https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/brazil-supreme-court-judge-orders-x-shutdown-in-country-1.7020678
A Brazilian Supreme Court justice on Friday ordered the suspension of Elon Musk's social media giant X in Brazil after the tech billionaire refused to name a legal representative in the country, according to a copy of the decision seen by The Associated Press.
They also froze assets from Starlink.
Meanwhile Starlink's direct to cell capability is only growing. If your phone has 4G, Starlink knows where it is.
So glad we have a private company that we have no affiliation with tracking practically every phone on the planet. Feels like this "feature" is illegal by way of wiretapping and stalking laws.
Remember the holy scriptures. It’s only oppression when the government does it. When it’s a private company it’s freedom!
Well the US has a pretty strong affiliation with SpaceX, given that they permit all their launches. Also, I can't imagine the US would get away with launching similar technology themselves as exclusively military satellites - other nations would object.
I think he leaves that kind of plagiarism to his old friend Peter Thiel, who seems to have an obsession with Lord of the Rings villains.
What do you mean by "villains"?
The only Tolkien inspired names I could find are Arda, Palantir, Valar, Mithril, Rivendell, and Lembas, none of which are names of villains.
Two Palantiri have been used by villains but that's about it.
Fair correction, Palantir is only used by villains, it isn't evil in and of itself. However I'm pretty sure Thiel also had something called The Eye of Sauron - maybe a product made by Palantir.
Werent the palantir corruption artifacts from a the golden age or something? I have only played some of the old games and watched the movies. Also the middle eartb games which are still pretty fucken solid.
If I remember correctly they were gifts from the elves to the numenoreans. The Palantiri are in no way evil.
It's just that in the Lord of the Rings Sauron also had one and was on the other end.
Just like phones aren't evil but the person you're talking too might be.
The palantiri (plural) were made by the elves during the First Age when they lived with the Valar (gods), so yes they were made during a golden age long ago. They were gifted to men of Numenor who remained loyal to the Valar and Iluvatar (The God) and kept friendship with the elves. This was during a time (Second Age) in which the rulers of Numenor were being hostile to the elves, disrespectful towards the Valar, and just generally being assholes. The elves gave the palantiri to the "Faithful" of Numenor so they could still communicate with each other despite the opressive politics on the island. Elendil, fore-father of Aragorn, took them (and a fruit that grew into the White Tree of Gondor) when he fled Numenor for Middle Earth. (Elendil's son, Isildur, is the one that cut the ring from Sauron's hand.)
But the palantiri were not corruption artifacts. They are seeing stones. The "corruption" you see in the movies is not inherent in the stones. It is simply that Sauron has a stone also, and you really don't want him to get inside your head.
Meanwhile Starlink's direct to cell capability is only growing. If your phone has 4G, Starlink knows where it is.
This is all news to me, could someone please elaborate/share some resources?
I don't know anything about Starlink but I guess I should if it knows anything about me.
Starlink is a mobile internet platform by SpaceX. They currently have somewhere around 6,300 satellites up in low earth orbit, in complex shells covering most of the globe. These satellites aren't permanent, they're so low that they do experience some mild atmospheric drag, which causes them to eventually fall into the atmosphere and burn up. However SpaceX frequently launches more.
Over the last year or so SpaceX have been developing direct-to-cell capability, using 4G/LTE. This means you will be able to send and receive calls, texts and data over Starlink, direct from your mobile phone. This is only possible because of the low altitude of Starlink - conventional satellites are much higher up, and while they can send signals to your phone (eg GPS) they're too far away for your phone to reach back.
However, the flip side of this is that Starlink is effectively operating mobile phone masts up in space, globally. A network carrier on land already has the ability to triangulate your position using cell towers - they ping your phone from multiple towers, with this they can determine distance, and with 3 or more they can triangulate with increasing precision. This is kind of acceptable, because it's only the country you're in (or near to) that will be able to identify and locate you. However with SpaceX you have an American business that's effectively able to identify (through unique identifiers such as IMEI) and locate you via your phone almost anywhere in the world using their satellite constellation.
...as the ozone layer gets destroyed.
https://qz.com/spacex-starlink-satellites-ozone-layer-1851544567
Lmao they release aluminum oxides when they burn up, it's basically antipersperant in the upper atmosphere.
Ironically though, it will make us all sweat more.
we got an email about them being unable to process payments
the clock is ticking for starlink in brazil and it would be so fucking funny if they had to stop operations here because of elon's ego
Starlink direct-to-cell uses LTE, aka 4G. Starlink satellites with direct-to-cell capabilities are effectively mobile phone masts in space that travel all over the globe.
If your phone can talk with a cell tower, the tower can work out how far away you are. With 3 or more towers they can determine your location by triangulation. When your phone talks with a cell tower, it identifies itself, including by providing your device's unique IMEI.
Starlink is effectively a bunch of moving towers in space. If 3 or more Starlink satellites can talk to your phone, then they can also determine your position. It's basically the same principle as GPS, except at a much lower altitude and over 4G/LTE bands, and the satellite receives signal back from your phone whereas with GPS it's one way from the satellite to your device.
If they didn't have the range for that you wouldn't be able to connect with them to send calls, text, or data. Those are all two way communication and requires the satellite to be within range of your device.
Now, there's something to be said for the current level of coverage of direct-to-cell capable satellites. If they don't have many up there then it will be harder to triangulate - however they also move quite quickly through their orbits, so if they make multiple measurements they can get a good idea with just one satellite, and again the accuracy will only go up when more satellites are in range.
One article I read last July said they only had 103 satellites with that capability up, with plans to launch a further 300 this year (out of a total constellation of 6,200). However I've read other sources from last year about much higher numbers. I suspect the 103 refers to a newer version of direct-to-cell capable satellites that will form the commercial implementation.
As for the range of the signal from the satellite, it absolutely can reach your device. GPS is an awful lot higher, and with satellites in general you don't have to worry about people being nearby to the radiation source (like you do with phones or even towers). There isn't a risk of location or identification with a one way signal from a satellite, though, however if your device were to do something in response to the signal that could be an issue (eg [ab]using the emergency alert system or some sort of novel exploit).
Suffice it all to say, we're entering an age where there is the potential for a lot of shit to happen, stuff that hasn't really even been explored in SciFi or spy movies. In the late 90s we had Enemy of the State, which touched on satellites being used for stuff, but as far as I'm aware no fiction has explored using the satellites for two-way communication with our devices. People think of satellites being 600,000km away, not merely ~500km.
I've already put a lot more effort in the discussion than you have. Is it too much for you to just search for it yourself?
Thank you for the source!
You put in a lot of effort when you didn't need to, I asked for a source in my second comment, you just wrote a huge post with no source.
It isn't my job to prove your claims, though I do appologize for my rude tone in my past comment.
I can see that the service isn't live yet, it just says "starting 2024" and "starting 2025", to me this reads like classic Musk "launching next year" hype.
Setting up a mobile phone network operating in existing mobile phones bands, broadcast from sattelites, has extreme legal challenges, especially since they don't even list any partner from an EU country.
Untill I see see the system being indepentantly verified as working I will keep pressing X to doubt.
Your phone talks back to the satellite to establish a connection, and during this exchange your phone will provide its unique IMEI, as well as you SIM card details and phone number.
A search Friday on X showed hundreds of Brazilian users inquiring about VPNs that could potentially enable them to continue using the platform by making it appear they were logging on from outside the country.
This is your chance to break free.
There is something that most news articles aren't paying attention to: the judge requested Google and Apple to remove VPN apps from their marketplaces. Not just apply fines to those who dare to use VPNs in order to access X, but removing the VPNs altogether. I mean, I use OpenVPN Client for making a LAN to connect my smartphone and my laptop together (so, for example, I can use KDE Connect between a smartphone over mobile network and a laptop over cable internet). I don't even have an X account, but a decision focused on that platform is extending its reaches beyond the intended target, affecting those who use VPN for professional and technical purposes.
He already backed down on this vpn ban, because he heard smarter people than him saying he should.
https://veja.abril.com.br/coluna/radar/moraes-recua-de-decisao-sobre-veto-a-vpn-para-acessar-o-x/
"Hundreds"? Oh my God there are "hundreds" of them. A solid user base for a social media app there.
Unfortunately people like routine. Look how many people went back to reddit after the mobile disaster.
Good.
However, I'm curious about how they plan to implement this, technologically.
Like will it be a court order to ISPs to block X at a DNS level?
Will Musk go full Qanon and make a big deal about making an X darknet site for Brazil or some dumb shit?
We live in a fucking circus, and the clowns are running the show.
Like will it be a court order to ISPs to block X at a DNS level?
Yes, I believe the next step is for the Telecomm Agency to issue an ordinance. Google and Apple now have to remove the app from the store. Apparently VPNs are also not allowed to access it but I dunno how that would even work.
Perhaps VPN servers in Brazil (I'm no lawyer) but people can choose to connect to servers outside the country.
They'll probably let people access it but public figures profiles will get fined if they post something.
Apparently VPNs are also not allowed to access it but I dunno how that would even work
That's the point: they can't. However, based by the judge's inquiry, the VPN apps are to be removed from app marketplaces, every single one of them. He asked Google and Apple to remove VPN apps altogether. This extrapolates the boundary of "blocking X", because VPNs aren't solely used for "bypassing ISP blocking", VPNs are also used to link two or more devices into the same LAN over ther Internet, but this will be affected as soon as these apps vanish from Brazilian marketplaces.
Like will it be a court order to ISPs to block X at a DNS level?
I think that's exactly it and how I understand this sentence:
Given that operators are aware of the widely publicized standoff and their obligation to comply with an order from de Moraes, plus the fact doing so isn't complicated, X could be offline as early as 12 hours after receiving their instructions, said Luca Belli, coordinator of the Technology and Society Center at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a university in Rio de Janeiro.
He's taking all vpn off Google and apple too. This is a terrible, dangerous and dumb decision despite how much I dislike Twitter and musk.
Edit: they just went back on the decision to remove vpn, so it's all good. Hooray.