Spacex Disables 2,500 Starlink Terminals Allegedly Used by Asian Scam Centers
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SpaceX disabled 2,500 Starlink terminals allegedly used by scam centers in Myanmar, sparking debate about the implications of this action in the context of the ongoing civil war and global internet control.
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> "“Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, the spokesperson for the military government, charged in a statement Monday night that the top leaders of the Karen National Union, an armed ethnic organization opposed to army rule, were involved in the scam projects at KK Park,” the AP wrote. The Karen National Union is “part of the larger armed resistance movement in Myanmar’s civil war” and “deny any involvement in the scams.”"
I get that if you are shutting down comms for an an org thats different - but if its a known scam center not a tough decision here.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_genocide
Should everyone else be allowed to do anything they want in a country as long as it's from a distance because "your laws don't apply to me"? Is it fine when Russian, Chinese, or NK hackers are operating against the US?
If a country is good enough to sell to and provide a service there, it's good enough to obey its laws.
This thread baffles me, that people are somehow capable of ignoring the elephant in the room of the massacring of civilians, to tunnel-vision instead on some trivial and insignificant technicalities about satellite law.
Yes. The answer is not to act lawlessly, but instead to not be in that country at all or be there and apply pressure for change. But breaking the laws in ad hoc ways is not the way.
Several international companies have divested or exited due to political risk, sanctions, or human rights concerns.
> people are somehow capable of ignoring the elephant in the room of the massacring of civilians
To consider, the following countries, amongst others, retain embassies in Myanmar: Australia, Brazil, China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Israel, Japan, Nepal, Singapore, UK, USA.
Should embassy staff break the country's laws?
Oh, that is the novel idea. For people being genocided to not be there and for those who are against genocide to let themselves be killed in the first step.
> But breaking the laws in ad hoc ways is not the way.
Breaking the laws is frequently necessary in the genocide situation, because the laws were designed to create and facilitate the genocide. Genocides do not just happen out of nothing.
> Oh, that is the novel idea. For people being genocided to not be there and for those who are against genocide to let themselves be killed in the first step.
>> But breaking the laws in ad hoc ways is not the way.
>Breaking the laws is frequently necessary in the genocide situation, because the laws were designed to create and facilitate the genocide. Genocides do not just happen out of nothing.
My response was to this question: "Should international companies respect its sovereign laws?"
Nothing about the people of Myanmar.
My answer is different if you're a Myanmar person. But you still face the moral question of which laws you should disregard vs. which to follow.
Ethics and other moral angles no longer apply, after all, how could those apply to bits, that's for 'real' engineers. It's also at the core of the HN "'no politics', please." tenet.
I see a similar deficiency in the legal profession, they too tend to just focus on the words and the letters and don't actually care all that much about the people.
That's an interesting question, I'll say. I can't say yes or no but I can say that the answer should be consistent. You either support genocidal regimes, or you don't.
So you have Starlink operating in Israel and in Myanmar.
> that people are somehow capable of ignoring the elephant in the room of the massacring of civilians, to tunnel-vision instead on some trivial and insignificant technicalities about satellite law.
Imagine the bafflement when some people stick to their tunnel vision while writing about other people's tunnel vision on the same exact topic.
> SpaceX proactively identified and disabled over 2,500 Starlink Kits in the vicinity of suspected ‘scam centers.'”
Neither terminal was bought in Myanmar. Both have been transported to and used in the vicinity of the scam center. The difference is purely the intent of the person controlling the terminal. But you can't infer that intent from only the location where it was purchased and the precise location where it is being used.
> > SpaceX proactively identified and disabled over 2,500 Starlink Kits in the vicinity of suspected ‘scam centers.'”
Sure, because it's currently in the news and it's any easy way to say "we fixed the problem". Maybe some Economist journalist just lost internet access. Oh well. Guess they'll have to find their way out of Myanmar without internet. Sucks to be them, right?
You are told by the local law enforcement and legal system? Starlink's obligation is only to assist local authorities as per their law. Maybe the local authorities are corrupt but that doesn't give Starlink a free pass from obeying their law.
> Neither terminal was bought in Myanmar.
Does it matter? Starlink does business there, in Myanmar. They offer an internet service. They were asked by the authorities to disable some terminals, and because they want to keep offering the service to other paying customers, they complied. There's no legal grey area here, not even a moral conundrum for Musk. He follows the law of the land, gets to still do business and make more money.
Point being, as long as Starlink wants to keep offering a service and make money in Myanmar the company has to obey local laws. The statement below [0] that started the thread was a kneejerk reaction, keyboard warrior style. Musk "didn't give the time of day" to Brazilian authorities and he was squeezed into compliance. Why fight when there's an easy way to keep making money?
> But the US (who has jurisdiction over Starlink) isn't bound by Mynamar laws, and (IMHO) shouldn't give the time of day to the requests of a junta
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45680818
This place is literally on the border, look: https://www.google.com/maps/place/KK+PARK/@16.7146829,98.479...
They likely allow some margin of error in the positioning so that people on the Thailand side of the border don't get accidentally blocked.
Although... I checked and they also apparently don't provide service in Thailand so I dunno what's going on there.
Yes absolutely, see the ridiculous censorship the British government is trying to establish against us companies.
Companies should be forced to comply with local law when they have a physical office there or there is a government to government contract that regulates how commerce should be done between those countries. Now, Myanmar or the british or whoever can block, deny payment services or make it illegal to use such services for their locals but it is ludicrous to accept the laws of foreign countries just because.
What happens when they send signals in that country, like Starlink is explicitly doing? What if companies in Mexico or Canada started blasting signals on frequencies used in the US for critical communication, would that fall under "they should comply with US law"? What if Russia does the same with boats on the border?
As for what companies are doing: If i'm legally allowed to send a signal inside mexico that interferes with US Signals, sucks to be an US Person relying on that signal but me as a company wouldn't give a shit. Doubly so for space based assets.
This is where inter country contracts come into play. If your country and my country have a contract that designates some signals for public use and others not, than local law can be changed to comply with those contracts. Everything else is just a matter of tragedy of the commons or questionable encroachments into another countries sovereignity.
Can you? Ok, "definitely private company who doesn't operate at the behest of the state". That's a loophole you can fly a country through.
> Countries actively sabotaging critical infrastructure is an act of war
> If i'm legally allowed to send a signal inside mexico that interferes with US Signals, sucks to be an US Person relying on that signal but me as a company wouldn't give a shit.
So is it "an act of war" or a "don't give a shit" situation?
Yeah, no one is making money sabotaging GPS Signals. The reality is that there are numerous agreements that regulate the use of frequencies. If a country tolerates misuse that actively interferes with another countries critical infrastructure that's pretty blatant. And again, you as the country being interfered with can do everything from tariffs, sanctions to destroying boats to make the other country interested in enforcing their laws and stop you from interfering.
> So is it "an act of war" or a "don't give a shit" situation?
This isn't as hard as you try to make it. If country a allows commercial use of a frequency band, any company in that country wouldn't have to give a shit about using it. If you as a country deliberately chose a frequency band for commerical use that just so happens to interfer with your neighbours police signals, enjoy the sanctions, diplomacy or war that follows.
But trying to make companies in country a follow the laws in country b is not going to happen by fiat just because. Imagine Saudi Arabias anti atheism laws being enforced in the USA because they might be able to receive your website. Ridicolous.
In this case, the Myanmar government could tell the US that "hey buddy, SpaceX isn't playing ball, make them or we'll kick out your embassy, tourists, and trade relationships". I don't know if they have any of that, but take that as an example.
That's exactly how it works, via ability to apply laws. If there is no abiliyt to apply the law, then yeah, everyone allowed to do anything they want.
Anyway, it's like free speech, I can say anything I want on the internet because what are you going to do, huh? But it'll also mean that if I were to contact you for a job later on you'd be like "nu uh you insulted my mother". Plus I'd get banned from HN.
That is, cyberattacks are seen as a victimless or economic only thing, not unlike economic sanctions.
Eg, Cambodia just had $15B in crypto confiscated (ostensibly illegal proceeds of the 'Prince' group, but IMHO they are just a front for the state), and is facing a financial blacklisting.
China were pressuring the area to crack down on this stuff early this year, but it's quite possible the trigger for the west to get more involved was the Cambodia/Thai conflict, which was a simple personal feud over this business, provoked by the Cambodian leader, but which risked spreading into a much wider conflict.
Who defines "should"?
The group in power of the country
We're playing around with the word "should" here, but from a moral standpoint, I disagree with any opinion that a sovereign power should(morally) be able to control communication at all - short of immediate threats to public safety (yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded theater).
That said, Starlink can be turned off on a per country basis, so the government can ask (or demand) that to be done. If they refuse, there may be consequences that can be escalated to a political level.
Communication is a tool of freedom and these comments seem so willing to give it away.
In other words, Churchill might have hated the Nazis (because they threatened his beloved England), but he believed in the state of exception they promoted. He believed he wasn't obligated to obey basic decency when dealing with non-European natives because, like Schmitt would say, "sovereign is he who determines the exception."
An entity truly in control should be able to deny access to insurrectionists because of you know, being in control.
That says nothing about their power to control the satellites overhead.
Thus, the authorities must not have that control.
I agree with the commenter from a technical perspective. It's extremely easy to cut off SpaceX terminals in some area if you control that area.
I just don't think that's relevant. It's not the local authorities the rest of the world is lining up behind, it's the regional players around Myanmar. The regional players can countenance the local authorities only slightly more than the warlords and gang leaders. What the local authorities want is almost completely irrelevant to the regional players.
To be fair, Antifa is objectively a terrorist organization, given that they employ violence on innocents to cause fear in the populace to achieve political goals. That's literally the definition of terrorism.
Using violence to overthrow the Myanmar government is not automatically terrorism at all. Groups throughout history have used organized violence without resorting to inflicting fear to achieve their goals.
What's the difference between the two, besides the latter lacking a just cause? If that's the only difference, then that just proves my and OP's point that "one man's freedom fighter is another one's terrorist"
/s
It depends a lot on who they are shooting
If they are shooting irrelevant and innocent civilians (with the goal of introducing broader fear in the population to somehow change their minds), then definitely terrorists.
If they are shooting only govt/regime military/police/enforcers or officials, much more like an opposing power.
In this particular case however, they are decidedly violent and dangerous. So why not cut them off?
We're not talking about Russia or China. They don't have the capability to destroy satellite constellations.
That kind of arrogance is what leads to 9/11, the most successful destruction of a western country since ww2.
9/11 would not have happened if there were no radical Muslims in the world, and US had the Might to make such world.
Killing an individual is easy. Killing an ideology next to impossible, and trying tends to make the proponents more violently against you.
It is clear to me that the US never had the capacity to do that.
But that's an escalation, it's better to talk about it first with the party in question, if they don't answer there can be further legal recourse. International law and -lawsuits are a thing.
But this comment thread sounds like reason and legal systems aren't working, and suppression and military action are the only recourse left. I mean to a point I agree, but at the same time we (as humanity) are not (or should not be) savages.
Starlink are quite directional. They are easily detected even from a standard vehicle.
> International law and -lawsuits are a thing
No, it's not a thing. International laws operate on exactly the same principle "Or what?".
> but at the same time we (as humanity) are not (or should not be) savages.
Part of not being a savage is the ability to not give a f.ck about what the savages have written on their papers, which we call laws. Or to give a f.ck depending on what is most convenient for us, the non-savages, from the standpoint of the "or what?" principle.
Why is everyone with a keyboard so adamant to “fight” when compliance was obviously the better business decision?
There's no legit business in Myanmar or any of those other locations
I'm thinking the same. But there's probably plenty of illegitimate business, non-scammy terminals in the country which generate revenue.
Complying was the best option for Musk even if he doesn't care about Myanmar local law. It's a bad look to have your brand associated with supporting scam centers that defraud Americans as it was pointed out by the top US senator investigating the use of Starlink in the scam operations. This hits closer to home.
If the local law was to deny all women or some ethnic group access to communication, the world should do it without question?
Palestine gets widespread support
https://www.queermajority.com/essays-all/queers-for-palestin...
There's only one man being killed in the article you linked, and his killing is way more complex that the article made it to be.
https://www.npr.org/2024/09/27/g-s1-17637/hebron-west-bank-i...
Pretty sure that's not enough evidence for 'actively hunting down and murdering on a consistent basis'.
On the other hand, Israel had probably killed tens if not hundreds or thousands of queers in Gaza as of now. That surely count for 'murdering on a consistent basis'.
When you pull easily google-able numbers out of thin air, you undermine the credibility of your overall point: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/7/two-years-of-israel...
sometimes I really wonder whether people like you actually read what you just post...
One of the more deranged things I've read today. Then again it's unsurprising coming from an extremist that defends hospital bombings: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45211554
I'm not saying, I'm better, I'm pretty apathetic. But I don't get it.
Slaves as a term isn't as relevant today as it was centuries ago, but still it captures the idea of a class of "oppressed and powerless" people well.
In an extreme twist of irony however, both Christianity and Judaism are religions born from slaves, hence the emphasis on classic liberal values (love thy neighbor as thyself). Islam however is not a slave religion, and was born from power, on the other end of the spectrum (kill non-believers who don't convert)
You can absolutely support someone who doesn't support you back. Queers for Palestine isn't saying "Free Palestine so I can move there and live my life", it's saying "Palestinians should be free even if they don't like me, because freedom is imperative"
The ACLU did the same fucking thing with literal nazi marches decades ago and nobody made this kind of dumb claim, and a shocking number of people who make this "gotcha" about queers for Palestine get upset that the ACLU now says they shouldn't support the right of Nazis.
I support the freedom of religion for people who practice religions that say I am the devil or need to be saved or I should be oppressed. I do NOT support those religions enacting such oppression, or modifying my government for stupid things they believe in, but that doesn't mean they should not have the right to practice their own beliefs that don't affect other people.
I want Palestinians to have a country that does not oppress women and outlaw birth control (That's why most of Palestine is children by the way; oppression), and murder random people in the town square, but that still requires they get "freedom" of some kind. I would argue that freedom also requires the Palestinians are made free from Hamas, but there is an awkward chance that Palestinians right now would choose Hamas given a free choice. I don't have a solution for that.
Regardless, the solution to any of that is still not fairly indiscriminate bombing with high accepted collateral casualties.
The US famously has gripes with Cuba, Iran, HK, Afghanistan and others, that affect those countries unfairly. If another country decides to side with Iran, they'll find themselves on the US sanction list. So is it more just to deny the people of your country access to trade and interaction with the US?
The same apply for other stuff like chat cryptography. No, we shouldn't fuck everyone's right to privacy because your fat policemen are unable to conduct an investigation on meatspace and prefer to just have a digital panopticon.
obs: I upvoted you because while I consider your position absolutely abhorrent, I believe you're entitled to it and we should not downvote comments just because we don't agree with them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KK_Park
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shwe_Kokko
Statement by US Treasury: https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0237
If you ever been to Myanmar you'd know that Burmese simply have no capability of operating something like this, especially now.
"I'm strongly opposed to one side or the other gaining a possible advantage or disadvantage in some unclear way"
LOL
Which so far have been "I support complete freedom of speech. (for myself, and censorship for others)"
They aren't going to sell a product that could be used against them. Our allies are reasonably asking if the high-tech F-35 fighters have kill switches too
The scam centers at KK Park and Shwe Kokko employ forced laborers numbering in the thousands - they literally kidnap people from neighboring countries, imprison them, confiscate their passports, and force them to conduct scam operations for 17 hours a day, torturing them if they fail to comply.
The KNU is undoubtedly in on this, allowing it to happen within their area of control and almost certainly profiting financially from it.
The stuff going on there is evil of the highest degree. It's evil on a level that many Hacker News users probably did not even realize exists in the world.
Starlink doesn't even offer service in Myanmar! The operators of the scam centers acquired the terminals through their criminal connections.
Yes the Tatmadaw is also evil. It doesn't really matter though. This is a pretty black and white scenario. What's going on is dark beyond belief and any action which curtails it is positive.
If this is the case, what is the justification for allowing them at all? If the receiver's location is not in an authorized service area, why allow it to connect? In fact, I'm surprised that's not automated. I can't access websites due to geofencing, yet Starlink can't figure out the location of the dish accessing their network? I'm not buying that at all.
Money and other KPIs. Money is an obvious KPI - 2500 terminals at 100 $ a month each, 250k a month in income, nothing to sneeze at. The more important KPI however is satellite utilization.
And it's not like either the legitimate Myanmari government nor the various oppositional factions have any interest, much less ability, in trying to curtail Starlink.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirtbox_(cell_phone)
> A dirtbox (or DRT box) is a cell site simulator, a phone device mimicking a cell phone tower, that creates a signal strong enough to cause nearby dormant mobile phones to switch to it.
Small parts of the compound actually appear to be within Thailand, at the border resolution Google maps uses: https://www.google.com/maps/place/16%C2%B038'51.2%2522N+98%C...
Workers from many countries have been lured through Thailand, kidnapped and trafficked across the border forced to work behind bars and under threat of torture.
I guess it's possible that they're making an erroneous assumption based on my last name, but I'm not Chinese.
/not Chinese either, about as stereotypical white guy from Texas as possible
The hatred and suspicion towards Chinese is palpable and exploding into collective anger in Korea and Japan.
weird that the chinese are blamed. bc seemingly only the chinese government is actually trying to do something about it, getting these centers shut down and criminals "deported" and prosecuted
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