#how does Starlink work

[scarz-xo]

Hey guys so if anyone is interested in donating for the Palestinian cause as all of you know Israel has cut off the internet on Gaza for the past few days, Palestinians sometimes get internet connections & sometimes they don't.

Elon Musk won't give Palestinians Starlink internet like he did with Ukraine & Taiwan (I won't get into this), Egyptian communication companies are trying their best at putting towers on the borders but still too far away from the Palestinians to get connection let alone Israel can bomb them whenever they want and call it a mistake "wink wink".

So a group of Egyptians have decided to gather E-sims for Palestinians, I honestly don't know how E-sims work cause we don't use them here in Egypt but the group does, one of them is the owner of the twitter account in this post Merna El Helbawi, she's an Egyptian writer & also one of the people who went to the borders to urge aid to pass to Palestine.

At the moment her & others are trying to gather E-sims for Palestinians, they're 100% given to Palestinians for free, if you can participate, even with one E-sim, you would've done your part in helping Palestinians document to the world the evil of Israel & also connected displaced family members with eachothers.

Hope you guys can help.

[yokowan]

hi! your writing on aerospace and venture capital was very interesting, thank you for putting it out there! i'm curious how spacex plays into the dichotomy of private firms rejecting integration testing and subsequently wasting more money than if one followed the proper procedures, since i've heard that the company has a substantial market share / is developing unique and relevant technology while leaning into the same "move fast and break things" approach. is it just... subsidized / popular enough to absorb the losses?

tldr: spacex has a combination of factors working for it, but the only reason they can tank the losses is because they're very good at operating a hype machine

they weren't always this insane. in 2009 spacex was moving at a pretty fast pace for aerospace relative to other companies, but it was quite measured compared to their current state. falcon 1 was an incredibly simple rocket, basically just a technology demonstrator. even then, they were 1 failure away from bankruptcy before they finally got a success. this is commonly told as an underdog success story but somehow it does not inspire as much confidence in me as you'd think :p

when they started making falcon 9 it was, once again, an extremely simple rocket. sure, they had big plans for it, but falcon 9 v1.0 was built on extremely dependable, well known technology. they hired good engineers, took their time with development, and used reliable, existing tech. from then on, they just built on it very slowly. they changed one thing at a time.

the real thing that lead to their success at the time is that none of the things they were developing interfered with the core capability of the rocket. like, none of their customers were relying on the fact that they wanted to land the rocket on a boat. it's going to crash in the ocean anyways. might as well do landing attempts. the cost for failure there was basically nothing. falcon 9 succeeded so incredibly because they built a decent regular rocket, added features onto it, and got their testing for free-ish from launches they were doing anyways.

the current era of spacex dawned when elon musk realized that he could run a business on hype alone. slowly but surely, he started promising more. way more than his company could deliver. they could sell absolutely insane amounts of total horseshit based on spacex's reputation alone. they built falcon 9, after all. that means they can build anything!

and sell it did! remember when starship was called the Big Fucking Rocket, and was supposed to be a 100m tall composite hulled structure capable of putting 300 tons into orbit? remember how it was supposed to be bringing people to mars in 2022? remember how none of that happened and everyone just forgot? that shit! that's how spacex has operated post 2017

that whole strategy is to drum up hype with obviously impossible promises and get all the redditor temporarily embarrassed billionaire types on board by being super memey about it. and it worked! by 2020 their valuation was exploding (much like starship teehee) and it has not slowed down since

^^^ this is what selling piles of hot bullshit did for spacex. and if anyone says starlink fuck you starlink just barely broke even last year and only thanks to the US military.

and when i say it's bullshit i mean it's bullshit. if you trust elon musk's twitter as a primary source (most spacex fans and investors do), starship's planned payload capacity fluctuates by like. 3x depending on how many times he's texted his ex wives that morning. they miss scheduled deadlines for test flights and static fires so often that people joke about them being scheduled on "elon time" and somehow don't realize that this is a bad thing. every time a starship explodes it's lauded as some great achievement because if they ever admit failure, the hype will die out.

they're not just doing agile to rockets! this isn't changing requirements as new information becomes available. this is changing requirements whenever the billionaire dipshit feels like it! the poor engineers working for spacex are working insane crunch schedules just to keep the hype train moving. they need to constantly crank out impressive looking results to keep investors excited, even if they're not actually moving towards a goal. i've heard so many stories from spacex employees that they find out about changes to starship design requirements or test times from elon's twitter. it's fucking insane.

and spacex never stopped improving falcon 9! it kept being a pretty good rocket. they made incremental improvements to payload capacity and reusability. dragon became the workhorse of the US's transportation to the international space station. but that's not what they make the news for. that's not what they got their TWO HUNDRED AND TEN BILLION DOLLAR VALUATION for. no. they got that for making promises they can't keep.

this rant doesn't even touch on COTS/commercial crew. if i did it would end up being about five times longer. god help us all.

[doomsday-architect]

Observation- Elon Musk

How he is viewed by the public......

Arrogant, a clown, a bully, owns SpaceX.....

How he's viewed by employees......

Demanding, focused, brilliant, committed, global businessman.....

Regardless of how he is "viewed", he successfully started and continues to be the driving force behind SpaceX, Neuralink, The Boring Company, Tesla, X (formerly Twitter), Starlink, and others.

Now, he's taken on making the government more efficient with the backing of the President of the United States.

Apart from Democrats and Progressives who will work to block his efforts, does anyone "doubt" he will be successful?

Oh, and he will soon be the WORLDS FIRST TRILLIONAIRE!

There are 195 countries on this planet and only 19 with a GDP of over 1 TRILLION DOLLARS.

His PERSONAL WEALTH will exceed one trillion dollars.

Anyone doubt his ability to do this job?

Definitely MSNBC and CNN and their minions across the country.

It's the American way!

[mariacallous]

Two months into the second Trump administration, the United States is in pure chaos mode. Tens of thousands of workers are fired one week and forcibly rehired the next. Tariffs rise and fall based not on strategy but on one man’s ire. Deportations fly in the face of judicial orders, careening the country toward a constitutional crisis. The only constant is the volatility itself.

On paper, that may be surprising. A central premise of Donald Trump’s appeal is that he is an apex businessman. Same with Elon Musk. The elevator pitch: Through the sheer force of their combined savvy, America will be saved from “bankruptcy”—or worse. There aren’t many Harvard Business School case studies, though, that suggest maximum instability is the path to success.

There’s plenty of Occam’s razor at work here: The US is wobbling wildly because its president and de facto CEO are some combination of self-serving and inept. But in between and among the absurdities, something darker takes shape. Inherent in every chaotic act is a challenge. Every outrage is a test.

In the meantime, the uncertainty has international consequences. Tourism has plummeted, as potential visitors cancel their trips to a country increasingly, openly hostile to noncitizens. Europe is rearming itself in the face of a heightened potential for conflict, as Ukraine becomes the fulcrum on which decades of solidarity between the US and Europe may pivot. Allies have considered sharing less intelligence with their US counterparts, given the Trump administration’s increasingly cozy relationship with Vladimir Putin.

It’s a heel turn worthy of a WWE Monday Night RAW plotline. But the US is not in the business of selling spectacle. Its value lies in its reliability. Instead it is now erratic, unpredictable. It’s messy. International politics is a relationship business; Donald Trump seems intent on undermining America’s relationships at every turn. (Well, except toward Moscow.)

There’s the slash-and-burn approach to budgeting, a seeming race to create a minimally viable government. The operative part of a turnaround plan is the “plan” part. Firing as many people as possible as quickly as possible—without apparent consideration for actual skills or value that they bring to the role—does not qualify as a plan. It’s just more instability.

The good news is that many of those employees are being reinstated, as the gears of the judiciary have slowly begun to turn. But that reinstatement itself may prove temporary, depending on what higher courts say. And even if those workers do come back, how motivated will they be to stay now that they know how their employer views their worth?

More to the point, who would go work for the US government in its current state? Civil service doesn’t pay great, but at least you get to feel like you’re serving a higher calling with a side order of job security. The only callings being served right now are Donald Trump’s retribution tour and Elon Musk’s amateur hour AI jamboree. Eventually they’ll run out of SpaceX interns to hire.

(A quick side note: Donald Trump reportedly told transportation secretary and Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Battle of the Seasons champion Sean Duffy that he should hire Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduates to work as air traffic controllers. The average starting salary for an MIT undergraduate is $126,438. The starting salary out of ATC school is $43,727. Business savvy!)

As for Musk, he secured his choke hold on the mechanics of the federal government weeks ago. But the installation of Starlink terminals at the White House, his repeated attacks against federal judges on X, his open dismissal of Congress—none of these are normal. The longer they go on, though, the more they feel like they might be.

That’s the point, really. The standardization of chaos. The steady insistence that no matter how outlandish, how dangerous, this tilt away from democracy gets, it’s actually nothing to get upset about. Attempt to remake the US government as quickly and radically as possible, because otherwise how will you know how far you can push it? Shoot for the moon; even if you miss, you’ll land among the kakistocracy.

The good news is that there is a way out of this. The courts have already stopped DOGE at various turns and reversed some of its most extreme activities. Congress could wake up tomorrow and remember that it’s a coequal branch of government. Public pressure can remind politicians that elections aren’t decided only by whose corner the world’s richest man is in. Boundaries do exist, even if they need to be reinforced with rebar.

And then there’s the bad news, which is the likelihood that Trump and Musk will at some point stop pretending to care about any official checks on their power. Or that they already have.

[ajmakoko]

Summary of evidence and concerns:

Trump is a Russian asset working for Putin (see book American Kompromat by journalist Craig Unger or Active Measures documentary with Hillary Clinton(1), sources below). Elon and Trump are working together (2). They both have substantial ties to Epstein (3) (4) (5) (6). Trump stole election software in 2020 (7). Similarly, Elon Musk has been in contact with Russia for the last 2 years (8). This includes during the Ukraine War when Russia began using Starlink (9) while it was claimed they got them third party and not from Musk himself; however now appears imo to show Elon is a doublecrosser.

Starlink, Elon's satellite company, was installed in some voting machines across the country (10) and may have interfered with vote tabulation. Voting machines were found to be connected to the internet (11). An independent report on voting machines concluded that tabulation tampering was possible with current voting machines, so hand counts are vital (12). In September, Politico had an investigation finding Russian malware on a state voter registration database (13). Also, there were malicious fake texts from fake DNC organizations, connected to Elon who donated to them, that were fishing voter info (14).

Elon had results of election on an app 4 hours before official counts had it (15), per Joe Rogan podcast in a discussion to Theo Von. Earlier this year, Tana Monogeau, released info that she'd been offered millions of dollars to endorse the Trump campaign and that she knew others had taken the deal (16).

They will release more info admitting their fraud because they are a Russian asset trying to start a civil war here (speculation). They want us to be confused about sources and who to trust and what's real, they want to release the truth to anger us and lies to anger us. Trump has refused to write an ethics statement for transition of power saying he will transition peacefully (17). JD Vance has also told the EU that unless they allow X unfettered access to the EU (to spread propaganda), they will withdraw the US from NATO (18) - which will prompt wars or takeover either way and weakens Germany, who is entering an election since their government couldn't agree on Ukraine budget. A Russian space chief said Elon Musk’s plan to bomb Mars is a cover to put nuclear weapons in space (19).

Also speculation, are reports of widespread ballot rejection, especially for signatures. There are articles claiming already that it is because GenZ does not know cursive (20) - except the signature simply must match your driver's license. It's not a cursive writing test. Avocado toast but with gen z voting fraud. We do not yet have the ballot rejection rates but typically they are around 1% to 1.5% (21).

Crypto is how right wing conservatism got funded here. It's why it took off- it was basically UBI for those men, funded by foreign intelligence for this purpose along with other uses for crypto like dark money, drugs, trafficking, etc (22)(23). The least informed people we knew were investing in crypto when it was starting, mining bitcoins. They couldn't tell you what a stock or tariff is, yet they were making bank in crypto trading. Crypto trading, especially memecoins, appears to be an obvious scam to most because it's the stock market without ownership. So why were these 4chan pedophiles and nazis doing so well? Because it was just meant to give them money the whole time. And crypto is great for transferring money internationally from shady organizations to shady people (24). Far right catchphrases and meme campaigns dispersed online including X, give out the key words/catchphrases for the new coin that isn't a scam and will disperse money. People who are deep in these groups interner algorithms get these keywords first and normal outsiders will either not notice or will stay away. No normal person wants a coin that references Hitler if they are just scrolling memecoins.

Once the government has been taken over, they can force their memecoin as the national currency and then rug pull, which is also what Musk is likely going to do to Tesla at the same time. The entire point is to bankrupt America for Putin and his cartoon villain cohorts. Musk is already saying he wants to withdraw from US currency due to national debt (Trump added most of the national debt) (25).

If you're in Germany, take note. They are coming for you next, your election is soon.

News Links

(1) https://youtu.be/5umiMThrlsA?si=mwgr4U2c2jleJEBj

(2) https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/elon-musk-weighing-trump-staffing-decisions-sources/story?id=115730434

(3) https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/03/trump-infiltrate-voting-machines-georgia-2020.html

(4) https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/12/business/jeffrey-epstein-interview.html

(5) https://www.businessinsider.com/jeffrey-epsteins-ex-girlfriend-dated-kimbal-musk-brother-of-tesla-founder-elon-musk-2020-1

(6) https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fire-and-fury-the-podcast/id1750757108

(7) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/01/trump-jeffrey-epstein-tapes

(8) https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-to-know-about-elon-musks-reported-phone-calls-with-putin-and-why-it-matters

(9) https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-using-thousands-spacex-starlink-terminals-ukraine-wsj-says-2024-02-15/

(10) https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnewsvideo/comments/1gnxqmw/elon_musks_company_starlink_praised_by_tulare/

(11) www.nbcnews.com/news/ncna1112436

(12) https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/inside-georgias-effort-to-secure-voting-machines-as-experts-raise-concerns

(13) https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/01/us-election-software-national-security-threats-00176615

(14) https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2024/10/pro-trump-dark-money-network-tied-to-elon-musk-behind-fake-pro-harris-campaign-scheme/

(15) https://grabien.com/story.php?id=499986

(16) https://www.buzzfeed.com/natashajokic1/tana-mongeau-paid-political-endorsement

(17) https://apnews.com/article/trump-transition-planning-ca3a6be50d147b04b6498184e5599b1e

(18) https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/jd-vance-elon-musk-x-twitter-donald-trump-b2614525.html

(19) https://thehill.com/policy/transportation/499968-russian-space-chief-elon-musks-plan-to-bomb-mars-is-a-cover-to-put/

(20) https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-voters-struggle-signatures-cast-mail-ballot-problems-2024-11

(21) https://ballotpedia.org/Election_results,_2024:_Analysis_of_rejected_ballots

(22) https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/far-right-extremists-raise-millions-cryptocurrency-bitcoin/

(23) https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/10/opinion/crypto-cryptocurrency-money-conspiracy.html

(24) https://apnews.com/article/cryptocurrency-coronavirus-pandemic-technology-business-europe-f7f754fc2c68b0eb0d712239323f26c3

(25) https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2024/11/10/its-unsustainable-tesla-ceo-elon-musk-issues-us-serious-bankruptcy-warning-amid-huge-bitcoin-and-dogecoin-price-surge/

Personal Testimony from the dickbags themselves:

youtube.com/live/HBPNfAUPz08?si=PZQa_D_wbN9VoA6y

In the first minute:

"Your votes are rigged. We can win New Mexico."

"If you can watch your vote counter, if we can bring God down from heaven (he's referencing Starlink), we can win this, win California, win a lot of states."

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/if-trump-loses-im-fcked-elon-musk-in-interview-with-tucker-carlson/articleshow/114024254.cms

“If [Trump] loses, I’m f*cked… How long do you think my prison sentence is going to be?”

Why does Elon think he would go to prison though? For what crime?

youtu.be/Zmc0EN8XAY8?si=5u_mJNte37r4JmUb

Trump:"Our little secret is having a big impact"

If Trump was so sure the election was rigged and they were going to turnover every state including California, then why hasn't he asked for a recount in all the states with representatives that didn't get elected that he thought would be? Shouldn't he be suing for recounts? He did it last time. Why doesn't he want an investigation this time?

#AssetForfeitureTrumpMusk

If they get locked into years of asset forfeiture from layers and layers of state and municipal claims and lawsuits (which will require discovery lol), we may be able to stop them. Which is likely part of why they are moving to bitcoin as well.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Lisa Needham at Public Notice:

Elon Musk is busy. No, not because he’s attending to any of his multibillion-dollar companies. For Tesla and SpaceX and Starlink, he’s full of wild promises with very little actual progress. But what Musk is really spending time on these days is attacking the core foundations of American democracy on multiple fronts. There’s his thus-far successful effort to get rid of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). There’s his political action committee, America PAC, which pretends to help register people to vote but is just hoovering up voter data to give to the Trump campaign. And there’s his lawsuit seeking to force companies to advertise on X, despite the fact advertisers generally do not want their ads running next to the Nazi content X is full of now. All of these efforts have the potential to succeed because the federal courts are broken, and the administrative state is dying a slow and painful death. 

Immiserating workers

Let’s start with the NLRB. It’s no surprise that Musk is no friend to labor. He doesn’t believe in unions, saying that they create “a lords and peasants sort of thing,” whatever that means. When workers at his Fremont, California, plant began an organizing campaign, he tweeted that they would lose their stock options if they joined the union. This sort of threat is extremely illegal, and the NLRB sided with the workers who brought multiple unfair labor practices charges against Tesla. Tesla also prohibited workers from wearing t-shirts with union insignias, even though the right to wear pro-union clothing at work has been a legally protected activity for several decades. Then, of course, there’s the class-action lawsuit in California state court, where almost 6,000 Black workers at the Fremont factory recently got the right to sue Tesla for ignoring massive racism at that plant. How massive? Nooses at the workstations of Black workers massive.  [...]

A scam PAC

America PAC purports to help people register to vote. If you live in a state that isn’t a swing state, that’s what the PAC’s website does — sends you over to your state’s voter registration page. But if you live somewhere in play this November, the America PAC website asks you for detailed personal information, including things utterly unrelated to voter eligibility, like your cellphone number. After all that is entered, the PAC doesn’t register you at all. It doesn’t even send the user to their state registration website. It just displays a “thank you” page.  So, swing state voters may think they’re registering, but they’re not. Instead, they’ve handed over their data to a PAC that is coordinating with the Trump campaign. While PACs are generally not allowed to work directly with campaigns, America PAC is a door-to-door canvassing group, and those, inexplicably, can work hand in hand with a candidate. However, pretending to register people to vote is probably a bridge too far.

[...]

Suing advertisers

Mr. Free Speech is also availing himself of the courts to try to force companies to advertise on X. On Tuesday, X filed a lawsuit against the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), an advertising trade group, in the Wichita Falls Division of the Northern District of Texas. Why Wichita Falls, some 300 miles from Austin, where Tesla is located? Because the Northern District of Texas enthusiastically embraces judge shopping, and every case in Wichita Falls goes to Reed O’Connor, a George W. Bush appointee who routinely tries to throw out the whole of the Affordable Care Act and is a reliable vote for anything conservatives want. (The WFA announced Thursday that it’s shutting down because it does not have the financial resources to fight X in court.) Musk already has another case before Reed O’Connor on a similarly twisted legal theory.

Late last year, X sued Media Matters in O’Connor’s court after Media Matters accurately pointed out that ads were appearing next to the Nazi and white nationalist content that is rife on X now. That case shouldn’t exist, period, and it especially shouldn’t be in O’Connor’s courtroom. As Mike Masnick pointed out over at Techdirt, X is incorporated in Nevada, with headquarters in California. Media Matters is in DC, and the Media Matters writer named in the suit is in Maryland. The only connection to Texas is that Reed O’Connor is very friendly to conservatives.

Elon Musk is selling out to enemies of America who seek to erode our democracy.

[thebiscuiteternal]

Elon Musk’s “Free” Internet for Hurricane Victims Has a Major Catch | The New Republic

Musk reshared the post, adding, “Starlink terminals will now work automatically without need for payment in the areas affected by Hurricane Helene.”

A closer look at the website, though, shows that the offer comes with a few caveats.

“Please note: A Starlink kit is required to access this free service. If you do not already have a Starlink kit, you will need to purchase one,” the site explains.

So how much exactly does a Starlink kit cost? New customers will still have to pay close to $400 for a Starlink kit, including shipping and tax, according to Gizmodo. Starlink has also warned of significant delays that may prevent orders from arriving for weeks, and encouraged those seeking its services to buy a kit from retailers such as Best Buy or Home Depot. There, the kit will cost more like $350 not including tax.

But that’s not all users will have to pay. “After 30 days, we will move you to a paid Residential subscription,” the SpaceX site reads. A paid residential subscription costs $120 per month, a significant upcharge from a typical internet service, which could cost around $40 per month.

So Musk’s offer isn’t much different from a typical free trial for his expensive internet service.

[partisan-by-default]

It turns out, Elon Musk’s gracious offer of “free” Starlink high-speed internet services for those affected by Hurricane Helene isn’t free at all, and may be a ploy to trap new customers.

Last week, Starlink posted a link on X to a website explaining its offer to those seeking Hurricane Helene relief. “For those impacted by Hurricane Helene, or looking to support response and recovery efforts in affected areas, Starlink is now free for 30 days,” the post read.

Musk reshared the post, adding, “Starlink terminals will now work automatically without need for payment in the areas affected by Hurricane Helene.”

A closer look at the website, though, shows that the offer comes with a few caveats.

“Please note: A Starlink kit is required to access this free service. If you do not already have a Starlink kit, you will need to purchase one,” the site explains.

So how much exactly does a Starlink kit cost? New customers will still have to pay close to $400 for a Starlink kit, including shipping and tax, according to Gizmodo. Starlink has also warned of significant delays that may prevent orders from arriving for weeks, and encouraged those seeking its services to buy a kit from retailers such as Best Buy or Home Depot. There, the kit will cost more like $350 not including tax.

[outlawqueen2016]

FAQ: how does Plan 2025 belong to the New World Order?

I am so upset to be the one to tell you this.

The New World Order is the world domination strategy for the planet, Earth, as provided by the Transatlantic Alliance. The Plan 2025 breaks down the various cultural battlefronts and identifies the opponents. However, this is propaganda designed to weaken the International Legion for the Freedom of Free Peoples by undermining the trust built between the free citizens of the United States of America and Republican nominee for President of the United States of America Donald Trump.

Essentially, the Transatlantic Alliance is stuck between a rock and a hard place. The Transatlantic Alliance has limited resources and no stable chain of command; simply a herd of inbred young adults who have deluded themselves into believing that they are on equal footing with Transatlantic Alliance Kremlin NATO Secretary General Jans Stoltenberg. So, the Transatlantic Alliance must strike at control of culture because they are outclassed on the field of battle and in the world of business by the International Legion for the Freedom of Free Peoples and O’Niele Enterprises, respectively.

Abortion

The banning of abortion works in the favor of the Transatlantic Alliance because it, theoretically, should supply genetic diversity to the remaining consolidated horde.

The re-overturning of Roe vs. Wade would make it legally allowable for sexually perverted individuals to take a serum reverting them to the phenotype of an embryo, then be sewn into a victim’s uterus using multiple strands of the victim’s own hair, and force the victim to carry the unwanted pregnancy to full gestation. Let us be reminded that it was Republican United States of America President Donald Trump who ensured that Roe vs. Wade was overturned in the first place, in order to support the victimized woman.

Climate Change

Republican United States of America President Donald Trump founded the United Nations Framework Convention on climate change, during his time in office and was a vocal supporter of the Paris Climate Agreement, which calls for across the board emissions reduction.

Democratic Kremlin United States President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law, which essentially gives a substantial discount on taxes in an individual invests into clean energy: solar, wind, energy storage, etc. The Confederacy has been taking advantage of citizens of the United States of America to sell faulty solar panels and an incomplete install on a monthly rate lower than ComEd’s monthly bill. This is a scam. The solar panels are stolen property, not installed properly and therefore are unable to generate electricity from solar and power the residence. Residents have refused to pay their ComEd bills and have experienced service interruptions, while paying various third-party companies monthly.

The measurement of greenhouse gasses contributes to the analytical processing of atmospheric data for the International Legion for the Freedom of Free Peoples. If greenhouse gasses are no longer being monitored, then the Transatlantic Alliance has the advantage of time as the International Legion for the Freedom of Free Peoples finds another way to predict weather manipulation and mitigate natural disasters caused by Starlink or other weather manipulation techniques.

The United States of America has a long lost history of genocide, therefore, there are fossil fuel reserves buried in the bedrock on the North American continent. Republican nominee for President of the United States of America Donald Trump wants to create stable, gainful employment for citizens of the United States of America by harvesting these oil reserves and make great strides reducing the dependency on foreign (Hazbollah controlled) oil and petroleum products.

The Transatlantic Alliance Kremlin President of the United States Joe Biden has extensively funded chemical spraying in the stratosphere, as supported by pseudoscience from unaccredited degree programs. The lab in question was acquired by Nikia O’Niele, Queen of the Kingdom of Hawaii Nei in May 2024 and data collection is working in tandem with an environmental lab to negate the chemicals contaminating our atmosphere, soil, and water.

LGBTQ+

The Transatlantic Alliance is using a tactic known as weaponization of the enemy’s rhetoric. Essentially, I, Nikia O’Niele, Queen of the Kingdom of Hawaii Nei believe that yes, a normal family is a male father, a female mother, and children. However, gay and lesbian couples are still valid as a family; they simply do not reproduce. By making Republican nominee for the President of the United States of America define marriage as between a man and a woman, the Transatlantic Alliance has alienated the gay, lesbian, and bisexual communities from the International Legion for the Freedom of Free Peoples; this alienation was accomplished by drawing a line between straight individuals and gay, lesbian, or bisexual individuals. That dividing line places gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals in the same categorical grouping as sexual deviancy such as: pedophilia, pansexuality, genital mutilation, incest, born again, nested, etc.

The International Legion for the Freedom of Free Peoples found, over the course of extensive investigation, that students claiming to be transgender, who had never had the genital mutilation, were waiting in bathrooms in order to rape unsuspecting women. It is the opinion of myself, Nikia O’Niele, Queen of the Kingdom of Hawaii Nei that these individuals are predators and deserve no protections.

There are currently no transgender service members in the United States of America. Throughout history there has been one female presenting mahu enlisted in the United States of America Army, and he is not transgender; he is a hermaphrodite, currently enlisted in the International Legion for the Freedom of Free Peoples 1st Brigade.

Foreign Aid

Yet again, the Transatlantic Alliance brings their marginalized communities to the forefront of the conversation to use as emotional manipulation and paint the International Legion for the Freedom of Free Peoples as intolerant. There is no reason to be tolerant of a culture which rewards zero accountability, emotional immaturity, and idealizes the destruction of vulnerable demographics, in the opinion of Nikia O’Niele, Queen of the Kingdom of Hawaii Nei.

The United States Agency for International Development is the New World Order, where everyone is a Starlink slave and has no use for reproductive or sexual rights.

Federal Government

The federal government of the United States of America is bloated and stagnant, as it is, where secretaries and lessor officials have not moved in decades. Make no mistake, these are not civil servants; they are Transatlantic Alliance loyalists who profit from the embezzlement of the federal government, meanwhile, federal projects have been frozen for decades while these traitors to the United States of America profit.

The military of the United States of America is designed for use against enemies of the United States of America, both without and within. Terrorists from around the world have flocked to the borders of the United States of America in order to escape the judgement and the justice administered by the G7 Summit for war crimes committed in this Great War.

Taxes

The Transatlantic Alliance is historically known for giving tax breaks to big corporations in effort to increase contributions to the Transatlantic Alliance. Republican nominee for the President of the United States of America Donald Trump truly believes that it is fair to pay the same percentage of the gross income in taxes wether or not a company is a big business or otherwise.

To sum it up, Plan 2025 is a Transatlantic Alliance plan, under the brand: New World Order, which smooths over the losses against the International Legion for the Freedom of Free Peoples and provides the cultural advantage to the Transatlantic Alliance by putting words in the mouth of the opposition, Republican nominee for the President of the United States of America Donald Trump.

The culture of the Kingdom of Hawaii Nei is inclusive of gay, lesbian, and bisexual sexualities; however, we draw the line at sexual perversion. This is a hard boundary. It will not move.

The culture of the Kingdom of Hawaii Nei acknowledges three genders: male, female, and mahu (hermaphrodite).

[kilowogcore]

The X from Outer Space

Let's talk about space, poozers! I love space. I'm from space! If humanity manages ta' not go extinct, humanity's future is in space. There ain't no doubt about that.

Good talk! Now lets talk about SpaceX.

Years ago little Elon Musk had a dream: To be a technocratic racist and antisemite obsessed with the letter X like his grandfather (seriously, look it up, the man left the Technocracy Movement cuz it wasn't racist an' capitalist enough fer him, that's how Mother Musk's family ended up in apartheid South Africa).

After little Elon failed his way into a fortune by not inventin' Paypal, he thought, "What if I sabotaged humanity's future ta' usher in a horrifyin' dystopia?" An' SpaceX was born.

SpaceX has exactly one claim to fame: It does a few things and only a few things. Since it only does a few things, it can do 'em repetitively an' cheaply.

See, every NASA mission is bespoke. Even reuseable craft, like the Space Shuttle, had to be adaptable enough for bespoke missions. Each mission is designed from nearly the ground up, an' that's very expensive.

SpaceX, on the other hand, decided ta' build a kinda assembly line ta' do one specific thing. The space station needs cargo? Let's build a cargo hauler that just does that over an' over. Cuz it's the same mission profile, everythin' can be streamlined an' cheaper.

Now, SpaceX clearly didn't come up with the idea of a reusable platform. That's a standard thing in manufacturin'. Ya may be askin', why didn't NASA do that? And the answer's simple. Cuz Congress didn't want NASA to do that. Congress wanted SpaceX to do that. Congress was so impressed with Elon Musk not creatin' Paypal and gettin' fired from CEO for incompetence twice that they went with his idea rather than the organization that had put us on the moon with a shoestring budget.

There were a zillion problems, but one was bigger than the others: SpaceX, like all Musk enterprises, was a complete failure and its rockets blew up. Well, that certainly makes it difficult to be the best at space!

But Elon Musk's buddies and cronies in Congress had a solution: Throw money at him. Rocket blows up? Throw more money. And more. And more. SpaceX would have been bankrupt in 2006 without a single success if Congress hadn't kept throwin' taxpayer money at it.

Why didn't they throw that money at NASA? Well if NASA had designed the assembly line launch platform, which they could have done much easier and cheaper, then the assembly line launch platform would have belonged to a public organization, and thus to the people, instead of belonging to literally the worst human being on the face of the earth.

That's it. That's the only reason. I defy you to find me any legitimate reason. And I'm not talking about Musk bribin' them, that's all part of him being the worst, I'm talkin' legitimate scientific reasons to fund an absolute failure of a company instead of NASA. There ain't none. Capitalism is just evil fer evil's sake sometimes.

Today, SpaceX puts multiple times more space junk into orbit than the entire rest of the world combined. In just six months last year there were over 25,000 near-misses where SpaceX junk almost collided with other spacecraft. Astronomers are havin' trouble seein' through all the junk. Space missions have become astronomically (pun intended) more dangerous.

SpaceX is also a bad partner. Thanks to the Trump-appointed former head a' NASA, the US space agency is dependent on SpaceX. That means the Artemis 2 mission is indefinitely delayed because, surprise surprise, the necessary SpaceX components don't work. SpaceX misses every deadline it sets, which has repercussions for NASA as well. So Musk's incompetence is keepin' us from space exploration.

Sometimes people say that Musk ain't really in charge, that the engineers are. That's a lie. Musk is in charge. Musk wanted Starlink, Musk got Starlink. Musk wanted to mislead Ukraine about Starlink, Musk got it. Musk wanted Starship, well, he ain't gotten Starship yet but he's more than willin' to keep throwin' our money at it until he does. It's all Musk.

There are some very good engineers at SpaceX. And they oughta be ashamed of what they're doin'.

Starship is currently past the phase where it's blowin' up all the time. They've landed one of the boosters successfully. It'll take far longer than Musk says (it always does), but they'll bludgeon their way to a solution eventually.

Provided, of course, we allow 'em to. Provided we keep givin' 'em our public money to fund their failure. Provided we keep supportin' an evil company that is harmin' and destroyin' our future in spaceflight and astronomy by cloggin' up Earth orbit.

If starship explosions don't happen naturally, storebought is fine.

Be safe, poozers, an' keep watchin' the stars.

[blissfullybloomed]

Beauty in the Stars

It's Sunday! 

Yeah, it's been a few weeks. Been busy, living this beautiful life I've curated for myself. 

Speaking of beautiful…my boyfriend and I went to the John Glenn Astronomy Park last night- we saw Starlink(Elon Musk’s satellites),  a shooting star with a full moon, in the back of his truck, and lots of blankets! Then we fell asleep….Im swooooooning!  I'm in love y’all! I have always been in love with love. I love this part. The honeymoon phase…the ooey gooey, the fluff, la la land…etc. Whatever you want to call it…I love it! The cute thoughtful gifts(wildflowers and legos), the romantic sweet things(our bubble),how he still gets nervous sometimes, and how I hope to god nothing is in my teeth when I smile, the safety to be weird, the comfortable silences where you get lost in each other, and the moments that legit take your breath away. All the firsts you get to experience with one another. Yeah, good things come to those who wait- and baby I've waited patiently for you. 

Speaking of good things, and waiting…professional life is going great too! The work at the chiropractors office is teaching me more and more why I stepped into the field of Massage Therapy when I did. Doctors are SOOOO fast to prescribe medications to someone when it only affects the superficial layer of things rather than the root issue. Chiropractic care is essential, and it's holistic(no meds required- use your body to heal your body), Massage Therapy is holistic self care. Massage and Chiro go hand in hand…and it's pretty cool I can use my education I have received with professionals in the healthcare industry. Very cool. 

Hand & Stone is cool too…I've made a lot of cool friends(them young ones), and they speak in a completely different language sometimes. It just solidifies the fact that I am OLD. Its okay, my life is incredible. I'm good with it. Per!

So , yeah life is just grande. 

One part that is new and not so grande is the fact that I am still learning things about my past, and learning how to accept and move on from certain things. I'm almost to the point of just not asking questions anymore…and just living in ignorance. I think ignorance is bliss sometimes. Bliss in the sense of ... .What does learning a certain new thing do for me in MY future? Do I need to know? I feel like I need to know how to process, and move on…but now…I'm not even sure what's left to process. I was told horrific lies about someone very important in my life my entire childhood, by someone who I knew was toxic. I chose to believe the toxicity anyways…I had to latch to some truth…and the only truth I was being told was lies. How would I know that in the moment…that it was lies? I wouldn't..we wouldn't. We didn't know. We just didn't know man. We were kids. No one told us otherwise. We lived our life believing a lie, and hating the man who told us the lie. Brainwashing is a powerful thing. Especially on the young mind. 

Anyway, conversations are still looming about…and I think…I think I'm over it. I'm over the noise, the chaos, the unsettling information, the blame, and the hurt. I have been over it for a long time actually…I just wanted closure, and I sure as shit got it. After 20 plus years , I got the facts I wanted. The information wasn't what I wanted - but I got it. Thank you for giving me closure. You were the last one I needed it from. The last one. No one is left for me to heal through. Holy crap does that feel good to type. 

So now what?! We live. We live in the beauty that is our life. I didn't get here by myself at all…so thank you to those involved.

“Every once in a while, things will get you down…just don't forget to look up. There is beauty in the stars”- Victoria Bloom 

[violetsystems]

There seems to be a major disconnect between my parents lately. Two phone calls in a row. The new maintenance guy can’t really speak much English but offers to help me load in the grocery cart. I have these two flyers on my windowsill. One for direct tv. One for doll nail salon. Don’t ask me why. When my mom calls halfway through the conversation she starts talking negatively about how she can’t understand women with long nails. I tell her I’d rather work in a nail salon than go broke. It is sometimes like she’s being coached but it seems more subliminal. Almost like subconsciously programmed to be negative about certain things. She does that to me when I mention something like liking bananas. She’ll talk over me and say how she hates them. My dad can’t stop talking about starlink. He says “your buddy elon musk hooked me up!” Him and his wife know how I’m invested and how it isn’t in Tesla. I texted him about how I think I’m being phished for jobs at the county and all he really tells me as how he just mounted his starlink dish on the roof. I say directv has that as well and he just says “I wouldn’t doubt it.” I love them both. I really do. But people wandering around me in Costco in statement shirts seem to know more about what’s going on in my life than them. Add to the fact I discovered the YouTube algorithm translating portions of my music I posted into words and it’s very disturbing to me. How you can be guilted into communicating with people who don’t even have the empathy to know how you feel inside. Just out of tradition. I need to write more about AI tomorrow. But Hollywood complaints about being locked out of the job market? What happens when you are locked out of communication with anything other than what’s inside your head? Or your phone. Are people programming themselves into a negative feedback loop? When an algorithm listens to your creative output and simply says “I believe” during an instrumental break? Is that more satisfying than playing to a crowd of sheep? At least it tells me thank you. Love is very hard these days. Why is it so easy to read what computers are thinking? Probably because everybody is so afraid to talk to me because they hate themselves for what they’ve become. Irrelevant to the broader narrative. When time wipes things away only the algorithms will know what you’ve done. Maybe that’s why they fear them. They fear how horrific they are on earth will be written indelibly in the data centers of heaven. Exiled on Main Street? My name will be echoed in the halls of Asgard one bit at a time. The hammer is heavy for the unworthy. But don’t talk to me about the value of work when all of it has been stolen from me since even before ai could ever learn to thank me. 🔨

[american-anger]

You know, before I had kids, or before my kids reached a certain age, ads like that made a certain sense to me.

Then my youngest was born and he presents as someone with autism (technically a different Dx, not super important here). He's about to turn 18 and I just... What? Why would I need him to be different at home than how he is? Sure I need him to manage work and school well enough, but he's into game design and programming and there's a lot of latitude there.

Sometimes one of us will tell him that we love him and he will grunt in response. We don't do it often, but we like for him to know.

He is very concerned if we are out and about and he knows I don't feel well.

I am the one person he still occasionally hugs. Verrrrry very rarely he might hug one of his siblings.

Like IDK, parenting has two purposes: 1) prepare them to live their best possible adult lives while 2) being their most authentic possible selves. None of that requires that he verbally tells me he loves me. It's fucking obvious that he does.

There are waaaay better things to express tearful amazement at. The way he's made several adult friends in my brother's computer programming/hardware group. The way he puts a lot of thought into avoiding businesses that are not queer-friendly. The time he told me that Pride month was important to him, personally. The time we saw a line of lights in the night sky that I was confused by and he just said, "oh, that's probably just Starlink," and he told me all about it. And it was.

Anyway, all that to say, none of that content from neurotypical parents of autistic kids makes any sense to me anymore. I am so grateful to autistic adults for telling us all about your experiences so I don't have to listen to those dimwits. I have ADHD, so I understand a lot about being neurodivergent, but not about autism specifically. I wish all of us had better help growing up, but at least we can do well for these guys coming up.

It would be so funny if autistic people started describing allistic experience the same pathologised way doctors describe autism

[haratdzul]

Travel Essay: Juxtaposition Turns Vivid

TL;DR: Maybrat is good, authority sucks.

My plane landed in Sorong at seven. The air outside was warm. I was sitting in front of the arrival gate, gazing at a row of old silver Avanza cars with yellow plates, when a kind-of-chunky, long-haired man with glasses called out to me. Hanging across his chest was a Papuan noken, and in one hand he carried nasi kuning for my breakfast. He was one of the Pengajar Muda who had come to pick me up at the airport.

We chatted for a few minutes. Then a few more, probably about the length that equals of an episode of Bocor Alus Politik Tempo, until the pickup vehicle finally arrived. We drove eastward, toward Maybrat.

It took about four hours to drive from Sorong to Maybrat. This wasn’t my first time in Papua. The trip reminded me of the road to Pegunungan Arfak, although the road conditions were, of course, vastly different. Maybrat, which is traversed by the trans Papua road, a.k.a "Jokowi road", has much better infrastructure. Perhaps it's because it's still relatively close to Sorong. But aside from the physical facilities, which were fairly decent, during the three weeks I spent there, I witnessed a human development disparity that made Maybrat stand out even more starkly.

While I was there, I became curious about the regency’s expenditure. I discovered that its annual budget (APBD) was around 1 trillion rupiah, for a region with a population of about 46,000 people. Just simple math, that would mean a per capita allocation of roughly 22 million rupiah per year. Of course, the reality is far more complex, with many competing budget priorities. Still, that average figure is relatively high compared to other regencies in Indonesia. My question after processing that information was: just how effective has it been?

The answer, I began to realize, lies in the contrast between what is physically visible and what remains systematically lacking. The roads were fine, the electricity stable for almost 24 hours, and for now, most schools had adequate internet access (thanks to Starlink). But the human side of development told a different story. In some public schools I visited or learned about, students hadn't had a full week of teachers in weeks, or even months. I also met many children who could operate smartphones well, navigating menus and accessing social media. Yet, they couldn’t actually read the words; they were simply memorizing icons and patterns. All of these phenomena actually not unique for me, since I also had similar findings during my time in other regencies in West Papua.

This reminded me of Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach. Sen argues that true development should be measured not just by economic growth or infrastructure, but by the real freedoms people have to live the kinds of lives they value. In Maybrat, the physical infrastructure might suggest progress, but when children lack quality teachers and consistent learning, their capabilities remain stunted. A paved road cannot replace a competent science teacher. Electricity means little if it doesn’t power knowledge, does it?

On paper, things looked promising. The large budget was there. The facilities were there. But the translation from numbers to impact was, somehow, broken. The capability to be educated and to break the cycle of poverty remained uncertain.

This is not to say nothing works in Maybrat. I listened closely to the Pengajar Muda’s reflections. I saw passionate teachers still trying their best. There are people who put in their best efforts to pave the future of Maybrat’s children to be as smooth as its asphalt road to Kumurkek. But what’s troubling is the inconsistency, made even more ironic by every scene of stark juxtaposition in reality.

My time in Maybrat made one thing clear: juxtaposition is not merely visual. It is visceral. It is felt most deeply in a child's stalled education, in a teacher shortages, or in a budget’s unfulfilled promise. As Sen might say, it is the absence of individual capability, not just the presence of material goods, that defines underdevelopment.

May 25th, 2025.

[mariacallous]

Where do Elon Musk’s business interests end and Donald Trump’s political interests begin? Trick question—they’re one and the same.

How else do you explain the jarring sight of the President of the United States hawking Teslas on the White House South Lawn? Trump has always been a salesman, lending his name to real estate, casinos, restaurants, steaks, vitamins, a fragrance for men, watches, water, a bicycle race, office chairs, sneakers, vodka, coins, another fragrance, NFTs. You could, at this very moment, buy a Trump pickleball paddle from the Trump Store online, or a Trump sea mist & sage candle.

But Trump is most famously a pitchman for himself. (And Pizza Hut, if the price is right.) To spend this much political capital on Musk? The world’s richest man? Over a few protests at Tesla dealerships and a tanking stock price? Come on.

Trump is no altruist. Musk did, though, spend nearly $300 million on the 2024 US election cycle, with the vast majority of that directly in support of Trump’s presidential campaign. His transformation of Twitter into X has created an online MAGAtopia barely rivaled by Trump’s own Truth Social platform. And his work with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency has let Trump outsource the tedious mechanics of actual governance.

Trump reading off a literal list of Tesla retail prices is the purest distillation yet of a dynamic that won’t end well. It’s already going quite badly, for them and for us: The stock market is tanking, Musk is nearing rock bottom in opinion polls. GOP representatives are canceling town hall meetings rather than face the wrath of constituents over DOGE. Trump’s own cabinet officials are apparently just as fed up with Musk’s level of influence.

Meanwhile, that influence continues to grow. When engineers from SpaceX invaded the Federal Aviation Administration, they reportedly were quick to suggest their own Starlink technology as the solution to the agency’s technical problems. On Thursday, a month after Musk inexplicably met with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi in Washington, DC—with three of Musk’s children in tow—Starlink inked deals this week with two major wireless carriers there, creating a glide path for operating in the country.

Even Congress, supposedly a coequal branch of government, is beholden to Musk’s tempers and tweets. At a talk at Georgetown University’s Psaros Center on Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson named Trump and Musk as the two people he prioritizes.

“Elon has the largest platform in the world, literally,” Johnson said. “If he goes on and says something that's misunderstood or misinterpreted about something we're doing, he can blow the whole thing up.”

What started as a self-serving bromance has become more volatile, and it goes deeper than DOGE. Trump told a reporter during his infomercial on Tuesday that he would label anyone who committed violence against Tesla dealerships a “domestic terrorist.” On Wednesday, members of the House DOGE subcommittee sent a letter to Federal Bureau of Investigation director Kash Patel and US attorney general Pam Bondi to probe the “wave of organized attacks” in recent weeks against Musk and Tesla.

Rather than process the “Tesla Takedown” protests as a sign of the deep unpopularity of DOGE and its ringleader, Trump and his adherents have leaned into conflation. What’s good for society is what’s good for Elon Musk. What’s bad for Elon Musk must be bad for society.

The lines are too blurred and the stakes too high. When Elon Musk calls the foreign minister of Poland a “small man,” will that animus be reflected in US policy? When he tells members of Congress to call him with concerns about DOGE, will they be speaking with a special adviser to the president or the guy who holds billions of dollars in government contracts? Whose interests does it serve when Musk blames a denial-of-service attack against X on Ukraine, even though there’s no indication that the country was involved?

It’s hard to overstate how deeply weird it is to see Trump, who never met a self-promotion he didn’t like, promote someone else. Even weirder when that person is increasingly a liability. In previous administrations, Musk’s deep unpopularity would have made him exactly the kind of person Trump fired unceremoniously, with an offhand I barely knew the guy. But Elon Musk is no Anthony Scaramucci. He’s not even a Corey Lewandowski. He’s the world’s richest man, and by god he needs to sell some cars.

There may be signs that this fever is breaking. Musk reportedly has designs on donating $100 million to Trump-affiliated political action committees; The Financial Times says that Musk was rebuffed and is wearing out his welcome. Musk wanted a government shutdown; Trump has pushed aggressively to prevent one.

But whatever rifts may exist between Trump and Musk aren’t wide enough to stop the president from dropping at least $90,000 on a cherry-red Tesla Model S Plaid. To save him from saying “everything’s computer!” in front of press pool cameras when confronted with a modern dashboard. To give Musk a vote of confidence so over-the-top that it simultaneously debases himself and his office.

Tesla stock had a nice bounce, though.

[ceciliaandthesatelli]

Viasat Satellite Attack: Should I Be Worried About my Satellite Internet?

The Internet: love it or hate it, we all use it. 

Well internet is a necessity these days, arguably on par with water or electricity. Imagine enduring the pandemic without the internet—no access to education, work, social engagement, government, the economy, etc. Internet access fuels social and economic life, and the the lack of internet leads to social and economic exclusion and inequities (aka the digital divide [1]). Thus, for harder-to-reach areas like rural, remote, and disaster [2] locations—where traditional cable or fire optic internet is unavailable—people often rely on the more expensive satellite internet. Good, right?

Unfortunately, recent events show satellite communication systems are vulnerable: 

June 2023: cyberattack on Dozor-Teleport, a Russian satellite communication system [3].

February 2022: political cyberattack on Viasat (satellite internet provider) disrupting service for over 40,000 Ukrainian/European users

So, how is this possible? What does it take to bring down telecommunication systems for tens of thousands of users? And what does this mean for me?

Note: Referencing the Viasat case throughout this article, to answer these questions.

How Does My Satellite Internet Work? 

Satellite internet is comprised of four parts: the provider, satellite, modem, and end-user. Reference this diagram.

Internet Service Provider (ISP): This is the company giving you access to the internet. They transmit and receive signals from satellites with large dish antennas.

Internet Satellites: Internet satellites can orbit in either the geostationary orbit (GEO) the or low Earth orbit (LEO). GEO satellites (e.g. Viasat’s KA-SAT) remain fixed with respect to a specific location on Earth, and cover larger areas. However, they are further away, which means higher latency. In contrast, LEO satellites (e.g. Starlink) exist. They are magnitudes closer, which means lower latency. However, this also means their coverage is smaller, and it is not fixed to a specific region on Earth. [distance diagram]

Modem: This is the hardware component, typically attached to the side of your home. They bridge you to the satellite/internet.

Satellites Seem Kind of Far, How are They Attacked?

“To disrupt satellite communications, most people—myself included—would look at the signal in space, because it's exposed. You can transmit signals toward the satellite that would effectively jam its ability to receive signals from legitimate modems” [4]

- Peter Lemme, subject matter expert

First off, how was the Viasat's KA-SAT satellite attacked? This was a two-part attack focused on the modems, not the signal.

Network Jamming: The traditional and expected part was jamming the network. Hackers flooded servers with over 100,000 requests in a 5-minute window. This overwhelmed the network and prevented modems from being able to connect and make requests to the network, thus disrupting internet services.

Malware - AcidRain: The second—and more unexpected—part of this attack was deploying "destructive commands" targeted at Ukrainian modems. Hackers accessed the server where Ukrainian customers can download modem updates and (more importantly), where automated patches are pushed to modems. Rather than sending the typical patch, hackers deployed AcidRain: a custom designed malware. AcidRain was composed of a wiper and a script. The script calls the wiper which overwrites critical data on the modem, effectively erasing it. Upon modem reboot, the machine is permanently unable to reconnect back to the network. Top Ukrainian cyber official Victor Zhora describes hack as a "huge loss in communications" [5]. Zhora is not wrong. The aftermath of this attack forced Viasat to have to ship over 40,000 modems to affected customers to restore their internet services.

Potential Other Satellite Attacks: 

The Viasat attack did not target the signal itself, as one (e.g. Peter Lemme) would expect. It did not require a signal injection, which is where the attacker (instead of the satellite) sends signals to the person's modem [6]. This disrupts communication by sending noise (jamming) or spoofed data, and brings up variety attacks:

Overshadowing - attackers signal overlaps with the legitimate signal. Attacker overwhelms the line, corrupting data transmitted over the signal, and/or generally disrupt service.

Man-in-the-Middle (MIM) - use packet capture tools to collect and inspect packets transmitted over the signal, effectively eavesdropping. These are hard to detect, because the service (e.g. internet) could be functioning as expected.

Replay - adversary resends the packet they collected. Even if they do not know the contents of the packet, this could still send noise, and disrupt service. Viasat likely attaches a timestamp or counter to the packet, to enforce packet freshness, thus preventing this attack.

Spoofing - hacker creates malicious packets to trick the endpoint into accepting forged updates or commands (requires knowledge of packet structure). Viasat likely encrypts the data transmitted, which makes spoofing unlikely, because decrypting packets is typically computationally infeasible.

These are all possible satellite communication attacks, directed towards the signal. However, Viasat's AcidRain did not attack the signal. Instead, the packets sent were completely valid because the server/ISP was compromised.

Allegedly, How Do I Defend a Satellite? 

For the Viasat case, the main security recommendation lies in the security of the server/ISP. Hackers were able to use a misconfigured VPN to gain access to the server, and the escalate their privileges—subsequently accessing the management server, network operations server, FTP server[8]. As a result, they were able to deploy their "patch" to thousands of modems—an action only highly authorized employees should have the ability to do. To prevent this, a ISP should have robust policies that define system behavior, limit user's systems access, etc.

For example, ISP's should have policies to define normal behavior, in order to flag anomalies. Viasat's "patch" was deployed at 3:02 am. These are outside of Viasat's business hours, and thus a "patch" of this scale would clearly be an anomaly from standard operation, and should require external authorization or trigger some kind of alert.

In addition, the hacker did not use brute force to gain access; they had valid credentials into the VPN. Viasat did not state the attack was an inside operation, which means credentials were likely compromised without the employee’s knowledge [8].

One possibility is that in 2021, Fortinet—the company in charge of Viasat's VPN—was attacked by a Russian group, who stole and published the credentials for half a million IP addresses [9]. Fortinet released a patch to address this vulnerability, but Viasat may not have deployed the patch. This emphasizes the need for companies to prioritize keeping their systems up to date regarding security. In addition, companies should employ a multi-factor authentication (like DUO) for login onto servers, to prevent bad actors ease in gaining access at such ungodly hours.

Beyond stronger policies and login measures, the vulnerabilities existent in a supply chain are also echoed here, where the "weak link" is Fortinet. A supply chain attack is when a hacker utilizes one of your trusted third parties as a "backdoor" into your system. Viasat is the first publicly disclosed supply chain attack related to space [9]. However, in the past 20 years supply chain attacks have been ample. Two prime cases are SolarWinds attack in 2020 which injected malware on 18,000 machines in America, and the NotPetya attack in Europe which resulted in over $10 billion dollars in damage [10, 11]. Interestingly, both attacks were committed by groups backed by the Russian government. A takeaway is that regardless your company's sector, supply chain attacks are common enough to warrant all companies to critically evaluate their 3rd party services for security vulnerabilities.

The Ripple Effect: Consequences Beyond Ukraine

How did this attack affect other countries (e.g. Germany) if Ukrainian modems were targeted? Unlike land attacks, cyber-attacks do not see national borders. As a result, cyber attacks often see spillover damage beyond the intended target. “If you target a satellite that is providing certain services to a specific country involved in a conflict, you might also be depriving a neutral country of the services that same satellite provides,” UN researcher Ortega says [4]. While this attack may have targeted the partition of modems for the Ukraine region, modems in nearby countries also fell into this partition. The lack of regional segregation on the network led to tens of thousands of people and businesses across Europe also losing satellite internet access; one notable business being German windmill company Enercon.

Enercon lost remote control of 5,800 windmills—a fleet which provides 11 gigawatts [12]. Given one gigawatt can power 750,000 homes, this fleet can provide the energy to power 8.2 million homes [13]. While impact to this energy company was a ripple effect of the attack on Ukraine, it highlights how our systems are fragile and interdependent. Targeting a single region a satellite serves has the power to indirectly destabilize other critical infrastructure in the process.

Broader Considerations

Cyber attacks are generally not great for most of the parties involved—for the companies reputation, and for people using the service, etc. Yet, for the case of satellite internet attacks, the impact is not equal across the population. The people using satellite internet are likely in more rural, isolated, or disaster areas, where cheaper cable-internet is simply not an option [14]. What this means is that these attacks disproportionately disrupt rural communities. Rural areas tend to show equal or greater rates of poverty in comparison to their metropolitan counterparts, which means satellite internet attacks particularly impact the less wealthy [15]. Further, the cost to replace hardware (e.g. modems) in more rural areas will naturally take longer, highlighting the uneven impact. In the case of disaster response, lack of internet availability could also hinder relief efforts, exacerbating suffering. Is disruption of civilian infrastructure in the name of war and politics ethical? Are there any parallels to present day, when Canada stated they will not "hesitate to shut the electricity [of America] off completely," in response to U.S. tariffs [16]? I suppose it all depends on your perspective.

Ok, Should I be Worried?

Yes and no. Satellite attacks are meant to cause large scale disruption to the public. Thus, motivation for this scale of disruption will often be political-based (e.g. Russia/Ukraine), not a simple grocery-store altercation. Thus, if you are caught in the crosshairs of a satellite internet attack, the good news is that there are likely many others in your boat. While this is not a great conclusion, the emphasis is that there is not much you can do to prevent these attacks, or individually protect yourself. However, what you can do is continue to stay informed (and woke). Next time the topic of satellite attacks/internet/security comes up—whether at the polls, the news, or your next potluck—keep in mind how critical space systems and satellite-internet is to our society as a whole, and the wide-reaching impact their disruption poses, even if not to you directly.

TLDR ehh, yes, but it's not in your control so probably not

Viasat Fallout Post here

Sources here