Telecommunications

The past few days, I've received way more calls than usual from unknown numbers that my phone flags as scam likely. Anyone else having this happen?

I’ve been seeing in the news that there’s huge objections to allow Starlink access to the Gaza Strip for humanitarian groups. It’s mostly due to the possibility of Hamas strong arming these groups to hand them over or else. Others have mentioned that they’re just giving Hamas other ways to beat Israel.

Edited by Ominae on Oct 29th 2023 at 5:03:49 AM

This is a tricky situation. Elon Musk posted (I can try to find it if someone really wants) that SpaceX would not enable Starlink in Gaza unless it could rigorously determine that the service was being used for strictly humanitarian purposes. Seems reasonable enough to me.

The calls for help started after Israel cut off Internet service to Gaza along with electricity and water.

Edited by Fighteer on Oct 29th 2023 at 9:52:28 AM

If true, then I doubt it'd be enabled at all. Or that's a lie.

True that. I last spoke to a Palestinian (Master's class) buddy of mine when we were at Singapore together on the 22nd. I think that was before comms were being cut off. Hopefully he's okay as he told me he lives in the southern region.

Sadly I've seen/listened to persons who seem rational and mention that allowing Starlink access for the hospital/humanitarian groups means that you're pro-Hamas.

Edited by Ominae on Oct 29th 2023 at 7:30:11 AM

Not that anyone is there yet, but this thread should not become the next one we lock over Israel, nor over Musk.

I think it's just pretty safe to say that if you're sending an effectively unblockable line of communication into a region for humanitarian reasons, there's very little chance it won't get co-opted somehow or forced to shut down.

Well, one way to deal with that would be to allow the Red Cross and/or other international relief agencies to operate the terminals, rather than the citizens of Gaza. But it's likely that some of those would "fall into" the wrong hands, and we're back to square one.

The primary difference between Gaza and Ukraine, aside from our opinions about the parties, is that the conflict doesn't have "clean" geographical lines. By that I mean that everyone: civilians, IDF, Hamas, is operating in the same region. It's urban warfare, not territory control, and so you can't effectively geofence service.

Edited by Fighteer on Oct 29th 2023 at 11:21:54 AM

Right, which is why I'm saying, if the official position is "we'll only enable it if we can guarantee it's only being used for humanitarian reasons" then they won't enable it, or they're lying. Or very stupid, I guess.

Or putting forth conditions that other parties will have to figure out how to satisfy if they want service. Not everything has to be a stupid-vs-evil dichotomy.

With SpaceX and Starlink, Musk is in a position to be a non-state political actor, but we shouldn't have any expectations about how he will do so. It's his product, his rules. If governments want to step in, they need to either launch their own satellite constellations or buy the service from SpaceX. At that point, they can make the decisions.

Edited by Fighteer on Oct 29th 2023 at 12:15:14 PM

Not related to the purpose of the thread (I raised the issue previously), but I was able to reach my classmate. He's okay...

Agree with the points regarding Musk's positions. The Red Cross/Indonesia Hospital/etc will need to step it up if Starlink is going to be used by them only.

We can reasonably expect that Space "X" isn’t going to do anything that will get them shut down for supporting terrorism, which means they’re not going to provide direct aid to Hamas/the government of Gaza.