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.

  • Agent641@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    Yalls remember the security concerns when that sailor secretly installed a star link on a US warship?

  • Ulrich@feddit.org
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    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…

    • icmpecho@lemmy.ml
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      15 hours ago

      this was nothing that some Ethernet and some APs couldn’t fix. and as for the cellular issues, you’re literally the White House. Throw up a femtocell, you already have fiber for backhaul.

      this is such fucking nonsense. Starlink is fixing precisely none of this.

      • Ulrich@feddit.org
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        15 hours ago

        I mean I think it’s safe to say these issues never existed in the first place. Nothing but more fables from the liar in Chief.

        • icmpecho@lemmy.ml
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          15 hours ago

          agree 100%, I just find what limited joy I can in pointing out that this is likely bullshit and at best a con. I also get a kick out of shitting on Musk for pretending to know what he’s talking about when it comes to tech :)

    • Dnb@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      17 hours ago

      Amazing how the but her emails crowd is fine with all the private servers and now private internet access from Trump and co

    • slaneesh_is_right@lemmy.org
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      13 hours ago

      I worked it some shitty old bunkers that no one cared about and they had wifi and cell service in every room. But the white house doesn’t That’s fucking hysterical

  • arc@lemm.ee
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    1 day 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.

  • Zier@fedia.io
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    1 day ago

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

    • Allonzee@lemmy.world
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      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

  • DaddleDew@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    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.

      • anomnom@sh.itjust.works
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        1 day ago

        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
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          1 day 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
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      1 day ago

      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.

      • ctrl_alt_esc@lemmy.ml
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        15 hours ago

        Why don’t you call the police? Serious question, not sure how it works in the US, but there should be some institution where you can report someone on suspicion of committing a crime. They would then need to investigate.

      • chingadera@lemmy.world
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        There is actually so much we and the courts/Congress can do. We’re just choosing not to do it, unfortunately.

    • tabular@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      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
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        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

  • notannpc@lemmy.world
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    1 day 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.

    • icmpecho@lemmy.ml
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      15 hours ago

      depending on how badly Starlink fucks up the deployment, this could actually make the performance worse especially if airtime and spectrum are limited which I would assume would be the case. Elon throwing APs every which way isn’t likely to make that any better.

      this is like getting a flat tire on your handcart and buying a G Wagon with no wheels to fix it.

  • Snapz@lemmy.world
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    1 day 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.

  • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    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.

    • arf@lemmy.today
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      I wholeheartedly agree.

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

      • stoy@lemmy.zip
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        1 day 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.

    • bitchkat@lemmy.world
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      1 day 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.

    • Kirp123@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Well now the Chinese and Russians just need to get a way into Shartlink and they can also monitor you and your government.

  • SnortsGarlicPowder@lemmy.zip
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    1 day ago

    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
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      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
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        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
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        1 day 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!

    • Coreidan@lemmy.world
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      With how spacex and Tesla are going I wouldn’t be surprised if it abolishes itself.

  • a_postmodern_hat@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

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

    Edit: minus the genius and charisma

    • ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world
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      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.

  • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
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    1 day ago

    “some areas of the property could not get cell service”

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

    • dhork@lemmy.world
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      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…

      • Justin@lemmy.jlh.name
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        probably more likely they fired the original IT team and replaced them with Muskite interns

    • jballs@sh.itjust.works
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      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.

    • evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world
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      Plenty of federal facilities have garbage reception. I think it’s probably due to the bureaucracy involved in telecoms installing their hardware on sensitive property. The White House in particular probably has lots of thick walls/armor attenuating signals, too.

  • Encrypt-Keeper@lemmy.world
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    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
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      Network infrastructure is a science and we don’t need no damn science in this country!