this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2025
603 points (98.4% liked)

Technology

66783 readers
4796 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

White House officials said the installation was an effort to increase internet availability at the complex. They said that some areas of the property could not get cell service and that the existing Wi-Fi infrastructure was overtaxed.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 21 points 6 hours ago

They said that some areas of the property could not get cell service and that the existing Wi-Fi infrastructure was overtaxed.

Starlink has absolutely nothing to do with either of those things...

[–] shades@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 hours ago

Shoulda put a Trojan on that trojan.

[–] arc@lemm.ee 16 points 6 hours ago

I do not believe for a second that communications within the Whitehouse are inadequate, or if they were, could not be solved in a secure manner. Slapping a Starlink in a few places sounds like an invitation to backdoor all communications. Not only that, it is an invitation to sidestep obligations to preserve government records.

[–] notannpc@lemmy.world 27 points 8 hours ago

Ah yes, because what the white house needs is an inferior ISP to plug the gaps that could easily be filled by proper wireless access point configuration and distribution.

This is definitely not going to come back to haunt us later.

[–] VoodooAcupuncture@lemmy.world 5 points 6 hours ago

Security concerns? No need to eavesdrop on electronics when they have Tulsi to just tell them everything.

[–] Snapz@lemmy.world 35 points 11 hours ago

Are you a white house staffer carrying a heavy stack of top secret documents? Do you desperately need both hands to vape or to text roger stone a progress report? Try DOCDASH!

Just request a docdasher in app and a helpful person like Yvegeny, Dmitri or Boris will show up to the white house on a motorcycle, take your documents from you, not copy and transmit them, and just keep them very safe, like tippy top safe.

[–] Zier@fedia.io 130 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

They literally installed spyware in the WH. National security is an utter joke with these traitors.

[–] Allonzee@lemmy.world 45 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

This country was destroyed under Reagan. We needed a national security strategy against the capitalists back then and instead invited them into the government.

This is just the fire sale, the vultures picking the well rotted corpse clean. Reagan and Welch destroyed this place, don't give Trump that much credit. He's just an opportunist who saw profit in chaos.

The United States 1776-1980 - Died of thirst waiting for Promised Golden Showers of Prosperity that never came - Useful Idiots

[–] cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 21 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Starlink should be abolished.

[–] Coreidan@lemmy.world 2 points 7 hours ago

With how spacex and Tesla are going I wouldn’t be surprised if it abolishes itself.

[–] DaddleDew@lemmy.world 223 points 15 hours ago (3 children)

In any healthy democracy, this would have been seen as a scandal exposing signs of corruption and would have likely resulted in the dissolution of the government and early election.

But the US is not a healthy democracy.

[–] kautau@lemmy.world 51 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Not to worry, "some cited security concerns." We're all set

[–] anomnom@sh.itjust.works 41 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Besides the security concerns, I want to know what they’re using it for, and how much bullshit they’re hiding by avoiding the official network.

It’s certainly not a speed and convenience thing.

[–] kautau@lemmy.world 3 points 11 hours ago

Yes. That’s the joke. I’m unsure how the burning terminator dying with a thumbs up wasn’t clear enough that there is obviously more to this than just “security concerns”

[–] henfredemars@infosec.pub 60 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

The corruption is clear, obvious, and blatant. Everyone knows about it, but there’s not a whole lot they can do. A good chunk of our citizens picked it on purpose.

[–] whostosay@lemmy.world 14 points 11 hours ago

There is actually so much we and the courts/Congress can do. We're just choosing not to do it, unfortunately.

[–] tabular@lemmy.world 10 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Given it's unrepresentative voting system I think how much is enough to be a democracy. T hot take for people that see democracy. Two parties to choose from is just one more than a clear dictatorship. If neither actually represents you then yeah it's not healthy .

[–] kautau@lemmy.world 13 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

Agreed, except for one point. It's an oligarchy. Our "dictator" was just selling cars on the White House lawn. Capitalism won to get to it's late stages, happy to let racist hatred and russian influence fester for continued capital self-interest

[–] SnortsGarlicPowder@lemmy.zip 31 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Somebody is going to have to explain to me how starlink is going to boost WiFi availability if it is routed from offsite using their current fibre network.

[–] dogslayeggs@lemmy.world 15 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

Yeah, this doesn't make sense to me. Starlink needs a dish that has to be outside without trees covering it, so it isn't like they can place new routers around the building that receive Starlink and have wifi capability. They will still have to run a cable from the dish(es?) to new wireless routers. How is that ANY different from just running new wireless routers from their existing fiber?

[–] ECB@feddit.org 4 points 6 hours ago

It's literally not any different. Starlink is just a less-reliable broadband internet connection, it has nothing to do with WiFi

[–] theneverfox@pawb.social 1 points 6 hours ago

Because now you don't have to run wires from the existing network to the new WiFi, you just plop them both in the new location!

But then if you want the access points to act like one WiFi network so walking around doesn't reset all your connections, all you have to do is run cables to the new WiFi access points from the original signal, unplug them from Star Link, then wire starlink into the main uplink as a fail over or something! Easy!

[–] a_postmodern_hat@lemmy.world 38 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (2 children)

Musk is literally a James Bond villain. Literally. Like LITERALLY a Bond villain.

Edit: minus the genius and charisma

[–] ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 28 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Imagine how galling this must be for Jeff Bezos. He's put so much effort into his Bond villain persona. The guy even now looks like Dr Evil. But he's being out eviled by a pudgy, dorky-looking South African nepo-baby.

[–] madjo@feddit.nl 17 points 13 hours ago

He even bought the James Bond license from the Broccoli family!

[–] EaterOfLentils@lemmy.world 8 points 12 hours ago

"Minus the genius and charisma"

You're describing an Austin Powers villain.

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 115 points 17 hours ago (9 children)

If you live in the DC area, absolutely do NOT sign up for this service.

100% chance that the government, as well as musks companies would be monitoring you directly 24/7.

[–] bitchkat@lemmy.world 5 points 9 hours ago

I recently bought a van and am planning on road tripping while working. I had assumed that I would get starlink so I could work pretty much anywhere.

That is dead and I guess I'll have to make sure I'm within range of a cell tower on working days.

[–] arf 35 points 16 hours ago (6 children)

I wholeheartedly agree.

However, it's hard to say that AT&T, Comcast, Cox and the like aren't all doing the same thing.

[–] slumberlust@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

Mark Klein showed us this was true years ago.

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 24 points 15 hours ago

The way I see stuff like this is that you don't have to hand over your information on a silver platter directly to the agents.

Like when a trainload of east germans was allowed to migrate to the west through a separate country, they just had to hand their passports to the Stasi before being let go.

When the Stasi agents came to the train to collect the passports the east germans just threw them on the floor instead of handing them over, that is kinda how this should be viewed.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (7 replies)
[–] YurkshireLad@lemmy.ca 15 points 12 hours ago

Are they then routing all starlink traffic to Russia?

[–] Allonzee@lemmy.world 16 points 13 hours ago

Enjoy the high latency.

[–] EaterOfLentils@lemmy.world 10 points 12 hours ago

I am all for making the White House less secure at this point.

[–] EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 26 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

The existing Wi-Fi infrastructure was “overtaxed” so they just threw up satellite instead of , I don’t know, improving the Wi-Fi infrastructure? There’s perfectly fine WiFi at sprawling work and college campuses, and stadiums that seat tens of thousands of people. What a joke.

[–] glimse@lemmy.world 16 points 13 hours ago

Network infrastructure is a science and we don't need no damn science in this country!

[–] Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 53 points 17 hours ago (3 children)

"some areas of the property could not get cell service"

Like the bunkers? Like hell did the white house not have cell service.

[–] jballs@sh.itjust.works 5 points 8 hours ago

Also how did they let that excuse get past the technical teams who should be implementing this? They added Star Link to the data center that supports the White House and then have traffic run through hard wires. This does absolutely nothing to improve spots with bad WiFi.

[–] dhork@lemmy.world 27 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

I can believe areas of the White House have no cell service, on purpose. Remember when they found those fake cell towers around DC?

https://www.wired.com/story/dcs-stingray-dhs-surveillance/

I bet at some point they installed some cell phone jammers specifically to limit the amount of foreign spying that could be done by fake towers, and they simply "forgot" to tell the incoming Trump administration....

[–] jlh@lemmy.jlh.name 29 points 16 hours ago

probably more likely they fired the original IT team and replaced them with Muskite interns

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] eran_morad@lemmy.world 32 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

FFS, can we deal with these fucking traitors already?!?

[–] xzot746@sh.itjust.works 8 points 13 hours ago

Well it looks like more people need to be screwed over, I guess maybe after it affects enough "Me's" it'll probably stay the same. The amount of damage that will be done before the American people stand up will be immense.

I honestly cannot believe that the average American is in agreement with this and that they think holding signs up will do anything. Sorry but they say violence is never the right course of action, but I think in this case you might need to see if that well regulated militia is ready to defend your freedom.

And shame on the Democratic party for just rolling over.

[–] _LordMcNuggets_@feddit.org 15 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

Anyone see the Johnny English with the American billionaire cyber-terrorist Jason Volta as the main antagonist?

That's how I see news coming from Washington developing on a daily basis.

We need you Rowan Atkinson.

[–] interested_party@lemmy.org 4 points 11 hours ago

Who's hand is on the power switch?

[–] miss_demeanour@lemmy.dbzer0.com 28 points 16 hours ago

President Musk making it feel more like home.
Add 13 children of ambiguous parentage he can ignore, and snug as a bug!

[–] altkey@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 13 hours ago

So they routed all traffic in the WH through his sattelites, yay. Do I understand correctly that being an internet provider (and as WH can be singled out) means he can now know what resources everyone there access and force many proxy\VPN options shut? So he can get at least basic understanding if someone access matrix servers or whatever to leak data critical of DOGE, to block things he doesn't like (e.g. live streaming broadcast for select journalists) or just to get one more reason to fire everyone?

[–] 9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world 12 points 14 hours ago

It would be a shame if some foreign actor could monitor Starlink internal networks.

load more comments
view more: next ›