Enlarge / A Starlink satellite dish in Odesa, Ukraine, in March 2022. (credit: Getty Images | NurPhoto )

Ukraine will get over 10,000 more Starlink terminals in the coming months thanks to a new deal with SpaceX and funding from several European countries, Ukraine government official Mykhailo Fedorov said in an interview with Bloomberg . Fedorov said that "all financial issues have been resolved," at least until the spring.

SpaceX previously asked the Pentagon to fund the Ukraine government and military's use of Starlink broadband, saying it can't afford to donate more user terminals or pay for operations indefinitely. But CEO Elon Musk backtracked from that stance in October, writing , "The hell with it... even though Starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we'll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free."

Fedorov, Ukraine's vice prime minister and minister of digital transformation, said in the new interview with Bloomberg that "Musk assured us he will continue to support Ukraine. When we had a powerful blackout, I messaged him on that day and he momentarily reacted and has already delivered some steps. He understands the situation."

Enlarge / SpaceX Starlink satellite dish at Pelican Beach on Willard Bay Reservoir in Willard, Utah, in October 2022. (credit: Tony Webster (CC BY-SA 2.0) )

Starlink Internet speeds are continuing to drop as more people use the service, new speed tests show. But SpaceX this week won approval to launch another 7,500 satellites, kicking off a second-generation deployment that will provide the broadband network more capacity in the long run.

SpaceX has been seeking permission to launch another 29,988 low-Earth orbit satellites, and the Federal Communications Commission partially granted the request in an authorization order released Thursday. "Specifically, we grant SpaceX authority to construct, deploy, and operate up to 7,500 satellites operating at altitudes of 525, 530, and 535 km and inclinations of 53, 43, and 33 degrees, respectively, using frequencies in the Ku- and Ka-band," the FCC said.

The FCC deferred action on the rest of the requested satellites. "To address concerns about orbital debris and space safety, we limit this grant to 7,500 satellites only, operating at certain altitudes," the FCC said. But the approval of 7,500 satellites "will allow SpaceX to begin deployment of Gen2 Starlink, which will bring next generation satellite broadband to Americans nationwide, including those living and working in areas traditionally unserved or underserved by terrestrial systems," the FCC said.

Enlarge / Local residents access the Internet from the Starlink network, set up by the Ukrainian army on November 13, 2022 in Kherson, Ukraine after the city was liberated from Russian occupation. (credit: Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images )

The list prices of Starlink communications devices have nearly doubled in Ukraine, as mobile networks have started failing under Russia’s assault on the country’s electricity grid and increased demand for the SpaceX-manufactured satellite communication device.

Starlink terminals, which are made by Elon Musk-owned SpaceX, will increase in price to $700 for new Ukrainian consumers, according to the company’s website. This represents a rise from about $385 earlier this year, screenshots of past pricing data shared by users inside the country show.

The consumer cost of the monthly subscription to Starlink has fluctuated recently, dropping from about $100 to $60 on Ukraine’s Independence day on August 24 to “reflect local market conditions”, and will now rise to $75.

Enlarge (credit: PETER PARKS / Contributor | AFP )

Elon Musk has seemingly decided that one way to inspire confidence in Twitter as an advertising platform is to become an advertiser himself. Yesterday, CNBC reported that SpaceX purchased one of Twitter’s premium advertising packages—when typically SpaceX rarely invests in Twitter advertising—as Musk's other company plans to begin advertising Starlink satellite Internet to customers in Spain and Australia. According to internal documents CNBC reviewed, SpaceX has so far spent $160,000 on the Twitter ad campaign and in total could end up investing up to $250,000.

According to Musk, SpaceX buying this advertising package is nothing special. The CEO of both SpaceX and Twitter took issue with CNBC describing the advertising investment as “large.”

“SpaceX Starlink bought a tiny—not large—ad package to test effectiveness of Twitter advertising in Australia & Spain,” Musk tweeted . “Did same for FB/Insta/Google.”

Enlarge / Nobody said getting root access to space was going to be easy. (credit: KU Leuven )

Getting root access inside one of Starlink's dishes requires a few things that are hard to come by: a deep understanding of board circuitry, eMMC dumping hardware and skills, bootloader software understanding, and a custom PCB board. But researchers have proven it can be done.

In their talk "Glitched on Earth by Humans: A Black-Box Security Evaluation of the SpaceX Starlink User Terminal," researchers at KU Leuven in Belgium detailed at Black Hat 2022 earlier this year how they were able to execute arbitrary code on a Starlink User Terminal (i.e., a dish board) using a custom-built modchip through a voltage fault injection. The talk took place in August, but the researchers' slides and repository have recently made the rounds .

There's no immediate threat, and the vulnerability is both disclosed and limited. While bypassing signature verification allowed the researchers to "further explore the Starlink User Terminal and networking side of the system," slides from the Black Hat talk note that Starlink is "a well-designed product (from a security standpoint)." Getting a root shell was challenging, and doing so didn't open up obvious lateral movement or escalation. But updating firmware and repurposing Starlink dishes for other purposes? Perhaps.

Enlarge / The new version of Dishy McFlatface. (credit: Starlink)

Starlink is imposing new data-usage limits on its Internet customers, slowing speeds after a customer uses 1TB in any given month unless they pay extra. While the new data limits are in some ways more forgiving than Comcast's data cap, the change may be concerning to Starlink users who have already seen slower speeds in recent months .

"To ensure our customer base is not negatively impacted by a small number of users consuming unusually high amounts of data, the Starlink team is implementing a Fair Use policy for Residential customers in the US and Canada and all Business/Maritime customers beginning December 2022," a FAQ says.

Under Starlink's fair use policy , residential customers will get 1TB of "priority access data" each month. After using 1TB, customers can keep accessing the Internet at slower speeds or pay $0.25 per gigabyte for "additional priority access." Starlink sent emails to customers notifying them of the new policy late last week. The residential service's base price is $110 per month.