SpaceX avoided a Russian jamming attack in Ukraine

&gt; “The next day [after reports about the Russian jamming effort hit the media], Starlink had slung a line of code and fixed it,”<p>The notion that SpaceX is basically using a Full CI&#x2F;CD pipeline on a massive satellite constellation is kind of amazing. Meanwhile most large government software requires months of contract negotiation before anyone is even hired to fix the problem.

Better article here:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theinfographicsshow.com&#x2F;musk-starship-starlink-cybersecurity&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theinfographicsshow.com&#x2F;musk-starship-starlink-c...</a><p>&gt; &quot;Jamming attacks are common threats to wireless communications and happen when a hostile device creates radio signals that disrupt communications by decreasing the Signal-to-Inference-plus-Noise ratio (SINR).&quot;<p>&gt; &quot;Possible ways that a software update can help bypass a jamming attack is if the jamming device is targeting a particular frequency. The software can implement FHSS or DSSS, Frequency Hopping &#x2F; Spreading Sequences of frequencies for anti-jamming purposes. However, FHSS or DSSS, frequency distribution type of protection against jamming is flawed. It is ‘limited by a common assumption that the jammer can jam only part of the communication channels or has a limited transmit power.&#x27;&quot;<p>That article points to this report, which discusses all kinds of novel ways to defeat such attacks, like using counter-jamming as a means of delivering bits between sender and receiver, bit synchronization schemes, and others:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;apps.dtic.mil&#x2F;sti&#x2F;pdfs&#x2F;AD1051122.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;apps.dtic.mil&#x2F;sti&#x2F;pdfs&#x2F;AD1051122.pdf</a>

How did it shut it down? What setbacks did it induce to Russians? The headline reads like sensationalized clickbait for satelites changing service frequencies.

I had never considered this before - but it seems to me that lean development methodologies and CI&#x2F;CD (and other DevOps practices) will become a defense priority, at least a priority of the nations that effectively wage war.

What is the evidence of this &quot;electromagnetic warfare attack&quot;? What is claimed to be attacked and how? How was it affecting SpaceX? Is SpaceX&#x2F;Starlink really crucial to anything in Ukraine? Etc, etc.<p>The only &quot;explanation&quot; this article offers is a link to a meandering video that doesn&#x27;t answer any of these questions.<p>After &quot;establishing&quot; the premise, the article immediately launches into demands for more resources:<p>&quot;We need to be able to have that agility&quot;<p>&quot;We need to be able to change&quot;<p>&quot;The U.S. needs to think a lot more innovatively&quot;<p>&quot;This includes incorporating artificial intelligence and machine learning into next-generation systems to be able to respond faster&quot;<p>Over time articles like this one make people accumulate an extensive set of assumptions that basically aren&#x27;t supported by anything except endless repetition.

This article uses incorrect terminology. What the Russians did was electronic warfare, not electromagnetic warfare. Electronic warfare jams, blocks, or otherwise disrupts electronic communication. Electromagnetic warfare damages or destroys communication equipment.

I find this article dubuous (or lets say &quot;thinly sourced&quot;). I.e. this phase &quot;its Starlink satellite broadband service, which was keeping Ukraine connected to the Internet&quot; is just blatantly wrong. Yes they&#x27;ve send hundreds or maybe a few thousands of terminals ot a country with tens of millions of people. I have not seen any evidence that this plays any role for Ukraine.<p>It&#x27;s good that Spacex did send the equipment, but it is still more of advertisement as far as I can see, rather than something keeps the connectivity of Ukraine to the internet. (I&#x27;m happy to see reports that show otherwise).

I feel like this article is over-representing how much SpaceX kept the country online. How much of Ukraine&#x27;s traffic went over the SpaceX satellites? Even in the east where most of the destruction and fighting happened, people have cell reception. Article made it sound like without SpaceX, Ukraine would not have internet. But doesn&#x27;t Ukraine have connections to Europe through Poland and it&#x27;s other neighbors? Russia would need to literally cut the cables or destroy every cellphone tower and ISP and backbone providers in the country (Russia didn&#x27;t do any of these things). This also kind of reveals that SpaceX and other radio based technology is more vulnerable to attacks than wired connections. Also shows how resilient the design of the internet is! Routing algorithms FTW!<p>I call BS that it was SpaceX that kept the country online.

How did the update propagate to the ground terminals if the connection was jammed? I assume they switched frequencies, but it would still be interesting how it went exactly.

That&#x27;s why I disappointed in high uptimes, which most tech persons love.<p>What really need in modern environment, high availability, so it is not problem when one server rebooting, while others could continue deliver service.

March 25, 2022 &quot;Starlink, at least so far, has resisted all hacking &amp; jamming attempts&quot;<p>It even more impressive that SpaceX was able to update it that quickly as well as a huge selling point for the military markets they are targeting so I can&#x27;t quite understand why Musk has to make such a false statement.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;elonmusk&#x2F;status&#x2F;1507505633259630599" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;elonmusk&#x2F;status&#x2F;1507505633259630599</a><p>Edited text below this line<p>&quot;Some Starlink terminals near conflict areas were being jammed for several hours at a time. Our latest software update bypasses the jamming.&quot;<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;elonmusk&#x2F;status&#x2F;1500026380704178178" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;elonmusk&#x2F;status&#x2F;1500026380704178178</a>

But what was the attack and the change?

OTA a satellite like a gansta.

tl;dr : it&#x27;s not an EMP and it&#x27;s not a nuke

Government discovers modern CI&#x2F;CD.

This is the kind of stuff we&#x27;re building at <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cognitivespace.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cognitivespace.com&#x2F;</a>. If you&#x27;re an engineer or developer and want to build this stuff. Come join us.

Although his was a defensive move by SpaceX we have to be careful private industry doesn&#x27;t pull us into WWIII. We are not sending heavy armament to Ukraine for a reason and the government needs to make sure that their policies also apply to companies like SpaceX.<p>By the way how will we &quot;feel&quot; when the Chinese or some Russian billionaire launches their own &quot;Starlink&quot; which will also be operating over the US? From what I have read there are several such systems in the pipeline in China.