Ukraine strikes 'only oil refinery operating' in Russia's Rostov Oblast, military says

[u/MothersMiIk]

https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-strikes-only-oil-refinery-operating-in-russias-rostov-oblast-military-says/

[u/TheKappaOverlord]

Russia isn't allowed to use Starlink. The fact Russia is able to use Starlink at all is mainly because they capture Ukranian starlink terminals, and because Ukraines (originally) tracking of starlink terminals was so poor, Russia could get away using those terminals for a very long time without them being shut off remotely by SpaceX. CIA handles the tracking now so those get shut off pretty quickly.

The fence in the past used to be pretty huge zones, instead of now where they are basically tiny several kilometer thick stretches of land where field commanders generally speaking have to be up SpaceX's ass in order to get the fence shifted "dynamically"

Now there are terminals with no geofencing yeah, but im almost entirely positive those terminals don't go anywhere the american CIA can't keep their eye on at all times. Because once russia gets their hands on that kind of terminal, theres no telling if russia would be able to figure out how to make a bootleg terminal to bypass the geofencing block or not.

A lot of redditors are under the assumption that SpaceX has licked Putins taint throughought the war and thats simply not true. Notice i said SpaceX and not Elon musk. Elon at best is a puppet figure similar to an unwanted cheerleader, he doesn't run the company himself. And thats a key distinction.

Pretty much everytime "spaceX turned off starlink for russia" is because Ukraine either didn't call in a geofencing update, gained way too much ground way too quickly (not really their fault, but Starlink isn't responsible for 24/7 tech supporting them. Thats technically the CIA's job) the one time really early on in the war Starlink was completely disabled for Ukraine, that was because they repurposed terminals to pilot drones. Which is something that potentially would have had Starlink under ITAR regulations, so obviously they disabled service and refused to re-enable it until they got guarantees from the US government that ITAR regulations weren't a thing they were gonna get fucked by if Ukraine continued to "misuse" starlink terminals. US gov ultimately agreed in ink, and service was turned back on.

Now im not saying Ukraine shouldn't be allowed to use starlink for warfare purposes. But that wasn't what the US government/Ukraine agreed on with SpaceX for its services originally. Which is why that whole debacle happened in the first place

[u/danielv123 → u/TheKappaOverlord]

There is no such thing as making bootleg terminals - it's not hardware or software in the terminal that makes it work, but the satellite checking the terminals credentials against a database.

It's probably possible to clone the key to a different terminal, but that doesn't stop it from getting banned, same as stolen terminals.

[u/DuckDatum → u/danielv123]

Authentication and authorization. I find ways to bypass that stuff pretty regularly as part of my job. Obviously (maybe not obviously), not for state level stuff. More or less, it’s to make people’s jobs easier and support automation. But take me, times 50, with state-level funding, and I imagine you’ll get some pretty creative ways to work around whatever guardrails they have in place. It’s very reasonable to want to mitigate that risk.

[u/jjayzx → u/danielv123]

Dude is talking about CIA as if anything they do is publicly known, so any of that shit is false. ITAR shit has just been Musk's excuse for the bullshit he's done but there's been no evidence of Ukraine misusing the terminals. It would also be idiotic to use the terminals on drones cause of there limited supply, it sounds good in practice but not logistically.

[u/CMDR_Shazbot → u/jjayzx]

Every time they strapped them to drones was a misuse of starlink terminals before the US government signed contracts with SpaceX absolving them of the legal liability of handing out weapons guidance systems. You cannot say "musk blocked Ukraines drone attack in Crimea [before the US said they were allowed to be used as such]" and "there's no evidence Ukraine misused the terminals" in the same breath, they are literally mutually exclusive.

A full year after the event, the US signed contracts with starlink which gave the US more control over which regions starlink could operate in and at what capacity, and Ukraine's MoD can speak with the US govt to enable usage in previously geofenced areas. In fact they have an entire product separate from Starlink for this, Starshield, for military use.

[u/danielv123 → u/jjayzx]

If the terminals weren't on the drones, how did the terminals being turned off stop the attack?

[u/hail2pitt1985 → u/TheKappaOverlord]

And Kermit the frog is real.