YHK - yet another hacker news clone

Fire at Starlink site in Bulgaria after suspected sabotage in Poland

189 points ilamont 2 hours ago 115 comments

toomuchtodo 1 hour ago | parent

I find it somewhat interesting Russia is likely sabotaging these stations while Musk is limiting StarLink capabilities to Ukraine in fighting Russia. Very Spy vs Spy. Pick a lane!

salviati 1 hour ago | parent

Some are disabled by Musk, some are disabled by sabotage. No contraddiction.

bflesch 1 hour ago | parent

It might just be feel-good propaganda to reduce the PR fallout for starlink/musk.

"See guys please don't cancel your Starlink orders russia also thinks we are the enemy!"

tencentshill 1 hour ago | parent

Scarily enough, money isn't his main motivation. He willingly destroyed tesla sales for politics.

bflesch 1 hour ago | parent

It's not only about musk but about continued US influence over European defense. If every European defense company moves away from the Starlink platform the US loses a lot of leverage. If they create "plausible deniabiliy" feel-good propaganda like this one, then they can convince some decision makes to keep building defense projects upon the Starlink platform.

scottyah 1 hour ago | parent

Haha you really just can't win as a builder. Half the people despise him for doing anything for money, and the other half hate him because he cares for politics over money.

origini 1 hour ago | parent

I don't think he really cares about politics.

He was proper left wing before, switched over to right wing.

There were plenty of stories and timelines were he as really lucky regarding his money and his investments.

Im pretty sure he did all of this to lobby for himself.

Why would he try to change or fix USA Politics for the better of humanity if he stated that earth is over and we need mars.

DOGE? His way of fighting burocracy and environmental rules. Giving money to Trump? Subsidies, advertising, reduction of environmental rules etc.

chews 56 minutes ago | parent

He was left wing cause that sweet tax credit for alternate energy... does anyone remember A123 and the amount the Obama administration put into it. Literally, Solar City and Tesla were to hit the sweet sweeet rebates. You can see the effects by companies like Ford canceling the F150 lighting cause the consumer breaks are gone, he was pillaging California and other Federal rebates to build his businesses, then does SpaceX to suck funds from the DoD to launch NRO sattelites. His affiliations go where the money gun blows.

bigyabai 14 minutes ago | parent

You may note that 0/2 halves appreciate his lack of principles and capricious political endeavors.

If it was, say, Tim Cook being dissected, people would also criticize his inconsistent political views and support for self-serving deregulation.

Fricken 12 minutes ago | parent

Also he's a dirty fucking Nazi. Maybe that has something to do with it.

jonas21 45 minutes ago | parent

Did he though? Tesla sales have been basically flat for the past few years -- not growing, but certainly not "destroyed" either. They still have over 50% US market share for EVs.

And Tesla's stock price (which is what correlates with Musk's wealth) is up 50% since the 2024 election.

PorciiVorbesc 1 hour ago | parent

> while Musk is limiting StarLink capabilities to Ukraine in fighting Russia

Can you share a link? AFAIK Musk blocked Starlink for Russians, not Ukrainians.

ShinyCyril 1 hour ago | parent

https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/ukraine-accus...

scottyah 1 hour ago | parent

Lots of quotes from Ukrainians about what they are accusing SpaceX of, and even misleading titles "NO WARNING BEFORE STARLINK CUTS", but the actual meat of it is pretty hidden.

Starlink never allowed use for offensive drone attacks, Starshield is what they were using, and it is a product fully controlled by the USG.

PorciiVorbesc 51 minutes ago | parent

>Lots of quotes from Ukrainians about what they are accusing SpaceX of, and even misleading titles "NO WARNING BEFORE STARLINK CUTS"

Whatever you do, can't make them happy I guess.

jkestner 1 hour ago | parent

You're telling me appeasement doesn't work?

tcdent 1 hour ago | parent

You're talking about Starshield, which is operated by the US Government via services contracted, not personally regulated by Musk himself.

Starlink, the commercial product, was always off limits for military operations (the type that require connectivity at 100+ MPH).

So, no, this is not one person dictating the usage.

Starlink’s Acceptable Use Policy explicitly prohibits:

- Remotely controlling or piloting any aerial drone or unmanned vehicle (unless otherwise contractually permitted by SpaceX).

- Engaging in any military activity other than approved morale/welfare/recreation programs for service members.

toomuchtodo 1 hour ago | parent

Can you say with assurance, hopefully with evidence, which entity has degraded service as described?

> Starlink’s Acceptable Use Policy explicitly prohibits

Starlink's AUP is whatever Musk decides it is when he decides. He is petty, and there are robust examples of his pettiness as it relates to X and Starlink (I'm unaware if he's weaponized Tesla vehicle access in this regard, but welcome citations, if they exist).

"For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law."

https://daringfireball.net/linked/2026/04/29/musk-more-petty...

(if you do not rely on Musk controlled systems, he cannot weaponize them against you; choose your risk exposure accordingly)

scottyah 1 hour ago | parent

Yes- if they were using it for drone attacks and the service stopped/slowed, that was not Starlink, because it never would have happened in the first place.

roosterIllusi0n 1 hour ago | parent

It's only one set of satellites. Stop pretending that its different.

flutas 54 minutes ago | parent

They actually are separate satellites and it's easily checked:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starshield#Launches

idiotsecant 26 minutes ago | parent

This only says that dedicated satellites exist, which is obvious and public knowledge. What it doesn't comment on is whether starlink and starshield use any common ifra, which they almost certainly do. The number of starshield satellites is simply way, way, way too low to meet the claims that people are making about the system. It's a geometry problem.

culi 1 hour ago | parent

Starshield uses all of Starlink's satellites and a few special ones specific to Starshield. There's been plenty of cases in Ukraine of suicide drones being configured to starlink accounts instead of military ones. In fact, that's exactly how Russia took advantage of starlink for the first 2 years.

While there might be a legal distinction between the two systems, technically speaking, it's mostly a matter of configuration.

heaney-555 1 hour ago | parent

>Musk is limiting StarLink capabilities to Ukraine

Incorrect. The US government limited Starshield, the military version of Starlink which it controls. SpaceX has no say.

paimapi 1 hour ago | parent

It must be nice to think there is such a clear and high wall between private corporate actors and the US government in 2026. I want to live in that delusion, too. Unfortunately, I retain a minimum amount of skepticism.

From the Starshield Wiki page:

>While SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell has indicated that there is little information she is allowed to disclose about Starshield, she has noted "very good collaboration" between the intelligence community and SpaceX on the program.

>The retired four-star general Terrence O'Shaughnessy, who previously ran U.S. Northern Command, is the vice president for SpaceX's Special Programs Group who is thought to be involved with Starshield.[1] The Wall Street Journal reported that Starshield's online job postings required people with top-secret clearances, as well as experience working with the Defense Department and intelligence community — such as representing Starshield to Pentagon combatant commands

>Col. Eric Felt, director of space architecture at the office of the assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration, said that there are plans to acquire at least 100 Starshield-branded satellites for this purpose by 2029. He said that while the military is an active user of SpaceX's commercial Starlink service, they also want to take advantage of the company's dedicated Starshield product line.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starshield

numpad0 1 hour ago | parent

Or that one wasn't Musk but Starlink sat2sat turns out to be mostly smoke and mirrors, and the satellites simply could not provide services without the ground station in the immediate vicinity of terminals.

chews 1 hour ago | parent

He get's his bags from the DoD either way... in-fact the chaos undoubtedly is actually more profitable, make hay while the sun is up... we live in a busted reality of broligarchs that are actually DoD welfare queens. They are literally on both sides of the trade so profit is inevitable. When america elect's a clown, we get a whole 3 ring circus.

nickff 1 hour ago | parent

>"Bulgarian Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev told parliament that additional security measures had been introduced at similar facilities, even though responsibility for their protection rested with their owners."

It seems absurd that the government is blaming SpaceX for not securing its property against trespass and vandalism/arson, especially when it seems likely that the violations are by foreign-state-sponsored actors. If this sort of issue is not the responsibility of local police and federal agencies, I am not sure what is. I understand that railways in some countries have their own police, but it is my understanding that SpaceX has not been granted such powers in any country.

PorciiVorbesc 1 hour ago | parent

>If this sort of issue is not the responsibility of local police and federal agencies, I am not sure what is.

It's the Balkans mate. You pay next to no taxes, and so you also get next to no services back from the government.

The Police, education, healthcare, courts, etc. that exist, is just a skeleton crew in minimum load bearing role, not to actually solve your problem when you need it. For that you gotta pay private and costs extra.

phoronixrly 1 hour ago | parent

As a Balkanian I vouch for this. Even what little you pay as taxes gets embezzled and you are always on your own.

ExoticPearTree 7 minutes ago | parent

On the upside, there is little that surprises you and you thrive in any environment. Balkans FTW.

miroljub 57 minutes ago | parent

Why would Balkan tax payers pay to secure foreign corporation? Especially if that corporation is involved in a war they don't care which makes it a legitimate military target.

PorciiVorbesc 50 minutes ago | parent

>Why would Balkan tax payers pay to secure foreign corporation?

Because foreign corporations operating in the Balkans pay taxes in the balkans, own property/real estate on Balkan soil on which their business operates, and employ workers in the balkans.

miroljub 30 minutes ago | parent

Bulgaria is not a war party, Starlink is. Whatever taxes they pay, it doesn't cover special military protection or war involvement, just regular protection from theft, trespass and similar, like any other company not involved in war.

PorciiVorbesc 28 minutes ago | parent

>Bulgaria is not a war party, Starlink is [...] it doesn't cover special military protection or war involvement

Huh? So by your logic, if Russian soldiers in fatigues are shooting up a Ukrainian Roshen candy shop in Sofia Bulgaria, it's no the job of the Bulgarian state to intervene and fire back at those Russian soldiers on Bulgarian soil or arrest them, because according to you it's just a war dispute between Russia and Ukraine that doesn't concern Bulgaria and it's government law enforcement?

In the end it'll be up to the courts to decide if the incident on Starlink is an act of war not covered by insurance and law enforcement, or vandalism that falls under the responsibility of the Bulgarian state law enforcement, but you're logic is pure comedic FUBAR.

FabCH 13 minutes ago | parent

A more appropriate comparison would be if Russian agents assassinated a local industrialist.

And, well, would you expect the state to proactively assign military protection details to such people?

No. They would have their own body guards, and maybe a police protection if needed. But not army.

The spy and counterspy agency would probably investigate, but they are not going to post a flak cannon next to each Starlink base station.

petesergeant 44 minutes ago | parent

You're seriously asking why the state would enforce property rights?

miroljub 27 minutes ago | parent

They should rather seize the property of a company trying to make a country involved in war and endangering its population by operating military actions from that country soil.

warkdarrior 42 minutes ago | parent

Because that foreign corporation presumedly purchased the local property, pays local taxes on it, and probably employs some local people. Or are you claiming that the property of anyone foreign anywhere is up for grabs because they're foreign?

FabCH 19 minutes ago | parent

In many countries, foreigners are not even allowed to buy property in the first place.

It’s not exactly uncommon or inconceivable that yes, the property of foreigners doesn’t quite get the same protections.

walrus01 1 hour ago | parent

Starlink sites are mostly at dwdm regen hut sites, which as a general industry baseline have a remarkably low level of security.

arccy 1 hour ago | parent

most of what police do is after the fact. you're responsible for securing your own property, security guards are a thing everywhere.

buckle8017 1 hour ago | parent

security guards vs FSB.

uh huh

FireBeyond 26 minutes ago | parent

Why would the FSB care? Tthe recent limitations on SpaceX in the Ukraine are to Russia's benefit, not Ukraine's.

NetMageSCW 19 minutes ago | parent

I believe he was suggesting the saboteurs were FSB because shutting down Ukraine’s Internet access is still in Russia’s interest.

PorciiVorbesc 1 hour ago | parent

>most of what police do is after the fact.

This. Police are just the clean-up crew who come 20 minutes after, and fill in the paperwork proving that something bad did indeed happen to you, that you can then use for your lawsuit or insurance claim, nothing more.

Unless you're a politician or the billionaire owner of an island, they're not gonna do much more to actually prevent or solve your problem.

nickff 1 hour ago | parent

>"you're responsible for securing your own property, security guards are a thing everywhere."

Maybe Bulgaria differs from most countries, but security guards seem to be mostly theatre. Private actors are generally very limited in what they can do to secure property, and they're usually required to basically call the police and hope the police show up in time to do something, which is often unlikely in either the countryside or industrial areas.

fasterik 1 hour ago | parent

I think the point would be that it's the private company's responsibility to provide a minimum level of security, even if their job is just for deterrence, documentation, and notifying police in a timely manner. Even if it's mostly "theatre" it still serves a purpose.

EA-3167 46 minutes ago | parent

It really depends on the site being secured and who's acting as a guard. Try to storm a major US airbase and you'll learn very quickly that not all guards are created equal. Do the same as your local strip mall and yeah... that guy is only there to break up fights between kids and call the cops.

gostsamo 1 hour ago | parent

Local here. The new prime minister is a spineless russian rag and everyone around him is from the former communist party. You won't find in them anything approaching self-respect or actual will desire to defend against any russian provocation.

jacquesm 51 minutes ago | parent

Well, then he's on Elon's side I guess...

numpad0 1 hour ago | parent

> If this sort of issue is not the responsibility of local police and federal agencies,

... it means those properties are own sovereign nations, or at least autonomous zones! woo hoo, time to declare independence of People's Republic of Mars.

Geof25 1 hour ago | parent

It is not absurd at all. You can't arrest somebody for a sabotage without letting him to execute the deed. Because if he won't execute there's nothing to arrest him for...

So to prevent a sabotage is to have several layers of security (i.e multiple fences) so you will force the saboteur to commit minor crimes like trespassing first and also slow the saboteur significantly so you can arrest him for these minor crimes.

ceejayoz 56 minutes ago | parent

> You can't arrest somebody for a sabotage without letting him to execute the deed.

Sure you can. We convict people of conspiracy all the time.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/overt_act

Geof25 49 minutes ago | parent

Arresting all the people who happen to walk past a strategic object will fill up your prisons very quickly.

ceejayoz 48 minutes ago | parent

Yes, that would be very dumb. Who suggested that?

Geof25 38 minutes ago | parent

How else would you like to discover a conspiracy if the saboteur is a tourist coming from abroad? Or of a saboteur is a child who got promised 1000eur for it?

Forgeties79 36 minutes ago | parent

Look at the many examples of it happening for your answer. This isn’t theoretical.

ceejayoz 33 minutes ago | parent

> How else would you like to discover a conspiracy if the saboteur is a tourist coming from abroad?

Tips? Mistakes? Customs officers getting a funny feeling about something in their bags? Google searches? Purchases of stuff to make explosives with? Surveillance? The child tells their parents some creepy guy offered them a thousand Euros? Do you think intelligence agencies don't already look for this sort of thing?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Pastorius has a nice example of how this works that doesn't even rely on modern surveillance tech. They accomplished zero sabotage, and six were put to death for it.

> Even before the mission began, it was in danger of being compromised, as George Dasch, commander of the team, left confidential documents on a train, and one of the agents, while drunk, announced to patrons in a Paris tavern that he was a secret agent.

> Immediately upon reaching the beach, at around 30 minutes past midnight the saboteurs were discovered amidst the dunes by unarmed Coast Guard Seaman John C. Cullen, who was accosted by Dasch and offered a bribe of $300. (Cullen had been shortchanged, the money only amounted to $260.) Cullen feigned cooperation but reported the encounter.

> Additional breaches of secrecy occurred; Kerling had boasted to a colleague about their mission, and in Chicago, Herbert Haupt had asked his father to buy him a sports car claiming he needed it while traveling on business for the German government.

Any operation involving humans has opportunities for fuckups.

Geof25 19 minutes ago | parent

99% of saboteurs won't do string of such stupid mistakes. So it is a vanishing chance bordering on luck that intelligence will prevent anything and it will be possible to apply conspiracy charges.

ceejayoz 10 minutes ago | parent

> 99% of saboteurs won't do string of such stupid mistakes.

Why would I presume this to be any more accurate than "can't arrest somebody for a sabotage without letting him to execute the deed" was?

If sabotage is so easy to perform without detection, why aren't motivated actors doing more of it? It's certainly not a lack of motive at play, here.

Humans make mistakes. The saboteur can't afford any. The cops only have to get lucky once.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-Cross_System

> After the war, it was discovered that all the agents Germany sent to Britain had given themselves up or had been captured, with the possible exception of one who committed suicide.

Not a single successful agent in five years of war.

chinathrow 47 minutes ago | parent

Drones do not care about fences.

aucisson_masque 38 minutes ago | parent

> It is not absurd at all. You can't arrest somebody for a sabotage without letting him to execute the deed. Because if he won't execute there's nothing to arrest him for...

You can very well arrest someone for the intention of sabotaging.

Pedro_Ribeiro 26 minutes ago | parent

Should SpaceX conduct the investigation to prove he had the intention of sabotaging? Ffs

ktm5j 44 minutes ago | parent

It's probably just politics, he needs someone to point the finger at.

iAMkenough 13 minutes ago | parent

It's private property, is it not? I don't see why taxpayers should be on the hook for everything, unless they get a return on their investment.

Nationalize the infrastructure if it's that important to the public.

luke5441 5 minutes ago | parent

If you have to defend it yourself why pay taxes? Why not use the money to hire your private army instead?

pelagicAustral 1 hour ago | parent

Right after Starlink partially cut the pipe to Ukraine... Right at the time an Ukranian is facing a court of justice for the Nord Stream pipeline...

Geof25 1 hour ago | parent

So you think that Ukraine is able to pull out such operation on foreign soil in matter of hours?

pelagicAustral 58 minutes ago | parent

Assuming they have a semi-competent military complex, then they should be able to put together plans ahead of time, measures and counter-measures, just like any other institution. What's so shocking about that idea?

Seems pretty feasible at this point that they might be trying to drag NATO into all-out war.

kspacewalk2 30 minutes ago | parent

Why would Ukraine attack infrastructure it uses (today's capabilities downgrade is partial, stationary terminals function just fine for example)? In a friendly country? Believe me, it has much more important things to worry about, like surviving a genocidal invasion and countering indiscriminate bombing campaigns.

>trying to drag NATO into all-out war.

By sabotaging a few antennas? "Dragging NATO into an all-out war" is no easy task, if even possible at this point. Just ask the Russians. They have attacked German airports with drones, and barely elicited an upgrade from moderate to strong concern.

pelagicAustral 27 minutes ago | parent

At heart, honestly, I hope you are right, but the signs are there.

culi 1 hour ago | parent

I didn't realize that in addition to the 11,127 satellites in our orbit it also takes over 1,500 ground antenna in the US alone to run this network? It seems likely that there is much more ground infrastructure than space infrastructure to make Starlink work

api 1 hour ago | parent

The satellites are glorified repeaters.

There was some talk about having the satellites form a laser mesh but I don't think they've gone live with anything like that, so it almost always just comes back down at the nearest site.

Polizeiposaune 59 minutes ago | parent

Most of the satellites now have three 200GBps inter-satellite links. The starlink V3 that will be launched on the big rocket reportedly have six ISLs.

devmor 30 minutes ago | parent

Since when? Last I heard this was just vaporware.

pavon 12 minutes ago | parent

Since 2021 when they started deploying the v1.5 satellites.

Aachen 21 minutes ago | parent

Yes, they had these plans from the get-go so launching the necessary hardware is not surprising. The question was whether anything like that went live

Once it does go live, anyone could see the lower ping between two users of this network. If they say it got enabled, that wouldn't be hard to independently verify

ranger_danger 10 minutes ago | parent

Do you have a source for this claim?

detritus 46 minutes ago | parent

Wait. They're not doing the orbital mesh?!

I thought that was fundamental to the whole network?

Not another Elon bullshit?

NetMageSCW 8 minutes ago | parent

Don’t jump on the ignorance bandwagon.

antiford2049 44 minutes ago | parent

Well, if they are just glorified repeaters, perhaps european union can hurry the fuck up and build their own network, because at the pace of events we are seeing in about 1 year from now, the USA and Russia will tell us how Ukraine and EU are responsible for starting the war and they need to learn a lesson.

Oh wait, we are already here as if few days ago. Never mind.

signatoremo 12 minutes ago | parent

Laser link has been operational since 2021:

https://www.trackstarlink.com/guides/starlink-laser-links-ex...

NetMageSCW 8 minutes ago | parent

They’ve had it since at least 2022, here is a more recent document explaining access in the middle of the ocean for Royal Caribbean cruise ships:

https://www.royalcaribbean.com/guides/wifi-cruise-packages

MisterMunchkin 49 minutes ago | parent

How else do you expect the satellites to connect to AWS or Google? It obviously has to come down at some point otherwise your packets wouldn’t be able to go anywhere…

MisterMunchkin 46 minutes ago | parent

I am getting a bit concerned that Russia is actually planning an attack on Eastern Europe.

It’s just like red storm rising, their refineries have been blown up and their diesel will only last 6 months. They need to move now or they’ll have to accept peace and economic prosperity.

ttul 30 minutes ago | parent

At least one betting market has the odds at around 25% [1] of a direct military conflict with a NATO country by year's end. It will be interesting to see how things change after November's midterm elections. For what it's worth, Metaculus forecasters show a spike of likelihood at the end of September, 2027, with about 20% of forecasters saying that's when a military clash will happen. I'm not sure what's driving that spike in the forecast.

[1] https://polymarket.com/event/nato-x-russia-military-clash-in... [2] https://www.metaculus.com/questions/41238/when-will-russia-a...

kgeist 7 minutes ago | parent

Attacking a NATO country would mean total war for Russia. Currently there are no signs that Russia is ready for total war, or willing to have one. Russia has been fighting a war of attrition in Ukraine for 4 years, without a moving frontline, exactly because it wants to win by slow attrition.

Total war (all money going to the war, millions of mobilized workers, etc.) would result in an economic collapse, which Russia is trying to avoid. Aside from "inconveniences" like Yandex AI not working after a data center hit, Russia's everyday life is largely unaffected by the war (at least compared to Ukraine's) – exactly because it is avoiding total war.

If Russia were desperate enough to finally go all in and have full mobilization (millions of conscripts, all industry working around the clock building nothing but drones and missiles, etc.), why would it start by attacking random EU countries instead of Ukraine itself? So I think it's very unlikely that anything is going to happen to Europe other than sabotage here and there. Remember that Putin is a KGB agent, and they're more about targeted tactical operations than strategic chess play.

The whole "special military operation" was itself just a way to quickly coerce Zelensky into signing an agreement by threatening force, without total war, but it fell apart, so they had to go this war-of-attrition route

postingawayonhn 31 minutes ago | parent

Europe looks incredibly weak at present and the US incredibly corrupt.

senderista 14 minutes ago | parent

There is definitely much more sympathy for Russia in Bulgaria than in Poland (I've noticed this esp. with older folks: "our Russian brothers").