I learned from a BSides presentation that Ukranian military are using Starlink trancievers placed in pits to beat ground-based signal detection. Do with that what you will.
No, because the collimating effect on the beam would still require you to have line of sight to the emitter, and if a drone is able to get that close without being intercepted then something else has already gone wrong.
But this is also an example of weird absolutist thinking about military tactics: is it unbeatable? No. Does it complicate the surveillance and detection picture? Yes.
Russia/Muscovy also started their long imperial expansion in the mid-1500s, with the wars of Ivan the Terrible. A well-known CIA plant, of course. /s
Most of Europe east of the Elbe has personal experience with Russian imperial rule, and 90%+ people will tell you "never again". The rest are mostly traitors hoping for jobs under a new occupation regime.
Calling what happens in Ukraine an "ethnic conflict" is like calling the genocide and deportation of American Indians "a heated dispute over lucrative real property" or calling the Atlantic slave trade "movement of affordable workforce". It is a freaking war of conquest motivated by sense of entitlement of a rotten empire which hasn't yet fully understood that its heyday is long gone and now is learning the hard way.
The German imperial madness took two massive military defeats to dissipate. Let us hope that the Russian imperial madness will finally suffer the same fate in front of our eyes. At this point of history, having New Tatarstan there instead of Russia would bring Eastern Europe a lot more peace and prosperity. We could call the new entity a Silicon Horde.
>Last year, the Iranian government passed legislation that made using, buying or selling Starlink devices punishable by up to two years in prison. The jail term for distributing or importing more than 10 devices can be up to 10 years.
Yeah but then Hesam died [1] ... yesterday in jail before having a trial. He was 40, wasn't an activist and had two daughters.
EDIT: To provide more context: Let's say that "John" is arrested for having had "illegal internet access" (not even owning a starlink). Even if he has a trial, the prosecutor can, and will, argue that he could have used his a secure channel to collaborate with the Mossad and CIA. If they find any unfavorable social media posts on his phone (and believe me, they will) they will say that he has endangered the national security by encouraging unrest and violent protests. This would then amount to waging war against God and death penalty.
If his phone is so clean that they don't find anything, it must be the fact that he is an agent, a mercenary. They will torture him until he confesses to having collaborated with Mossad. They will then air a forced confession on TV.
John might get lucky and have a caring family member from IRGC. In that case you might be right, he will only receive a prison sentence. If he had had a higher ranking IRGC family member he could even go further and start selling his starlink VPN for around $5 / GB. It's not even a hypothetical situation, I had to buy one of these (and it indeed was a starlink connection) four weeks ago ...
Per reports as of a few days ago, yes there are very much murdering people with starlink. Last year was before the current crisis. People are being murdered in the streets daily by the regime, and ordinary people are desperate for it to end.
I clicked through to the source for Amnesty International scrutinizing the claims and that likely 3000 people have died and it reads:
> On 17 January, in a public speech, Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, said “thousands of people” were killed. Since then, on 21January, Iran’s Supreme Council of National Security issued a statement that 3,117 people were killed during the uprising. However, on 16 January 2026, the UN Special Rapporteur on Iran, Mai Sato, said in a media interview that at least 5,000 people had been killed, noting that according to information she received from medical sources, the death toll might be as high as 20,000
The only way for someone to read that as “likely 3000 people have died” is if one takes the Iranian numbers as fact. For those whose experience is that authoritarian states crushing protests provide accurate numbers this might be somewhat convincing. To say nothing of the fact that this is a stupendous number of people.
I found it convincing of the opposite: that this is not a neutral summary of the context.
> The US simply can't operate there. Israel can. Israel is made up of many ethnic groups, including people who are ethnically Persian and speak perfect Farsi.
The US has hundreds of thousands of ethnic Iranian immigrants, not sure where you got the idea that it's not made up of many ethnic groups.
> It seems likely that at least 3000 died but were these protestors brutally crushed by the government or a the government quashing a foreign-backed uprising? We've established the foreign powers armed some of these groups;
I am myself someone who rabidly hates US imperialism but when you use US imperialism to justify slaughtering thousands of civilians you lose all credibility and will not be able to convince anyone who disagrees with you of anything, no matter how many sources you link. Even if the US instigated the protests, and even if it were "only" 3000 dead, killing 3000 protestors is Very Bad and you don't need to go out of your way to justify it. It is possible for both US imperialism to be bad and for an authoritarian religious regime killing innocent people to be bad. One's thinking should be more nuanced than a struct with a single bool.
None of your points changes anything: The Iranian government and the IRGC are still a despicable, oppressive, and brutal regime, holding both the People of Iran hostage in their own country, and also coordinating violence against Israel in the entire Middle East.
the logistics of killing 30000 people in 2 days is absurd. visit the killing fields in cambodia to understand what a butchering of this magnitude would entail.
their lies dont even pass the sniff test.
but still this comment gets downvoted because the whole internet is flooded with israeli bots to manufacture consent for this bs
in my view israel needs to be sanctioned until it gives up its nuclear weapons. it is a shame for humanity that this pariah apartheid state is allowed to exist, stoke conflicts everywhere and murder people in neighboring countries
"the logistics of killing 30000 people in 2 days is absurd. "
The Nazis managed to murder 35000 people within 2 days at Babiy Yar, in one single region of Ukraine, with no prepared specialized infrastructure, just bussing them to a ravine and shooting them.
Back then Kiev region had about 2 million people. The entire Iran has 90 million, 45 times more.
I have little doubt the US armed Kurds to add to Iran's woes, however
> Trump openly admiited it [2].
isn't a credible source, as the linked article admits:
Iran analyst Neil Quilliam of the United Kingdom’s Chatham House think tank, told Al Jazeera that it’s hard to assign much weight to Trump’s statements because of the claims and counterclaims often coming from him and his administration.
The current POTUS contradicts himself from one day to the next and frequently waffles for hours spouting factually incorrect material.
So in court there's the concept of hearsay, which generally makes certain statements inadmissble as evidence. The classic example is me testifying "Alice said Bob told her he did it".
One of the exceptions to hearsay is called the admission against interest. That means that if you say something that hurts your case or hurts you in some other way (eg implicating you in a crime) then you will generally be allowed to testify to that.
So this isn't a court of law obviously but I still find this analogy useful. Yes, Trump says some crazy stuff and even openly lies. All of that's true. But that doesn't mean you should ignore everything he says. What he says can be corroborated (or contradicted) but it also carries weight if it's an admission against interest.
In this case, Trump claiming to have armed "protesters" is absolutely an admission against interest. It undercuts American propaganda that the Iranian regime brutally crushed an organic protest by ordinary citizens. As such, at least for me, the statement carries more weight. You can still look at the statement and see if other evidence contradicts or suports it of course.
Is anyone still under the illusion that this has anything to do with "bringing democracy to the people" and not yet another scheme for the USA/Israel to control Iran? There is a limit for credulity...
Obviously Ayatollah as they are Iranian themselves. And Israel is already actively genociding another country so not sure if they wouldn't do it in Iran
I suspect the Internet blackout in Iran is not actually related to its citizens - it isn't about silencing its citizens.
It is to prevent hacking and tracking by US and Israel of what is going on over there, it is defensive since it has been shown that Iran's connected infrastructure is thoroughly compromised.
There's multiple motives, not just counter-organization. A media blackout prevents OSINT damage analysis, much like how the IDF and CENTCOM both censor reporting of attacks on their in-theater installations.
I think the regime narrative is mostly made up by Americans what's the difference between any of the Arab countries from Iran. The only difference is they are not controlled by America. It the same bullshit narrative of promoting democracy but in reality it's just about pushing for a government no matter how bad as long as it supports US control.
Iranians are not Arabs and thousands of them got gunned down earlier this year protesting the regime. "America bad" doesn't change the fact that the Iranian people deserve a better future.
Not sure why he is being called for this (or maybe he edited his comment?) but I re-read it a couple times and he is not saying Iran is an Arab country but comparing to the other Arab countries.
And no where in any of my statements did I call it an Arab country. I was just calling out hypocrisy of the west when realistically Iran regime is as good or bad as any of the Arab countries or even the untouchable Israel.
Is Iran's domestic internet still fully operational (sans access to/from the outside world)? If so, I wouldn't think the cut-off would help much security-wise because a single Starlink terminal would allow the US/Israel domestic access.
Don’t know why you’re getting downvoted for pointing out the obvious: yes obviously the US and Israel will exploit the information system of their enemy if they can, and it’s absolutely rational to deny them the opportunity to do so.
If they could credibly threaten your infrastructure then it makes sense. If they have no real organized hacking capabilities then no. But the US has already attacked Iran through computers before with Stuxnet and is the world leader in software and networking knowledge so it does make perfect sense for Iran to disconnect its networks from outside.
You might also have to consider the propaganda campaigns the US could run against an Iranian population with web access. If the population isn't more discontent now than it already was, "secretly" replacing commercial ad placements on western websites with US propaganda when the requests come from Iranian sources could make them discontent or inflame them further, which is bad for the Iranian government.
The government of Lebanon is cooperating with Israel - it's only the southerners/Hezbollah in conflict, at least for now. The people of Gaza are cut off for the most part. The strict censorship inside Israel is what you should compare to - not as strict as a total access ban, but if you say the wrong things or take pictures of the wrong stuff you're going to prison.
My point is that the people of Iran aren’t the target of the disruption.
Remember when Ukraine used the Russian cellular internet to operate drones that destroyed numerous Russian heavy bomber aircraft? That’s what the US/Israel would logically be expected to do if there were wide open internet access in Iran.
This is obvious game theory playing out militarily, people only see political suppression but warfare is a totally different ballgame.
If China were waging large scale war on the US I’d expect the exact same countermeasures to happen.
But this is also an example of weird absolutist thinking about military tactics: is it unbeatable? No. Does it complicate the surveillance and detection picture? Yes.
Most of Europe east of the Elbe has personal experience with Russian imperial rule, and 90%+ people will tell you "never again". The rest are mostly traitors hoping for jobs under a new occupation regime.
Calling what happens in Ukraine an "ethnic conflict" is like calling the genocide and deportation of American Indians "a heated dispute over lucrative real property" or calling the Atlantic slave trade "movement of affordable workforce". It is a freaking war of conquest motivated by sense of entitlement of a rotten empire which hasn't yet fully understood that its heyday is long gone and now is learning the hard way.
The German imperial madness took two massive military defeats to dissipate. Let us hope that the Russian imperial madness will finally suffer the same fate in front of our eyes. At this point of history, having New Tatarstan there instead of Russia would bring Eastern Europe a lot more peace and prosperity. We could call the new entity a Silicon Horde.
>Last year, the Iranian government passed legislation that made using, buying or selling Starlink devices punishable by up to two years in prison. The jail term for distributing or importing more than 10 devices can be up to 10 years.
EDIT: To provide more context: Let's say that "John" is arrested for having had "illegal internet access" (not even owning a starlink). Even if he has a trial, the prosecutor can, and will, argue that he could have used his a secure channel to collaborate with the Mossad and CIA. If they find any unfavorable social media posts on his phone (and believe me, they will) they will say that he has endangered the national security by encouraging unrest and violent protests. This would then amount to waging war against God and death penalty.
If his phone is so clean that they don't find anything, it must be the fact that he is an agent, a mercenary. They will torture him until he confesses to having collaborated with Mossad. They will then air a forced confession on TV.
John might get lucky and have a caring family member from IRGC. In that case you might be right, he will only receive a prison sentence. If he had had a higher ranking IRGC family member he could even go further and start selling his starlink VPN for around $5 / GB. It's not even a hypothetical situation, I had to buy one of these (and it indeed was a starlink connection) four weeks ago ...
[1] https://x.com/indypersian/status/2050088043118211341
"Iran Prepares Death Penalty Law for Starlink Internet Use"
https://iranwire.com/en/news/145471-iran-prepares-death-pena...
> On 17 January, in a public speech, Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, said “thousands of people” were killed. Since then, on 21January, Iran’s Supreme Council of National Security issued a statement that 3,117 people were killed during the uprising. However, on 16 January 2026, the UN Special Rapporteur on Iran, Mai Sato, said in a media interview that at least 5,000 people had been killed, noting that according to information she received from medical sources, the death toll might be as high as 20,000
The only way for someone to read that as “likely 3000 people have died” is if one takes the Iranian numbers as fact. For those whose experience is that authoritarian states crushing protests provide accurate numbers this might be somewhat convincing. To say nothing of the fact that this is a stupendous number of people.
I found it convincing of the opposite: that this is not a neutral summary of the context.
Where do you prefer to get neutral summaries from?
The US has hundreds of thousands of ethnic Iranian immigrants, not sure where you got the idea that it's not made up of many ethnic groups.
> It seems likely that at least 3000 died but were these protestors brutally crushed by the government or a the government quashing a foreign-backed uprising? We've established the foreign powers armed some of these groups;
I am myself someone who rabidly hates US imperialism but when you use US imperialism to justify slaughtering thousands of civilians you lose all credibility and will not be able to convince anyone who disagrees with you of anything, no matter how many sources you link. Even if the US instigated the protests, and even if it were "only" 3000 dead, killing 3000 protestors is Very Bad and you don't need to go out of your way to justify it. It is possible for both US imperialism to be bad and for an authoritarian religious regime killing innocent people to be bad. One's thinking should be more nuanced than a struct with a single bool.
their lies dont even pass the sniff test.
but still this comment gets downvoted because the whole internet is flooded with israeli bots to manufacture consent for this bs
in my view israel needs to be sanctioned until it gives up its nuclear weapons. it is a shame for humanity that this pariah apartheid state is allowed to exist, stoke conflicts everywhere and murder people in neighboring countries
The Nazis managed to murder 35000 people within 2 days at Babiy Yar, in one single region of Ukraine, with no prepared specialized infrastructure, just bussing them to a ravine and shooting them.
Back then Kiev region had about 2 million people. The entire Iran has 90 million, 45 times more.
> Trump openly admiited it [2].
isn't a credible source, as the linked article admits:
The current POTUS contradicts himself from one day to the next and frequently waffles for hours spouting factually incorrect material.One of the exceptions to hearsay is called the admission against interest. That means that if you say something that hurts your case or hurts you in some other way (eg implicating you in a crime) then you will generally be allowed to testify to that.
So this isn't a court of law obviously but I still find this analogy useful. Yes, Trump says some crazy stuff and even openly lies. All of that's true. But that doesn't mean you should ignore everything he says. What he says can be corroborated (or contradicted) but it also carries weight if it's an admission against interest.
In this case, Trump claiming to have armed "protesters" is absolutely an admission against interest. It undercuts American propaganda that the Iranian regime brutally crushed an organic protest by ordinary citizens. As such, at least for me, the statement carries more weight. You can still look at the statement and see if other evidence contradicts or suports it of course.
I just don't know if those civilians will trust you. They have plenty of reasons not to.
It is to prevent hacking and tracking by US and Israel of what is going on over there, it is defensive since it has been shown that Iran's connected infrastructure is thoroughly compromised.
well... so obvious
Due to widespread protests and an attempt to crack down on coordination. This chain of events was widely reported.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Internet_blackout_in_Iran
You might also have to consider the propaganda campaigns the US could run against an Iranian population with web access. If the population isn't more discontent now than it already was, "secretly" replacing commercial ad placements on western websites with US propaganda when the requests come from Iranian sources could make them discontent or inflame them further, which is bad for the Iranian government.
That’s true in most counties. And for good reason.
Israel is tiny, and has a population of 10.1 million.
And a fair amount of military firepower. You probably shouldn’t be taking photos of, say, Iron Dome equipment locations.
Remember when Ukraine used the Russian cellular internet to operate drones that destroyed numerous Russian heavy bomber aircraft? That’s what the US/Israel would logically be expected to do if there were wide open internet access in Iran.
This is obvious game theory playing out militarily, people only see political suppression but warfare is a totally different ballgame.
If China were waging large scale war on the US I’d expect the exact same countermeasures to happen.