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Iran is likely jamming Starlink

timesofisrael.com

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Re: Iran is likely jamming Starlink

#211

Post by ece »

overfeed wrote: post #210
ece wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't Starlink use some sort wideband signal which is hard to jam? Combined with some sort of frequency hopping and a moving constellation should mean blocking a user or satellite signal should be pretty hard, like many times the cost of building and servicing a user terminal for use against protesters.

> Doesn't Starlink use some sort wideband signal which is hard to jam? It probably is hard to jam, but you don't need to jam it if you can pinpoint terminal locations and send in on-the-ground enforcers to confiscate the equipment and make arrests. TV detector vans were introduced in 1952[1], the principles for finding sources of RF emissions isn't cutting edge technology. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_detector…

TV emissions don't use beam forming. This is all a cat and mouse game, but Starlink being a distributed system should mean it is harder to completely block use of.

Re: Iran is likely jamming Starlink

#212

Post by kyboren »

macintux wrote: post #144
scythe wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a major unforced error by the USG, of course we have seen plenty of those of late. There may be Israeli, American or other intelligence agencies present. But history has shown that spies can't just foment a revolution out of thin air. The Americans' first attempt at a coup in Chile, in 1970, failed. It was only after three years of US machinations and missteps by the Allende administration that Pinoch…

I have to imagine the protests would stop immediately if Iran is attacked by Israel or the U.S. You can be angry at your government while not welcoming bombers. Ordinarily I'd have faith the governments were smart enough to know better, but at this point I've lost hope.

I think that depends very much on targeting discipline. If the bombs are surgically striking key regime figures and sites, hampering C2, reducing the regime's total conspiratorial power, and increasing latency in the regime's OODA loop, I imagine protestors would welcome the help. The mullahs have taken the people of Iran hostage and their goons are out on the streets killing protestors. Israel or the US metaphorically sniping the guns out of their hands would be a judicious and IMO proper application of military force.

On the other hand, if the bombing is indiscriminate, or has an unacceptable error rate (oopsie, those weren't IRGC command posts, they were kindergartens), then I would expect a rally-round-the-flag effect. If the sniper misses and hits the hostage, well... people are going to be unhappy.

Re: Iran is likely jamming Starlink

#213

Post by darkhorse222 »

serf wrote: post #209
olao99 wrote: post #207

Hypothecally speaking. If I were to live in an authoritarian country that would shut off all means of communication like that. What off grid technology would be viable? Lora? Shortwave radio? Or nothing at all?

in a country that hostile to you I would be worried about radiating any kind of EM, honestly. It's too easy to track and could cause undue targetting & victimization. my real answer : I think at that point in time effort is best spent trying to arrange escape. my technical answer : depends on the scene. directed optical/laser or microwave is very hard to track if that can facilitate the links you need -- but realisti…

Yeah I like fiber optic lines

Re: Iran is likely jamming Starlink

#214

Post by Noaidi »

try_the_bass wrote: post #193
Noaidi wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> I don't know. So why are you making claims predicated on having knowledge of the situation?

Google!

SpaceX Has Wildly Screwed Up Its Military Satellites, Researcher Finds

https://futurism.com/science-energy/spacex-starlink-nro-till...

Re: Iran is likely jamming Starlink

#215

Post by tim333 »

olao99 wrote: post #207

Hypothecally speaking. If I were to live in an authoritarian country that would shut off all means of communication like that. What off grid technology would be viable? Lora? Shortwave radio? Or nothing at all?

Donkey https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2004/aug/11/low-tech-strat...

Maybe more practically in Tibet I had a Thuraya sat phone which you weren't supposed to have but I don't think there's much they could do about those except maybe search you.

Re: Iran is likely jamming Starlink

#216

Post by overfeed »

ece wrote: post #211
overfeed wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doesn't Starlink use some sort wideband signal which is hard to jam? It probably is hard to jam, but you don't need to jam it if you can pinpoint terminal locations and send in on-the-ground enforcers to confiscate the equipment and make arrests. TV detector vans were introduced in 1952[1], the principles for finding sources of RF emissions isn't cutting edge technology. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_detector…

TV emissions don't use beam forming. This is all a cat and mouse game, but Starlink being a distributed system should mean it is harder to completely block use of.

See my other comment upthread on how beamforming doesn't make terminals/emissions invisible, just harder to acquire, but well within reach of a determined adversary. Newer Starlink terminals have a 1.5° beam, and older ones are 3.4° wide . At 10,000 feet altitude, the tighter beam is 245 feet across. Starlink satellite orbits are public and predictable, and Iran has drones to spare.

This is just 1 passive RF-based approach, and there are others (e.g. drone-mounted FLIR surveys done at 3 am)

Re: Iran is likely jamming Starlink

#217

Post by h3half »

tatjam wrote: post #105
sciurus wrote: post #92

Earlier 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

This is a great plot for a B movie or a trashy military action book. “The bad guys are jamming GPS uplink and we only have two weeks until the almanacs are out of date and the whole system breaks down. Millions of innocent Americans will drive into rivers by accident.”

Re: Iran is likely jamming Starlink

#218

Post by h3half »

spwa4 wrote: post #154
tatjam wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wellll you could technically jam their uplink channels, but doing so may get the US in your doorstep quite quickly

More to the point, to do that to this number of satellites on this big an area you'd need nuclear power plant levels of power, and it would only degrade GPS a bit (their clocks slowly desync when uplink is blocked)

My understanding was that each satellite broadcasts a coarse ephemeris for the whole network, and that that “almanac” isn’t accurate for very long (on the order of weeks). Without uploads to the satellites, those almanacs will go stale.

I don’t think the almanacs are necessary for the system to work, in theory. But I believe they’re commonly used by receivers to narrow down the range of possibilities when trying to find a PRN match for a signal they’re getting.

(I’ve dealt with GPS and similar navigation signals for work but am not an expert, this is just the impression I’ve gotten over a few years)

Re: Iran is likely jamming Starlink

#219

Post by ggm »

bawolff wrote: post #20
ggm wrote: post #2

Under packetloss my assumption is text is king, but I wonder if forward error correcting audio and video is actually better in some ways? Media is information rich. Maybe we're beyond a samzdat moment and the value in comms is contextual immediacy of live feeds, text can squeeze alongside. Long ago, broadcast quality TV was shipped as slow feed. Maybe a tiktok generation goes back there: use a phone on the street (pr…

You are acting like people dont upload videos anymore. The people filming protests in iran are probably not in range of their home starlink connected wifi. They are almost certainly filming stuff offline then uploading it later, not livestreaming.

Yes. thats broadly what I think people will be doing. My concern was, under 30% to 80% packetloss, how well this works. I think the answer is, if you want to get media out, it works well enough, given enough time.

I would be surprised if GPS blocking is enough to completely can starlink. It improves positioning but if you don't jog the antenna, given these things are in predictable orbit, you can probably get good-enough S/N without GPS info.

Re: Iran is likely jamming Starlink

#220

Post by lovich »

ACCount37 wrote: post #36

Not too surprising, given that Starlink operates in Iran without a permit, "space pirate radio" style, and has something of a habit of making the access free when major protests happen and the government imposes a network blackout. Iranian government and Starlink have no love for each other, clearly. It's a pattern by now: whenever a government wants to do something awful, it shuts down internet access - so that no o…

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