The University of Texas Hacked Starlink’s Signal So It Can Be Used as a GPS Alternative. Their efforts have helped Russia track Ukrainians using Starlink. Great work.

In addition to providing high-speed internet connectivity to even the most remote corners of the Earth, the over 3,000 satellites that make up the Starlink network have the potential to do even more, like replace the two dozen satellites that power the Global Positioning System. SpaceX passed on the idea, so a team of researchers took the long way to leverage Starlink as a GPS alternative.

Although Starlink’s thousands of satellites each maintain a non-geostationary position in low-Earth orbit, and GPS satellites follow one of six different orbits that circle the planet twice every day, they both share a common feature: they beam signals down to the surface of the Earth. Starlink’s signals deliver internet, while the signals from multiple GPS satellites are used by navigation devices to triangulate their exact position on the planet.

Todd Humphreys and a team of researchers from the University of Texas at Austin’s Radionavigation Laboratory realized that Starlink could also serve as an accurate and reliable backup to the Global Positioning System, but SpaceX eventually decided that it was not a priority for the company, and stopped cooperating with the researchers. A setback, for sure, but the UT Austin team didn’t actually need intimate knowledge of what exactly the Starlink satellites were broadcasting, they just needed the signals, which is something SpaceX had no way to hide.

Turning Starlink into a navigation system would have been easy with SpaceX’s cooperation, but without it, it took Humphreys’ team almost two years to reach their goal. They started by purchasing a Starlink terminal and service which was used to stream HD YouTube videos of tennis legend Rafael Nadal 24 hours a day. The setup was paired with an antenna nearby that was used to detect the regularly repeating synchronization sequence signals the Starlink service uses to help the ground-based receivers stay connected to the satellites. At no point did they attempt to crack or break the encryption that Starlink uses to keep its services exclusive to its subscribers.

news.yahoo.com/university-texas-hacked-starlink-signal-160600931.html

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