this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2025
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Satellites Are Leaking the World’s Secrets: Calls, Texts, Military and Corporate Data (www.wired.com)
submitted 1 day ago by schizoidman@lemmy.zip to c/technology@lemmy.world
20 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

https://archive.md/QMvAI

With just $800 in basic equipment, researchers found a stunning variety of data—including thousands of T-Mobile users’ calls and texts and even US military communications—sent by satellites unencrypted.

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[–] treadful@lemmy.zip 15 points 1 day ago (2 children)

“Generally, our users choose the encryption that they apply to their communications to suit their specific application or need,” says a spokesperson for SES, the parent company of Intelsat. “For SES’s inflight customers, for example, SES provides a public Wi-Fi hot spot connection similar to the public internet available at a coffee shop or hotel. On such public networks, user traffic would be encrypted when accessing a website via HTTPS/TLS or communicating using a virtual private network.”

Can't decide the side of the fence I am on for this. Of course the vast majority of Internet traffic across the world is unencrypted. Anyone could be on the line between me and this Lemmy instance, just as they could if there was a satellite between us. However, you're also broadcasting it to like 25% of the globe and not even making any kind of physical infrastructure efforts.

Quest can't entirely guarantee nobody will snoop a fiber line, but they do bury them.

[–] Dekkia@this.doesnotcut.it 62 points 1 day ago (1 children)

vast majority of Internet traffic across the world is unencrypted.

In 2023 between 80% and 95% of web traffic was encryted. Unencrypted web traffic is getting pretty rare.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/year-review-last-mile-encrypting-web

[–] treadful@lemmy.zip 7 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I should've been more clear, I didn't mean the data, but at the protocol level it's all open.

Same with the Internet traffic through these satellites.

[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 1 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

I mean, some parts of the protocols we use for the Internet need to be in the clear to work, DNS comes to mind. If you want that kept private as well you need to use something like tor.

But regardless, what people generally actually care about keeping secret is the content, not the protocol.

[–] treadful@lemmy.zip 3 points 18 hours ago

I mean, some parts of the protocols we use for the Internet need to be in the clear to work, DNS comes to mind. If you want that kept private as well you need to use something like tor.

Not really. We also have DNS over HTTPs, DNS over TLS, and DNSCrypt which are all becoming more popular. But that's still application level data that I'm not really talking about.

But regardless, what people generally actually care about keeping secret is the content, not the protocol.

A lot of information can be gleaned from protocol metadata though. Source, destination, which applications are being used, maybe more depending on protocols. Not exactly information I want to be easily available to the public, but also not exactly critical either.

[–] Natanael@infosec.pub 5 points 1 day ago

You should be clear with the difference between link encryption and application encryption here

[–] Arkthos@pawb.social 1 points 1 day ago

Typically satellites have beams they turn on and off to service different areas, with one beam pointing towards the RAN that receives the data rather than just repeating a broadcast out to everywhere the satellite can theoretically reach. For mobile telecom backhaul via satellite it is standardized that the data should be encrypted for untrusted transport links so this seems to me like an issue of not following specs.