My thoughts to the Iranian people, may they get what they need and deserve at a cost that is not too high. As in all conflicts, there's always a "fog of blame" where there isn't absolute certainty about who is right and who is to blame. Though it's not that hard. Because their survival depends on it, dictators are very good at blaming others--anybody, really--for their own shortcomings, and they usually wield the kin…
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Iran is likely jamming Starlink
151–160 of 306 posts
Re: Iran is likely jamming Starlink
#152Satellite signals are just weak RF signals and can be disrupted easily. There is nothing 'hardened' about them. It's funny that people think Starlink or any of its many incipient competitors are any different.
Re: Iran is likely jamming Starlink
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my experience 80% packet loss makes most common protocols basically unusable. Yes you can still get data out...but many apps will just fail due to timeouts and other things.
I imagine the people with illegal starlink terminals are fairly tech savy and can use custom protocols. Living in Iran they probably already have a lot of experience with vpns and lower level protocols to evade censorship.
Re: Iran is likely jamming Starlink
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
The GPS satellites aren't receiving anything. The GPS satellites transmit signals, and the starlink terminals (and other users of GPS) receive those signals.
Wellll you could technically jam their uplink channels, but doing so may get the US in your doorstep quite quickly
Re: Iran is likely jamming Starlink
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
This whole stalink for military use (Starshield) was a scam Elon sold the military from the beginning. Just like his dumb ass tunnels and his self driving cars. He is putting the military at risk.
Is there any actual evidence that Starshield doesn't work substantially as promised?
Re: Iran is likely jamming Starlink
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
Starlink uses beamforming with directional antenna arrays, so it should be rather difficult to jam compared to omnidirectional antennas. It's basically a dish pointed at the satellite, so the jammer should be in between to work. Antenna arrays aren't perfect so it still picks up some energy omnidirectionally, but it should be possible to shield it with some metal plates in a way that only sky is visible. https://en.w…
I think, to beamform in the right direction you have to be able to locate yourself precisely, have an up-to-date almanach of the satellites, and a precise enough datation source. Jamming GNSS is a source of problems for 2 of those issues. Also, the antennas on starlink dishes are still pretty small, likely to pick up some hard-to-remove sidelobes and the tech to cancel them properly might be export-controlled. You st…
To add to my point, with multiple antennas it's also possible to spatially separate signals. Not sure if Starlink is doing that, but I think it should be possible to escape GPS jammers by using two antennas with some distance between them. Two antennas can pick up the direction of the signals and with some math they can be separated, at least in theory.
Re: Iran is likely jamming Starlink
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
But it's in extremely difficult to disrupt the signals across the whole country? I person go go out with a battery and setup a starlink terminal in the middle of nowhere in 2 minutes (exactly how I'm writing this post right now from Boliva)
If your objective is to stop or at least slow coordination of protests and flow of information about things the regime is doing in the major cities of Tehran and Mashhad, you're a lot less worried that plenty of rural villages get completely unhindered signals, if anyone in them happens to have a Starlink terminal.
Re: Iran is likely jamming Starlink
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you mean, Russia has been doing the same thing for most of the war? The success relies on you controlling the territory, or at least territory close enough, so the results vary.
In a war zone any large high power jammer will be like supernova in the darkness visible for detectors from tens of kilometers away. So its gonna be immediately destroyed. Iran protesters cant find or destroy jammers though.
Re: Iran is likely jamming Starlink
#159Re: Iran is likely jamming Starlink
#160Good for them, as they’re under external attack. For example a US ghoul like Mike Pompeo had this to say recently [1]: > Happy New Year to every Iranian in the streets. Also to every Mossad agent walking beside them so under those circumstances anything goes to defeat the likes of Mossad and associated foreign entities doing their thing on Iranian soil. [1] https://xcancel.com/mikepompeo/status/2007180411638620659