Starlink updates privacy policy to allow consumer data to train

(finance.yahoo.com)

98 points | by malchow 11 hours ago ago

27 comments

  • ZiiS 9 hours ago ago

    Given their inherit latency, and cost; the equation for running everything via Wireguard is surly worth it.

    • sneak 5 hours ago ago

      I already do this on my Starlink as well as my terrestrial residential cable modem. The GL.inet routers work great for this.

    • ranger_danger 9 hours ago ago

      Wireguard to where? Another ISP/VPN that can also sell/MITM your traffic just as well? Non-residential exit IPs are also very often blocked by many websites.

      • ZiiS 9 hours ago ago

        Residential ISPs are well setup for monitoring home traffic (and legally required to in most places). A VPS in a different jurisdiction is vastly less likely to be good at it.

        • globalnode 6 hours ago ago

          https fixes that mostly - unless your talking about metadata

          • kmbfjr 4 hours ago ago

            It is all metadata at this point. With statistical monitoring and sharing of netflow data, there is no anonymity on the internet.

            Entire businesses specialize in this; Nokia and Kentik.

      • ZiiS 9 hours ago ago

        You occasionally get blocked, but not that often if you can putup with a few more captchas. Can't remember it ever being more then a minor inconvenience and well worth this cost.

        • ranger_danger 8 hours ago ago

          My home internet is 5G, and many, many websites are blocked or have infinite captcha loops... even well-known sites. Etsy is blocked. Reddit/Discord/Locals is blocked. Archive.is only captcha loops. Even libera IRC is blocked. Trying to buy products online often gets the order flagged or canceled as a potential bot or VPN. IPs are rotated often so I unfortunately have to share bad-reputation IPs with people who keep the addresses on global blacklists like DroneBL that are used by many sites. Even 4chan blocks most of the IPs I get because other people post CP from there.

          Trying to use a VPS/cloud IP or well-known VPN provider, the experience for me is just as bad or worse.

          For some, the issue is a lot worse than you think.

    • expedition32 5 hours ago ago

      I never understood the business case for Starlink. You're either on fiber or 5G.

      • deaux 3 hours ago ago

        Exactly. I don't get the business case for cars too, you're either in a train or on a subway.

      • whynotmaybe 4 hours ago ago

        You're not the target audience.

        In many places, 5G doesn't work and you have to pay a lot for fiber installation.

      • _blk an hour ago ago

        Take your RV for an extended stay at the National Parks. RV parks are full of Starlinkers and I *love* the service. Roadtrips with kids are so much better too. The residential dish's in-motion performance is phenomenal and it's not even made for that.

  • bstsb 6 hours ago ago

    i wonder what consumer data they even have to train? they explicitly disclaim using customers’ internet data:

    > As a Starlink customer, you may share information with third parties (for example, when you send an email or communicate with a third-party website). In this context, we are not sharing personal information; you are using our Services to share data, and we are merely connecting you to the Internet.

    edit: reading this again, i may have misinterpreted this as “we don’t share this data” instead of “this isn’t considered us sharing data”. although in Section 1 they say they only collect diagnostic data in relation to customers’ connection speed/duration etc

  • Animats 10 hours ago ago

    Is Grok listening to Starlink traffic?

    • _blk an hour ago ago

      No, only Skynet

  • aquir 9 hours ago ago

    Sounds like loads of new VPN subscribers to me! I would certainly do it myself.

  • IshKebab 8 hours ago ago

    I'd be surprised if they were really going to sniff traffic and dump that into training runs. 99% of traffic is going to be encrypted these days. Probably not very useful.

    • nirui 6 hours ago ago

      You're talking about a company owned by one of the richest "tech bro" out there. He's not just an ISP, he's a visionary (for better or worse) with a lots of ideas.

      TLS payload is encrypted, but meta data (such as SNI and other fingerprints) is not. These meta data could still be valuable for someone who know how to utilize it.

  • measurablefunc 10 hours ago ago

    The objective of every technocracy is to ensconce the entire planet in a panopticon. SpaceX is not sending those internet satellites into space just for consumer internet applications. Those satellites are also going to maintain the control plane for the sensors & actuators in the future technocratic panopticon.

  • ChrisArchitect 9 hours ago ago
  • DecoySalamander 6 hours ago ago

    The most interesting data running through Starlink is Ukrainian and Russian military comms (including feeds from drones). I wonder if Musk actually plans to tap into that.

    • archerx 6 hours ago ago

      I’m going to assume that they are encrypted especially for military purposes so unless they can crack the encryption it’s useless.

    • _blk an hour ago ago

      "Good luck" [in Russian accent]