Indian police demand Starlink identify alleged drug smugglers Police in India are demanding Starlink turn over customer details to assist its investigation into the country's biggest ever single seizure of narcotics. Police in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands reportedly sent a legal demand to Starlink to reveal who purchased the internet device that assisted to navigate a boat …
Why would a boat require an internet connection to navigate at sea when GPS is already used globally for marine navigation? Or is this a case of the Indian police looking for someone to take the rap for the smuggling operation? I can see why a seagoing vessel may well have a Starlink unit fitted, but the person or organisation that bought it could well have nothing to do with the smugglers and therefore have no liability there as there is no proof of misuse by the owner.
It's possible that the owner of the Starlink Unit has nothing to do with it, of course. However, on the other hand, let's look at the likelihood of that.
If the unit was stolen from the rightful owner, well you would expect the owner to have reported the kit as stolen to Space X and stopped paying for the connection. So it would have been useless to those who stole it, and no use on the boat. A pretty quick and easy answer for Space X to provide. No help to the Indian police, but also no false lead to waste time on.
If the owner leant the Unit to someone not realising what it would be used for. Well, there's a name that the actual owner can provide, saying I leant it to this person. There's a lead for the police.
If the Unit was taken without the owners knowledge, say they were on holiday at the time. Well again that generates leads, because it would have to be someone who knew the victim, knew they were going on holiday and for how long, and then could get access to their Unit. I consider this a highly unlikely scenario though, as when the owner comes back from holiday, they're going to notice not having internet anymore, and assume they've been robbed and cancel their subscription/connection. The planned voyage would have to be shorter than the planned holiday, and that seems unlikely, or the people on the boat would risk losing their comms mid journey.
Also, I would expect the whole point of the Starlink connection here was for comms not for navigation. A phone call or messages sent over Starlink, and not over a local provider (on which the local plod might be listening or could put pressure on) would likely be more secure (for a given value of secure of course).
Maybe they were using long-range drones to scout ahead or Google Maps satellite pictures to navigate.
GPS only tells you how precisely lost you are. A lot of boats use chart plotters to navigate that that might be downloading chart data, weather info etc. Given the Indians have seized the vessel, they'll have a pretty good idea what the connection was being used for.
It depends on where the mast is and it's power. It could work for 10-20 miles out to sea since you tend not to get trees, hills and tall buildings in the line of sight :-)
On the other hand, this particular archipelago is known, as per the article, for islands inhabited be people who don't like or use technology, so maybe less likely for there to be network coverage even on the islands, let alone at sea nearby.
"Also, I would expect the whole point of the Starlink connection here was for comms not for navigation."
And that in itself was risky as Starlink is not licenced for use on Indian territory so Starlink may have questions to answer re geofencing and it's ability to stop devices working in areas they are not supposed to work in. We can only assume the smugglers didn't know Starlink should not work while inside Indian territory and were "lucky" that Starlinks geofencing didn't disable it when it crossed the border.
and give Modi's people the finger.
If that fails then a word in his no 2's ears (Trump) and India will be subject to a 100% tariff.
Musk (as well as many in Trumps cabinet) are/is so rich that they can give the finger to almost every government on the planet.
They are the new UNTOUCHABLES.
Funnily enough Musk tried that with Brazil in response to them demanding removal of some accounts on X (and a local contact for implementing the changes). Musk told them to bugger off. Brazil cut-off Space X and Starlink in Brazil. Apparently it's a big market for Starlink. Musk held out less than a week, before bending over and doing EVERYTHING Brazil demanded.
India has the potential to be an even bigger market for the Muskrat. So he will do whatever he is told to do by the government of India, if he wants to get into that big market.
We might have to wait until the next falling out between Trump and Musk (I give it 6 months) before Musk starts getting hit hard by the various court cases against him in the US. but that doesnt mean other lands will simply roll over if he doesnt follow their rules...
He and others like him think that he can buy whole governments.
He tried to make the UK government raise the price of Petrol/Diesel so he could sell more crappy Tesla's. (I am an EV owner who had a Model 3 2019 to 2023. It was the worst car ever)hie
Being 'First Buddy' with the Liar in Chief, has made him even more emboldened to get his own way as part of a Fascist./Dictatorial Government come Jan 2025.
Boycott anything that Musk has any financial involvment with. He will clearly be trying to buy what is left of the opposition to Trump so that Congress turns into the sort of Parliament we see in Moscow and Beijing
The world economy could tank inside a year. Just remember who is responsible for a lot of it. Elon Musk.
To be honest, I can't recognize any real-live use-cases for Starlink that would be moral (*). The same way as I don't recognize any real-live use-case for street-legal 1000HP hypercars. Or 200HP motorbikes.
(*) yes I know some people living in remote places can have Internet access, but that doesn't fit into "real-life" category. If you want to travel around the world in your sailboat, please do so, but why would you need high-speed Internet access ?
While I agree that Starlink makes it easier, cheaper and faster, there was internet for ships and aircraft before Starlink.
Intelsat, Inmarsat and Eutelsat amongst other :-)
There's even an award for World's Best Inflight Internet Service Provider, and there's more than one to choose from :-)
"I can't recognize any real-live use-cases for Starlink that would be moral"
People in Ukraine after the Ruskies blew up the infrastructure?
People in rural places where existing service providers can't be arsed to provide connectivity or say "we can, but" and hand over an eye watering quote.
Ditto above but when the providers say you'll be hooked up to something better than a megabit in 2012... no 2018... no 2022...no seriously 2028 for reals...
People living in places where even the service providers don't go - up mountains, across deserts, etc. It's damn near impossible to do some things these days without an internet connection, these people will need one too.
@heyrick, have a hundred upvotes.
There are plenty of not spots anywhere you care to look, but those out of the way houses in remote valleys and on rugged coasts have little to no other option. Community WiMAX (remember that?) is useful but it depends on local enterprise.
And as someone who has made a career out of boldly providing communications where none (or at least not very much) have gone before, I could give you a long list of legit use cases.
Don't they know that bribery is the proper way to get an American telecom company to snitch? It's how the American government gets around its pesky constitution to spy on people. It's not an illegal wiretap if the information is purchased. It's business. Demand? Just buy it and the delivery will be faster. Probably cheaper, too, if there's lawyers involved.
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