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We know a little more about Amazon's satellites

arstechnica.com

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Re: We know a little more about Amazon's satellites

#81

Post by parsimo2010 »

Perceval wrote: post #59
parsimo2010 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will undoubtedly sell some aspect of Kuiper through AWS. They already have IP addresses and DNS in the AWS product list, and they have all kinds of data transport services. I don’t know if the government implication is as big as you think, as the US government has been doing secure satellite communications for decades and has already given SpaceX the contract for Starshield. So undoubtedly Kuiper would love a pi…

Space is an AWS region, just like AWS has terrestrial regions. The AWS space region is named Pigeon.

Currently “space” as an AWS region is only ground stations communicating with satellites the customer owns, so nothing from AWS is actually in space. But with the way AWS allows customers to configure their network configurations, I expect there will be an option to communicate between AWS data centers using Kuiper for people who have a use case and care enough to pay for it. I expect it to be pretty niche, as most customers are fine with public fiber and Amazon’s own fiber, but I’ll bet they sell it to someone, like a remote AWS Outpost with Kuiper terminal on it for people that work in the field.

Re: We know a little more about Amazon's satellites

#82

Post by thrance »

voidfunc wrote: post #67
menturi wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's comments like these that sadden me. It's this mindset that make me pessimistic about the long-term viability of humanity as I think it is shared among many people. When we (individuals/groups/society) don't plan far ahead (even for the loosest sense/meaning of the word "plan"), that will tend to lead to short-term benefits with long-term detriments. That even applies even for things that can occur past our lifes…

There's no incentive to do this, it's politically untenable to plan that far ahead. The beauty of humanity is we're always changing and evolving because we only do things within the scope of our lifetime. The curse of humanity is having a brain that lets us think too hard about what we want to be rather than acknowledging what we are which is a bunch of mortal animals with finite time spans that like to fuck, make ba…

What do you make of the million buildings, devices, ideas and techniques left to us by those that came before?

Re: We know a little more about Amazon's satellites

#83

Post by parsimo2010 »

neuroelectron wrote: post #70
parsimo2010 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will undoubtedly sell some aspect of Kuiper through AWS. They already have IP addresses and DNS in the AWS product list, and they have all kinds of data transport services. I don’t know if the government implication is as big as you think, as the US government has been doing secure satellite communications for decades and has already given SpaceX the contract for Starshield. So undoubtedly Kuiper would love a pi…

I didn't know about Starshield. I thought Starlink was supposed to be neutral.

Starlink is as neutral as government regulations allow (both the US regulations and those of the customer’s country). They just want to make a profit.

Starshield is a separate constellation for the US government and select allies only, and is built and launched by SpaceX.

Re: We know a little more about Amazon's satellites

#84

Post by thrance »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #10
croes wrote: post #4

So more satellites to block the view for astronomers.

Progress tends to have downsides. Highways and rail tracks destroy the environment and make areas hard to cross, but I think most people would acknowledge that on balance, having them them is a good thing. In this case, the obvious solution would be to provide a small number of orbital observatories to the astronomy community for free or with heavily subsidized pricing.

Building a highways is not necessarily "progress". We really ought to stop calling "progress" the destruction of a natural habitat that we will never be able to rebuild, for the construction of a superflous road that will close in 15 years because of poor traffic anyway.

Re: We know a little more about Amazon's satellites

#85

Post by squigz »

voidfunc wrote: post #67
menturi wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's comments like these that sadden me. It's this mindset that make me pessimistic about the long-term viability of humanity as I think it is shared among many people. When we (individuals/groups/society) don't plan far ahead (even for the loosest sense/meaning of the word "plan"), that will tend to lead to short-term benefits with long-term detriments. That even applies even for things that can occur past our lifes…

There's no incentive to do this, it's politically untenable to plan that far ahead. The beauty of humanity is we're always changing and evolving because we only do things within the scope of our lifetime. The curse of humanity is having a brain that lets us think too hard about what we want to be rather than acknowledging what we are which is a bunch of mortal animals with finite time spans that like to fuck, make ba…

> The beauty of humanity is we're always changing and evolving because we only do things within the scope of our lifetime.

This is just simply not true. For thousands of years, humans have done things that are meant to endure beyond our lifetimes - from building monuments like the the pyramids to conducting scientific research to creating art. Our ability to look beyond the here and now is actually one of the defining characteristics of humanity.

Re: We know a little more about Amazon's satellites

#86

Post by titzer »

thrance wrote: post #82
voidfunc wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no incentive to do this, it's politically untenable to plan that far ahead. The beauty of humanity is we're always changing and evolving because we only do things within the scope of our lifetime. The curse of humanity is having a brain that lets us think too hard about what we want to be rather than acknowledging what we are which is a bunch of mortal animals with finite time spans that like to fuck, make ba…

What do you make of the million buildings, devices, ideas and techniques left to us by those that came before?

We better make double-sure than any leftover value past your life is purely meted out through hereditary lines and couldn't possibly benefit any but a tiny minority of people. Like, if you had three houses and two kids at death, there ain't no way some poor fool is getting that leftover house for free!

Re: We know a little more about Amazon's satellites

#87

Post by gruez »

lxgr wrote: post #50
XorNot wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

End to end encryption has not been broken.

Yes, which makes the point of dedicated connectivity moot from a data security point of view. Metadata security and availability are different concerns.

>Metadata security

If you have a dedicated circuit, you can send dummy data 24/7 to mitigate any traffic analysis. Even if you don't, you configure each link to send dummy data, so eavesdroppers can't do any traffic analysis without compromising the node itself.

Re: We know a little more about Amazon's satellites

#88

Post by titzer »

thrance wrote: post #80
voidfunc wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll be long dead before it matters.

That's what they thought in the 70s when they discovered climate change. Look where we are now. Is basic concern for others a sin in our current world?

We're living out the consequences of a system where the Nash equilibrium is everyone maximizing their individual benefit at the expense of all else. And that extends to being an unapologetic jerk--as long as that face looks like a stepping stone, climb on. And screw future people and animals.

Re: We know a little more about Amazon's satellites

#89

Post by mrshadowgoose »

timewizard wrote: post #75
mrshadowgoose wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am entirely convinced that absent LEO comsat constellations, people who espouse this sentiment would likely be whining about "useless astronomy taking money away from helping poor people". If you genuinely care about the field of astronomy, rest assured that the same falling launch costs that have enabled LEO comsat constellations, will enable the launch of fleets of space-based telescopes.

> fleets of space-based telescopes. Isn't one of the nice aspects of astronomy is that you can do quite a bit as an amateur with some decent equipment and a nice vantage point? What value does this fleet have to these people? > people who espouse this sentiment would likely be whining about "useless astronomy taking money away from helping poor people". You've constructed a strawman for the purposes of gatekeeping; m…

> Isn't one of the nice aspects of astronomy is that you can do quite a bit as an amateur with some decent equipment and a nice vantage point? What value does this fleet have to these people?

It doesn't, and admittedly I don't really care that much.

I care far far more that remote communities can now have meaningful access to the internet, one of the most transformative and enabling technologies in existence, than niche hobbyists being mildly encumbered. And most people likely fall into the same camp.

As already mentioned, I find it really hard to believe that the common person whining about "the poor amateur astronomers" are being sincere. Some of them likely are, but "finding any reason possible to whine about billionaires" seems to be vogue these days.

Re: We know a little more about Amazon's satellites

#90

Post by croes »

mrshadowgoose wrote: post #73
croes wrote: post #4

So more satellites to block the view for astronomers.

I am entirely convinced that absent LEO comsat constellations, people who espouse this sentiment would likely be whining about "useless astronomy taking money away from helping poor people". If you genuinely care about the field of astronomy, rest assured that the same falling launch costs that have enabled LEO comsat constellations, will enable the launch of fleets of space-based telescopes.

Space based telescopes have limits Earth bound telescopes don’t have and they are easier to maintain
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