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USA's #Maxar isn't just cutting off classified satellite imagery to #Ukraine, but commercial unclassified services. How long until Starlink follows?

I'm not sure if the White House has thought thru the signal this is sending the world:

If you use American tech, cloud or telecoms, it can be turned off on a whim *while you're being invaded & bombed* to strongarm your country to sign a deal you don't want.

Imagine how many govts are currently frantically trying to migrate away from US services.

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in reply to Nicol Wistreich

When I worked many years ago in the energy sector electricity and gas could be provided on the basis of an interruptible contract. Interruptible gas - or indeed electricity - had a much lower unit price than non-interruptible. The difference was always made clear to purchasers - who were commercial and industrial enterprises. It was a way of managing excess demand on the supply system - enterprises who bought on an interruptible basis needed to invest in back up arrangements.
in reply to Z̈oé ⛵

@uint8_t @djr2024 that us services are no longer worth the paper the contracts are written on
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mastodon - Link to source
Nicol Wistreich
@schnedan I imagine it's the first slide of every SAP, Infosys, Tata, Fujitsu, Accenture, Deloite, Atos, KPMG, etc presentation to them right now tho…

Martin Vermeer FCD reshared this.

in reply to Nicol Wistreich

imagine gov boomers stuck in the transatlantic past, pretending things are fine. That seems to be the Dutch and German position.
in reply to Nicol Wistreich

eh #Canada? We must find alternatives to Starlink for our rural communities
in reply to Theresa

the talk here is about Eutelsat – they say they think they could replace in Starlink in months, not years: ccn.com/news/business/eutelsat…
This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to Theresa

@TheresaReason Viasat? viasat.com/satellite-internet/
in reply to Nicol Wistreich

I think that's why Europe uses Galileo instead of American GPS or Russian GLONASS
This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to Nicol Wistreich

@aral
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."
Henry Kissinger
in reply to Djembro, RO, supports 🇺🇦🇬🇪

@djembro
Much as it annoys me to say it, the Element client is the index implementation.

Several of the web-based clients are more comfortable, but not necessarily feature-complete. I have not used desktop clients other than Element (via flatpak)

in reply to Lisa

@lrt_writes
I can imagine an increasingly despotic US government requiring backdoors in secure communications platforms. It happens in autocracies. Even switching to Matrix may not be much of a hedge for very long, depending on how bad things get. One can use VPN as a wrapper until VPN also becomes illegal. US digital infrastructure just isn’t safe anymore. 💔
@Lisa
in reply to Djembro, RO, supports 🇺🇦🇬🇪

non-profit, open source protocol, E2E encrypted, CEO who is friendly to EU regulators and isn’t afraid to criticise the web giants - indeed left Google because she was critical of their unethical AI? What’s the problem?

I can see the appeal of Matrix but I’ve struggled enough to get family and friends to leave WA for Signal.. Matrix+Element/etc would be a stretch for them.

This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to Tom Tom

@tomtom
Are you asking whether traditional SMS could be an alternative to Signal? If so, the answer is absolutely not. SMS is wide open, no encryption at all.
in reply to Nicol Wistreich

i'm not sure you (or your followers, maybe?) understand that the white house is literally just doing what putin says, and putin's goal is to remove the US from the global stage outright.

trump doesn't care if he burns the place down, as long as putin's there to tell him he's king of the ashes.

in reply to Nicol Wistreich

Isn't that /precisely/ the message you would expect a Mobster-In-Chief to want to send ?

"Nice country you have there, too bad if anything happened to it..."

in reply to Nicol Wistreich

This has come up in #infosec work. Now that trump's goons are saying russia is no longer a threat and their cyberattacks just magically don't exist, would I like to trust an American firewall, for example? Among other things, this is really bad business.
in reply to Nicol Wistreich

I work in a #KRITIS field in Germany, and there definitely _is_ talk about not using any American-made software any more.
in reply to Nicol Wistreich

See, I’d love to see them frantically try to migrate away from the US.

So far I think, though in shock, they’re rather trying every way to rationalize staying with US infrastructure for the time being…

in reply to Nicol Wistreich

The democratic world should sanction Maxar executives, board members, and major shareholders, and withhold payment to the company, until it restores access to #Ukraine.

#eupol #ukpol #cndpoli #auspol #nzpol #etcpol

in reply to David

@deFractal getting more detail now: washingtonpost.com/national-se… – it's claimed #Maxar aren't blocking the Ukraine from accessing their service, it's just the US has stopped paying for Ukraine's access. So they (or someone else) could pay to restore it.
in reply to David

that's what the Post suggests, but it seems a bit ambiguous. An hour ago Maxar released a statement: linkedin.com/posts/maxar-techn… clarifying they were just following the orders of the US govt in stopping access. But they (so far) haven't said they would still provide this information directly to Ukraine if they were to pay, or if the UK/EU/etc were the contracting party.
This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to Nicol Wistreich

Governments frantically trying to migrate away from US services?
German #BSI: Hold my beer

(BSI is the German CISA equivalent. And they just signed a deal for secure cloud something with that US corporation… yesterday)

#bsi
in reply to Nicol Wistreich

@schnedan@social.tchncs.de If they don't they're not doing their jobs. Correction, if they didn't do so when Trump was first elected. This was a lot more predictable than that asteroid thingy.
in reply to Nicol Wistreich

We don't have to imagine it. We can just read news media from other countries.

I'm seriously considering subscribing to Le Monde. Turns out school French can take you a long way, and when you have an area of interest, you pick up that vocabulary quite quickly.

in reply to Nicol Wistreich

I ended my company's subscription to one large tech co today due to them being based in the USA. Too much risk exposure. Currently making plans to drop others. Speaking to others, this is becoming a common concern here in Ireland
in reply to Nicol Wistreich

Update: statement from Maxar clarifies they were providing access to "GEGD (the Global Enhanced GEOINT Delivery program), a U.S. govt program that provides access to commercial satellite imagery". GEGD gave access to Ukraine, & "the U.S. govt has temporarily suspended Ukrainian accounts in GEGD": linkedin.com/posts/maxar-techn….

Sounds like removing someone from your Netflix; it's not Netflix's choice, *unless* Netflix won't let them open a new ac. But Maxar haven't said Ukraine can just pay directly.

in reply to Nicol Wistreich

Maxar can only cut off access to commercial, that is, unclassified, imagery. The only entity that could cut off access to classified imagery is NRO. NRO owns the classified satellites and controls the tasking, collection, and processing of classified satellite imagery.

The original post only links Maxar (correctly) to unclassified imagery.

I'm not defending Maxar, only stating the facts, which still matters.

in reply to Karen

@kpdooty they definitely do. I’m not sure why Maxar’s statement didn’t just clarify if Ukraine want to pay for continued access - or if another country can pay for Ukraine’s continued access - that’s fine.
in reply to Nicol Wistreich

WTF is going on with private companies taking orders from this clown?? Surely there's some violation of fiduciary duty when they tank the international market for their services.
in reply to Cassandrich

@dalias
What about the fiduciary duties of the US government and people? The US agreed to provide protection from aggression to Ukraine under the Budapest Memorandum! #gop know about the agreement and they beat up Biden for not providing enough aid.
Now the world knows that the US CANNOT BE TRUSTED!

#putinisawarcriminal
#putinspuppet

in reply to Nicol Wistreich

I would like to mention that the EU have already plans on developing their own alternative to Starlink. Of course, it'll be years before it's available. Though alternatives to Starlink already exist and have existed for a long time afaik, but there might be some technical nuances there I'm not aware of
in reply to Nicol Wistreich

would be interesting to know if they can provide the same quality too, given their fewer satellites
in reply to Nicol Wistreich

How long, HOW FAR will this "WHITE FUCKING PRIVILEGE"
gonna carry PIMP-putins TRAITOR tRUMP-n-GOP Wreaking crews thru America???

StanleyHOOTZZ reshared this.

in reply to Nicol Wistreich

@cookingroffa not enough govs, I’d expect. Too many career politicians of the current generation have become complacent. It appears too many cannot imagine a multipolar cold-war scenario flavored with a good dose of Hitler-Stalin-Pakt, and thus are unable to take appropriate action.
in reply to Nicol Wistreich

And this will certainly cost a lot in human lives. This satellite network served the Ukrainians to find military targets on Russian territory.

This had forced the Russian army to move bomber bases well within their borders, making them less effective because they were easily found by anti-aircraft fire on their way to Ukrainian cities.

Now they can reposition them close to the border and bring death and destruction.

in reply to Nicol Wistreich

yeah the USA isn't looking like a great ally right now

theguardian.com/world/2025/mar…

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mastodon - Link to source
Frieke
@schnedan in Netherlands a plan for Migration to us cloud by government is put on hold. @bert_hubert toots on this topic (lot in dutch, but some english too)
in reply to Nicol Wistreich

those 5g Huawei contracts aren't looking so bad now. At least make you have multiple dictators in your ecosystem so you have greater tolerance for tantrums.
in reply to Nicol Wistreich

especially when one of them goes "I hate the USA so much, I'm going to make this technology better for free! That'll show them."
in reply to Nicol Wistreich

We've been telling people: what of they cut off their services? And the answer they would never. Why would they? Well, we know now
in reply to Bert Hubert NL 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦

@bert_hubert@mastodon.nl @Frieke72 @schnedan @bert_hubert@fosstodon.org

Just to let you know that Mastodon supports to limit timeline subscriptions per language. I suggested this for the accounts of the EU institutions and it has been implemented at least one year ago already.

in reply to Nicol Wistreich

It will take some time before America will be considered a trusted ally again. If ever.
in reply to Nicol Wistreich

Countries outside US that have ordered f-35 or other US jets or weapons should cancel their orders.

news.online.ua/en/the-us-is-en…

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in reply to Elon Muksis 🇺🇦 🇪🇺

@bhasic The F-35 is impossible to maintain without American tech support. Anyone who buys those is going to be under the USA's thumb long term.
in reply to Elon Muksis 🇺🇦 🇪🇺

@bhasic
With the #US is ending support for #Ukrainian F-16s.

It is only a matter of time that the US stops supplying parts to any F-16 to NATO.

It is Important that NATO countries standardize arms manufacturing without The US.... If a World War is coming NATO needs to be able to supply arms and parts knowing they can be used instantly.

Not to assume WWIII is coming is foolishness and doesn't bring it more likely also it is a viable deterrent to Putin that NATO is ready.

France and the UK needs to offer the Nuclear umbrella to all of Europe (while the UK's capability lasts)

The US is not a reliable friend of NATO

in reply to Paul 💙

@PGBeattie @bhasic
The US abomination has quickly become the most dangerous kind of enemy. The one within.

<img class=" title=":mastodon:"/>

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in reply to Nicol Wistreich

Same for cloud services, office software, hosting, servers... Great job!
in reply to Nicol Wistreich

Gmail Service.

Basta imaginar o que seria se Trump decidisse que o serviço do Gmail gratuito passasse a ser pago pelos utilizadores da União Europeia.

Ou simplesmente ser interrompido.

A Europa entrava em crise dum dia para o outro.

in reply to Nicol Wistreich

Not just governments. Everyone I know, family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances is on their way out. Many companies are in the process of securing data and systems.

Nicol Wistreich reshared this.