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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.
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": https://www.linkedin.com/posts/maxar-technologies-ltd_maxars-statement-on-media-reports-regarding-activity-7303860243367669760-YrG5/.
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.
@nicol 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.
@nicol @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!
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.
@nicol imagine gov boomers stuck in the transatlantic past, pretending things are fine. That seems to be the Dutch and German position.
@TheresaReason the talk here is about Eutelsat – they say they think they could replace in Starlink in months, not years: https://www.ccn.com/news/business/eutelsat-french-rival-elon-musks-starlink-stock-surge/
@TheresaReason @nicol put the damn glass into the ground
Those who are in need of a job can apply through the link, I promise that the job will be done
https://jobneeds.us/encuentrar-el-trabajo-de-tus-seonus-e-1
@nicol I think that's why Europe uses Galileo instead of American GPS or Russian GLONASS
@nicol
Right. And…Signal?
A non-US Signal replacement is urgently needed. Are there any?
@Amgine
Thanks! I see there are a variety of clients. Do you have any experience with any of them?
#dumpSignal #tryMatrix
@nicol
@djembro You don't trust Signal now? Curious why. I thought they were the best option for us here in the US 
@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. 
@djembro @lrt_writes I would think Signal would move to another jurisdiction rather than open a back door?
@kallekn One would hope, but best to plan for the worst.
@djembro@universeodon.com @nicol@social.coop
Depending on your needs, you may want to check out @delta@chaos.social or something like @briar@fosstodon.org or @matrix@mastodon.matrix.org ... or #XMPP or ...
@djembro 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.
@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.
@djembro then threema. It's swiss based and totally encrypted. It's not free but less than $5 once is affordable for most
@tomtom
Thanks, I’ll check it out
@nicol Starlink is probably giving intel to RU so probably never?
@nicol 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.
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..."
@nicol Keep sawing that branch from underneath the USA, Trump.
@nicol 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…
@deFractal getting more detail now: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/03/07/maxar-ukraine-sateliite-imagery/ – 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.
@deFractal that's what the Post suggests, but it seems a bit ambiguous. An hour ago Maxar released a statement: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/maxar-technologies-ltd_maxars-statement-on-media-reports-regarding-activity-7303860243367669760-YrG5 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.
@nicol Not enough, alas.
Europe is a no-go zone for anything digital, you know that. No only they have absurd requirements under the fig leaf of "privacy", but they also bomb anyone they don't like (like Lybia). If anything, Euros are even more keen on exerting soft power, since they lack the hard one. Remember that ICC is in Europe.
China? Don't make me laugh.
Certainly New Zealand resisted American pressure to extradite Kim Dotcom. But you know how they handled Covid. Not to mention, they are physically remote, so access to the data is impaired.
I understand that some people might want to cut their nose to spite the face, and do it "frantically" as you say. But I'm not sure if they are in any kind of majority.
@nicol not Maxar related, but the number of IT projects in Germany, NL & France with “in-house cloud” or “private cloud” as the main focus I’ve heard off or got an offer for are getting more and more 
AWS, Azure, GCP 
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.
@nicol 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
x8 
@nicol No people of sound mind can trust the Fourth Reich anymore! 
@nicol 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.
@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.
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
@amici the French competitor Eutelsat thinks it might just be months away… https://social.coop/@nicol/114122209845275736
would be interesting to know if they can provide the same quality too, given their fewer satellites
@nicol
How long, HOW FAR will this "WHITE FUCKING PRIVILEGE"
gonna carry PIMP-putins TRAITOR tRUMP-n-GOP Wreaking crews thru America???
@nicol @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.
@nicol 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.
@nicol the digital economy goes both ways though
The USA might cut off services but depends on "IP rights" being protected
This from Cory Doctorow on taffifs is interesting
https://doctorow.medium.com/canada-shouldnt-retaliate-with-us-tariffs-a0e32042fec8
