Die Ukraine sagt, russische Truppen hätten für gefälschten Starlink bezahlt und sich selbst doxxt – Business Insider

If that’s accurate, that’s a pretty wild operational mistake. Shows how messy tech use in war can get.

To summarise for people who cannot be bothered reading this article:

Russian forces were using SpaceX’s Starlink for drones and battlefield communications, so SpaceX blocked unauthorized terminals in Ukraine.
Two OSINT groups, InformNapalm and MILITANT, ran Telegram bots and channels that appeared to help Russian troops register their Starlink terminals on a Ukrainian whitelist.
Russian soldiers then shared details such as their terminal ID numbers, satellite dish numbers, Starlink account numbers, and their location coordinates in latitude and longitude.
Some soldiers also paid money for the fake service.
The information was forwarded to Ukrainian drone and logistics advisor Serhii Sternenko.

GREAT JOB!

i’m utterly baffled why super-genius Musk waited so long to turn off access for a warring aggressor when he could have done it at any time. I mean, it doesn’t take a PR savant to figure out how that’s gonna look.

Pwned