossing. The first half of the trip our IP address was based in Madrid. At about 2/3 of the way it changed to a Virginia based IP. And as we got closer to the Caribbean a Miami based IP.

shellfishgene•2h ago

Isn't the percentage of the world population that gets internet via Starlink very low? Also, how was the US government involved in the creation of Starlink?

boringg•1h ago

Agree with you - Starlink doesn't have a government connection. In fact the reason it was successful is that it didn't have one. The government connected internet was the landlines that the cable companies were trying to deploy in the rural America for high cost tax paying dollars.

It is a US company though - but I think this is very tin foil hat territory here.

jeromegv•1h ago

> Starlink doesn't have a government connection.

US DOD is contracting Starlink in Ukraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_in_the_Russian-Ukrain...

boringg•36m ago

Originally on inception -- sorry should have clarified for the purposes of the speculation purposes that it is US gov controlled.

Mountain_Skies•1h ago

Starshield is a very important revenue stream that helps fund Starlink overall.

Jeremy1026•1h ago

There is an argument that could be made that if the government didn't provide SpaceX contracts they'd never have the capital available to put Starlink into operation.

lofaszvanitt•20m ago

Oh watch as the new phones get satellite access for cents......

dmix•2h ago

> Starlink is not licensed to operate in Myanmar

> Myanmar’s military has shut down a major online scam operation near the border with Thailand, detaining more than 2,000 people and seizing dozens of Starlink satellite Internet terminals

So Myanmar seized some terminals and Starlink disabled the accounts?

shellfishgene•2h ago

About 80 were seized in raids, SpaceX disabled 2500.

noselasd•1h ago

Yes, seems so - but they shut down a lot more terminals too, not just the seized ones.

And it seems the biggest reason for them shutting down the terminals was pressure from US Senator Maggie Hassan to shut down scam centers, not the government in Myanmar.

1-6•2h ago

Elon Musk envisions a utopian world where there's prosperity for all. While in theory it's a doable plan (like ending world hunger), he's very naive to think it's possible to do in practice.

Jeremy1026•1h ago

Does he though? Feels like he envisions a utopian world where he is the leader and the rest of the population needs to accommodate his every whim.

IAmBroom•1h ago

Well, that's one of the utopian visions he markets.

In practice Elon seems to envision a world that worships Elon.

benbojangles•1h ago

i would prefer to go there and visit to find out the truth before i pass judgement

pavlov•52m ago

Now do the Texan scam center called Tesla, Inc.

(Former Tesla customer here)

gethly•36m ago

Musk getting political again? Oh no, what a surprise...

guywithahat•28m ago

I mean this seems to be tied to the Chinese human trafficking/slave call centers, and the terminals are not legal in the country. I suppose everything is politically complex, but I wouldn't really call this "getting political". The US just confiscated 15 billion in bitcoin from what seems to be the same group (although I think there's some discrepancy between what they're doing and how they're doing it).

lofaszvanitt•19m ago

Oh, the free internet.

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US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces

I spent a year of my life making an ASN.1 compiler in D

PyTorch Monarch

The Game Theory of How Algorithms Can Drive Up Prices

VST3 audio plugin format is now MIT

Google flags Immich sites as dangerous

Programming with Less Than Nothing

C64 Blood Money

Ask HN: Does anyone have scans of these missing PC Plus issues (1991–1993)?

Show HN: Deta Surf – An open source and local-first AI notebook

Conflict-Free Replicated Data Types (CRDTs): Convergence Without Coordination

Scripts I wrote that I use all the time

Nango (YC W23) is hiring Staff Back end Engs (remote)

SpaceX disables 2,500 Starlink terminals allegedly used by Asian scam centers

Which Collatz numbers do Busy Beavers simulate (if any)?

Radios, how do they work? (2024)

Run interactive commands in Gemini CLI

Accessing Max Verstappen's passport and PII through FIA bugs

Compiler for "Easy" language from "Etudes for Programmers" book (1978)

Willow quantum chip demonstrates verifiable quantum advantage on hardware

Karpathy on DeepSeek-OCR paper: Are pixels better inputs to LLMs than text?

JMAP for Calendars, Contacts and Files Now in Stalwart

Microsoft puts Office Online Server on the chopping block

Ovi: Twin backbone cross-modal fusion for audio-video generation

Why SSA Compilers?

Element: setHTML() method

Play abstract strategy board games online with friends or against bots

We need to start doing web blocking for non-technical reasons

When You Get to Be Smart Writing a Macro

The first interstellar software update: The hack that saved Voyager 1 [video]

SpaceX disables 2,500 Starlink terminals allegedly used by Asian scam centers

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