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You're listening to the Cyberwire network, powered by N2K.
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No one goes to Hank's for spreadsheets. They go for a darn good pizza. Lately, though, the shop's been quiet. So Hank decides to bring back the $1 slice. He asks copilot in Microsoft Excel to look at his sales and costs and help him see if he can afford it. Copilot shows Hank where the money's going and which little extras make the dollar slice work. Now Hank says a line out the Hank makes the pizza Co pilot handles the spreadsheets. Learn more@m365copilot.com work
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earlier, I was doing a speed test because I was. I was trying to compare in my head, if I had satellite Internet, how would that compare to where I am now? And I know what I'm supposed to be getting because I'm technically on fiber optic. Yeah, that is not anywhere close to what I'm actually getting. And there's a whole bunch of reasons for that. I know, I know. Don't at me people. I get it. I understand. But it is interesting.
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C
That's why when you get the ad, it says up to not at minimum, not even.
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Yeah, I think I'm supposed to be on like one gigabit. I'm not even getting anywhere close to that. And I'm sure it's probably my router. Yes, I know. Welcome, I'm Maria Varmazis and you're listening to T Space Cyber Briefing. In this show we examine the evolution of cybersecurity in the global and orbital infrastructure that powers, protects and connects our lives. Hi everybody. Maria Varmaz is here and I am super excited that T minus is back. We're now a weekly podcast, the T minus Space Cyber Briefing. And you might have noticed that we have a new dedicated focus on two great things that are even better together. And those would be space and cybersecurity. And the reason for this new focus is because whether we realize it or not, we all depend on space based systems that are increasingly Internet enabled. And so many components of international business, national sovereignty and security. And of course our daily lives run on and are dependent upon space based infrastructure. So I thought for our first Space Cyber Briefing today, why not start with some foundational knowledge about the Internet in space. Not just satellite broadband, but also what's being built right now to one day perhaps supplant terrestrial Internet infrastructure. And because the space domain is increasingly a geopolitical hot potato, I thought it'd be great to get a geopolitics expert in on this conversation with me. So joining me Today is my N2K colleague, Ethan Cook. Hello and welcome, Ethan.
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Hey, good to be here. Hello everyone. I am Ethan Cook and I work over on the Caveat show, which is our cyber law and policy podcast. Key contributor over there and man of many hats here at N2K.
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A
Thanks for joining me today, Ethan. I appreciate it. So Ethan, I'm curious, when you hear the phrase Internet in space, I imagine a bunch of things come up to you. So what do you think?
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C
Yeah, so the first thing that comes up and I think everyone's going to echo this is Starlink. Right. You can't, you know, they are not the first people to do it, but I think they are the most commercially widespread known people to do it. They obviously have their competitors, they have other people who offer different services, but I think they really have in my mind, as someone who's not an expert at all in this space, stand out by and far as like the clear winner or leader of the pack. Absolutely. I think the other thing that stands out to me is the disruption when I think of Internet space, the disruption of traditional Internet. Right. Like we always think about fiber optic cables or the ability to get a router into your home, set up a traditional Internet system. And we've talked about from the policy side how this has really disenfranchised rural of America and farmers are getting access to Internet there and how we still really haven't gotten broadband to most of America in a really successful way. The BEAD program is still kicking, to
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say nothing of global Internet access. Truly.
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C
Exactly. And that regardless of Starlink or not, that this is a disruptor to that both problem and the solutions that we've been proposing.
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A
Yeah, yeah. I mean thinking of Starlink first and foremost is totally valid and I think almost everybody would agree with you is those have become almost synonymous. Internet and space and Starlink. And that's kudos to SpaceX for making that happen because as you mentioned, they're not even close to the first to even attempt satellite broadband Internet and certainly Internet in space. If we Again, I'm using air quotes, which audio listeners can't see me doing that, but I'm using air quotes around that. You know, there are different ways that one can even define Internet space in space. Like there's Internet that one can access terrestrially that is routed through spacecraft on orbit, like a Starlink satellite. But there are other visions for what Internet could look like in space and there's some, I've heard some very Sci fi, some very sci fi ideas around that. But some of them are actually a lot closer to reality than I think some people might realize. So I figure maybe we get into all of that today, you know, real quick. Right.
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C
Why not? You know, let's just dive into it.
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A
Yeah. So. All right, so why don't we talk about maybe let's do some myth busting or some misconfirmation about how it actually all works. What Internet. If you are a terrestrial user in a rural area. Because generally anywhere that fiber or cable Internet does not exist, which is a
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C
lot of the world. Yes.
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If you want half decent Internet access, you are not going to try and rely on cellular. You're going to probably try and use satellite. So, Ethan, now I know the answer to this question, but I'm curious, do you understand how the mechanics of all this work? Like, could you describe it for me?
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C
Could I? Can I can. That's a good question.
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A
Okay.
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C
If you don't, what I can give you is a, maybe a basic explanation from what I get is.
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A
That sounds great.
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C
There are two real main categories of satellite Internet from what I can understand. There's Leo and geo. Leo being way into it first. Yeah. Is that way into it? Maybe.
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A
Yeah. Start with like you're, you are on the ground.
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C
Yeah.
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You want Internet, how does it come to you at your place on the ground? Let's start there.
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C
So, yeah, so if, if you are, if you are not going for space, you know, obviously the easy ways to go through it are just getting a broadband provider to put it into, you know, your, your Verizons of the world, et cetera, Any of these companies that provide Internet access, they come in, get the router into your home. But the biggest downside to that is they have to A, have, you know, they have to have poles to route the actual cables to you and B, even if they have that, that doesn't mean it's actually good because there have been from a personal tangent, a lot of questionable concerns about, you know, price throttling and speed throttling because they have monopolies over regions and squirrels that too.
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A
Shooting lines. Yes.
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C
Yeah, yeah. You know, I say let them live though. Those guys are. Okay, fair. If that is, you know, we'll keep it in the rural America conversation for the moment. Cause that's certainly what I'm most familiar with. And while, you know, the federal government has been working very hard to expand that program and get that out, it's obviously had its complications. And traditionally your alternatives were to get, you know, really really, really inconsistent. And I think inconsistent is a generous term. Cellular connections, right?
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Yes.
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C
Which can be disrupted by any number of things. They could be disrupted by squirrels again, egg squir again. You know, if you got a tinfoil hat on too, maybe, or a casual
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emp, you know, anything, you know, bad
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C
weather, just throw something out of the loop. Right. And you know, suddenly you are completely cut off. Right. And I think as technology has continued to evolve, that obviously gets really concerning from a, just like a practicality standpoint when you're like, okay, I have all this tech equipment that requires always online or consistent online access and I can't connect to anything because. Reasons. Yeah. And so I think when you go to. With those main solutions, they're not really fixed and they're still kind of problematic and we still have them. And that's where I think the satellite conversation really comes into play. Kind of disrupting that with these two, from what I understand, like levels of orbit is maybe the best way to categorize it.
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A
Yeah. So why don't I. So I'll start a level set here on. I think a lot of people have an idea in their head, like really basic about how satellite Internet might work. And it's 5050 when I ask people if they get it right or not. But the phrase bent pipes in space is something that my old boss Brandon, he taught me. Shout out to Brandon. And it is such a great way of describing how satellites work. For the most part, where you are on the ground, you are receiving, and I'm putting this very simply, you are receiving a signal from a satellite in space. The thing that was sent to that satellite was not hand waving magic here, but Internet data was being sent up to that satellite. And the satellite is in that bent pipe in space that is just routing it back down to you again. Very, very generally there, I think is often an idea, and it's not entirely inaccurate, that there's a lot more complicated stuff happening on orbit where things are getting bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. That does happen. Starlink is actually way ahead of that technology. The idea of like Internet data goes up, the data is routed amongst a whole bunch of satellites that may exist in like the similar orbital neighborhood. And then it figures out the best path down to you on the ground,
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C
creating kind of like a mesh of sorts.
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A
A mesh, exactly. But that is still so stinking cutting edge. Most Starlink satellites are not doing that yet. And a lot of the older satellite technology are way out in geosynchronous orbits. Let's like 20,000 10 to 20,000 miles away. Like super far away where the GPS satellites are. So you've got like this behemoth school bus sized satellite that hopefully doesn't have a major structural failure. It's super far away and space debris
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C
is not a problem.
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A
Well, out there is less of a scary issue. But it's kind of like that single pane of glass thing where oh, I don't know if you've got a multi billion dollar satellite being sent out to space and then one of its solar panels fails to deploy. Now it only has 10% of its throughput. This happened like two years ago. Oh yeah, to yeah, a Viasat satellite. It was really a shame. Everyone was really excited that it was going to be delivering humongously fast speeds and it was going to be a really big game changer for them. But then again one of the solar panels just didn't deploy. So it's at like 10% of its actual capacity. It really stinks for them.
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C
Great execution on that one.
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A
It's a load bearing satellite. Right. So you've got like these huge satellites that go way out in distance and as you can imagine at that distance latency is a massive problem. Y but at the same time, if you're on the ground you generally have a sense like your satellite dish is like that tiny little point in the sky is not usually gonna move. I can probably find it pretty easily. Unless it's raining or snowing, which happens a couple times. Which happens a couple times. So unless you're like in the prairie where none of that ever happens or something.
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C
Oh, you just get tornadoes.
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A
Yeah, it's different problems. Right. But that's what Starlink did. That was so one of the many things that it did that was so disruptive. And I promise you I'm not being paid by them. They had the funds to say we're going to yeet thousands of tiny satellites into orbit as opposed to one or five or a dozen. They're like we can make thousands of these and as they decay orbitally and get burnt up, we can just keep sending more because they have a multi billionaire behind them funding them so they can do this. And in addition to having lots of redundancy, much closer to Earth, so in theory much faster. They also pioneered, they're not the first, but they pioneered the idea of using satellite links in between these little tiny Starlink satellites to pass data between them in that mesh network style. They are not the only ones trying this. But this is against. You mentioned Starlink and you're not wrong. Like they're at the forefront of a lot of this kind of stuff. And that makes essentially like the contrast between these giant GEO satellites, those are load bearing really important and the ones that are in leo. Starlink's not the only one. Amazon LEO is another example. It's trying to catch up there. Those satellites are practically disposable. Like you lose five at a time, who cares? We'll send another dozen up and then it'll sort of fill the gap. So it's remarkable that difference. Satellite Internet even in LEO is still not I think comparable yet to terrestrial. Like don't throw out your FiOS if you've got it. But it's not bad because you don't
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C
have any other choice has played. I mean like for me taking a step back non space side, it has paid dividends in the Ukraine war. I mean for real, I think, you know, when that whole conflict emerged there was huge question marks about the Ukraine's ability to secure itself. And here we are years later and it's a standstill with give and take on both sides any given day of the week. And I think it's undoubtedly just fair to say that Starlink is a huge player in that and has changed the Ukraine's ability to defend itself.
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A
Yep. Yeah, we've seen even in the Iran conflict as well that Starlink's been very, very useful.
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C
So here's a quick question I have for you. So as I was, you know, diving into this kind of whole conversation, a name that has popped up. Obviously we've talked about Starlink a lot, but Amazon LEO popped up a couple times.
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A
Yep.
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C
As a recent kind of. By recent I mean probably I think the last couple months it's really kind of stepped out onto the scene and started showing and flexing its muscles.
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Yes.
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C
What has the impact of that been? Obviously I don't expect them to be like rival competitors today because it takes some time to spin this up. But yeah, as someone who's an outsider on that and not really understanding the market space yet, what does that look like?
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A
I mean I think it's still very as of the time of this recording, it's still very early. I mean they do Amazon LEO does have a few satellites up there and they're always working on launching more. Starlink is so far ahead of everybody else and they've eaten everyone else's lunch so much that it's gonna take a lot for Bezos frankly to catch up to Elon. I mean it is a little bit of the battle of the billionaires going on there. But I think if anything it's a market signal that Starlink is not gonna have the monopoly forever.
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C
Yeah, I figured that was unsustainable.
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A
Yeah, it is. I mean, and like Starlink does have the first pass the post advantage here and they have certainly eaten the lunch of the sort of the more established long term satellite broadband providers who'd been around since like the 90s. You know, Starlink just blew them out of the water. But Amazon leo, coming after Starlink, we will see if they're successful in actually disrupting the monopoly. But it is to me an important signal that if it's not going to be Amazon leo, there will be someone else. And certainly that's, that's to say nothing of entirely other countries. Like China's working really hard on making competitors to Starlink. And if anyone could possibly push Elon and Starlink off of the throne, it is absolutely China. It absolutely is. And I wouldn't, I wouldn't downplay India or I wouldn't also downplay Europe either. Like there's a lot of nation states that are trying to do similar things and there's a huge data sovereignty and space sovereignty push going on at the same time that's giving everything so much urgency. This is more your lane with geopolitics,
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C
but it is all interrelated data sovereignty point has been, I mean as someone who's tracking the AI side of things a lot right now, that's a huge, huge, huge, especially with the EU, a huge conversation. I'm sure space 8 is just as much of a conversational point.
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We're going to take a quick break now. Stick around to hear Ethan and I tackle the squirrels in space problem right after this.
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D
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C
Well, something that I've kind of always, you know, maybe pet peeve is not the right word, but for a lack of a better word is the single point of failure. It feels like with Starlink and this is not something that's unique to Starlink for fairness. As always felt for space in general, there's been very few players that eat up a very large majority of the space. And the great thing about that is that you can. There's a ton of focus, there's a momentum, there's a drive to it. The bad thing about that is if it's ineffective or the solution's not great, it's kind of stalls out and nothing really happens or it's wasted tax dollars. Whatever the situation is. We bring up Leo emerging as another competitor not there yet. But we also bring up the various nations kind of talking, trying to compete. It feels like that's sort of a reaction to that single point of failure being like Starlink is really great and we should utilize it and it's a service we should invest in from a federal standpoint, from a commercial standpoint, but on the same line of thought, maybe it shouldn't be the only service that provides this. Is that a fair characterization?
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A
Is that something that. You totally got it. Yeah, absolutely. And I think this is all happening concurrently with conversations about, and this will surprise nobody listening to this, how important the Internet is to us all in our daily functioning, not just as civilians but also governments and militaries and how fragile terrestrial Internet access can truly be, especially in contested waters or in conflict zones. So we two decades ago, a decade ago, the idea of a military trying to become really dependent on space based or space infrastructure for Internet was kind of like that sounds nice, but we're not going to put all our eggs in that basket. The mentality has totally switched. 180 yeah. Like it is actually a viable thing. We're not there yet. And I feel like I'm going to be saying that phrase so much like we're not there yet. But it is actually the cost of launch has gotten so much cheaper and that is again fortunately, unfortunately thanks to SpaceX, it has gotten so much cheaper to launch things and the technology has come along far enough that there are genuine viable conversations about building essentially a brand new Internet on orbit that could learn the lessons that we all made. Thanks darpa. With the terrestrial Internet that would be in theory more resilient and not as, as prone to the same problems that we've had with the grand old Internet that we all know and love. And not a huge surprise that this is sort of being rolled out right now for the US military first with a bunch of very.
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C
I mean they made the Internet to begin with, right?
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A
So truly, truly. So maybe coming to an outer net near us in a few decades when the military decides like we can now have it, I don't know, but it a lot. We needed laser communications between satellites to be a viable thing. That has now happened. So that needs to happen at a much broader scale. We needed much cheaper launch access to launch. We now have that. We needed the space industrial base to kind of be spun up enough that they could produce things at scale that is happening. And there needed to be sort of a business case of why would we want Internet in space instead of this, the good terrestrial one with all the cables and stuff. And the answer is people keep cutting cables or it's really, really easy to mess with the Internet on the ground.
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C
And it's hard.
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A
Or a squirrel. No space squirrels yet as far as I know.
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C
Yet. We'll send one up there. We got none of the animals up there.
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A
We can get a squirrel up there, honestly. Yeah. So I mean if you've heard of the Space Development Agency or the sda, I don't know if these are acronyms that are familiar.
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C
Yes, yeah, yeah, I know. It's the sda.
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A
Yeah. So they're definitely for folks who are interested in the idea of a brand new Internet being built on orbit. That's definitely the organization I would be keeping a close eye on because they're sort of working on that right now with these proliferated warfighter space architecture. The pwsa, if I'm remembering what the acronym stands for. And their whole idea is we need to get away from dependence on terrestrial Internet. We're gonna make a more resilient space Internet for the war fighter. But really, I think inevitably we all will get it. I'd like to think so anyway.
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C
I mean it's inevitable.
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A
It's inevitable. Yeah.
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C
We've had AI for years and now it's available to the Public.
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A
Now we get it. Now we get the shinies, it's true. But between, you know, the military's going after something like that. And also we have more consumer devices that are speaking directly to satellites. Like my phone can now use satellite signal. It's not like it was not that long ago where you had to have like the big chunky satellite phone and like pray that you could get access to the right thing. Now anyone's iPhone or Android can just access a satellite. From a cybersecurity perspective, it is a fascinating opening of the threat landscape because now everybody's got an endpoint that now works with satellites. So that's going to be fun. I wish everyone the best of luck on that one. But there's also direct to device IoT for devices that are like in Antarctica or industrial control systems. Instead of saying somebody's got to drive around in their van or whatever or hope you've got cellular connection, they're just bypassing all of that and saying we're going to have this IoT device on this penguin station in Antarctica directly dial into a satellite. And that again, that opens things up for all sorts of mayhem.
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C
Giggling because it's like, oh, this could
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A
be fun, but horrifying. We will see some mischief made, I am absolutely sure of it. But it is fascinating how it's becoming, you know, just we don't even. The, the average consumer doesn't really need to think about it anymore. It's sort of happening.
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C
Yeah.
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A
And the, the implications of that are just wild. And pretty soon, maybe soon being 10 years in space time, I don't know, we may just be randomly accessing all of the Internet via space based infrastructure.
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C
It feels like some of the other big talking technology points that we've talked about for a while, like quantum AI, like AI is already here, but fully functioning AI and like these things that have been like promised scientifically for a while and have never really materialized are all kind of coming about right now. And it's very fascinating to be like, oh, okay, all the things that were theory 20 years ago are now like very much here in like five years, 10 years.
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A
Yeah. And it's always follow the money with this stuff. I mean when you've got the billionaires going, I think there's money to be made in this. It's probably because there is. So I mean with a lot of stuff in space, there's technology and ideas that have been kicking around since like the 50s.
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C
Yeah.
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A
People are still trying to get off the ground and they sound like great ideas. But there's no funding for it, there's no market for it. And it's a shame because some of the stuff I've heard is great. But satellite Internet, space based Internet, if you want to call it that, there's money there, there's money there. It is a gold rush for sure. And I think for all the discussions about like orbital data centers and all that, that's a whole other thing.
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C
We're going to the moon.
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A
We're going. Is it to the moon? To the moon. The Internet that has got its infrastructure largely in space is a gold rush for a good reason. There are always going to be limiting factors like the weather, availability of that darn weather. Yeah. Like if it rains really hard, you might not get great Internet connection, but if your Internet can be routed to another satellite that's maybe over a clear place, that's then beaming down to a ground station and then maybe you get it terrestrially that way. I don't know. There's all sorts of ideas here, but the whole idea of a satellite merely being that bent pipe for data in space, that is the old model. And that I think is largely going to be going away. We're going to be moving over to that mesh idea. We already are.
- [26:20]
C
Just not one bent pipe, but multiple bent pipes.
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A
Many bent pipes. Many pipes that are piped to each other.
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C
Yeah.
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A
And that are just going up. It's true. But what does that mean from a security standpoint when you've got all of big problems? So for people whose jobs are to secure the Internet and if you feel like your job has been done. I know that nobody thinks that if you would like a new challenge, there's a brand new Internet being made just for you.
- [26:49]
C
We look forward to your attempts.
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A
Yes. Hacking a satellite from the convenience of your own home or from your phone, whatever.
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C
That penguin center in Antarctica is a key target now.
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A
I hope those penguins are going to be okay. Maybe the squirrel's going to go after them.
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C
I was going to say send the squirrels after them. As I sit back and kind of think about what this looks like over the next five, 10 years, you know, I obviously, I don't think any of the major players are going anywhere. And I, I don't think that, like, I don't think Starlink is going to be unseated in five years. Like, come on.
- [27:28]
A
It would be interesting though, but it
- [27:29]
C
would be very fascinating. But I don't think so. I think reasonably, I think it's going to kind of turn into, if any would turn into where we see where like major AI is right now. You have Anthropic, you have OpenAI, you have Google's AI and they kind of all compete simultaneously for each other. And they're all very profitable. Well, not profitable. They don't make money. But they all are big players, I should say.
- [27:48]
A
Yeah. I mean, Amazon would love for Amazon, Leo, to become neck and neck with starlink. I know that that's. They're gunning really hard for that, so.
- [27:55]
C
And I think as watch that one, we see the money. I think your point on, you know, I guess the thing that I am very fascinated to look into and continue to track for the next couple of years is where the money in government contracts are going. Because I think that will very, very indicative of what this looks like and who is building it, which I think is just as important.
- [28:13]
A
Yes. Yeah, There is a lot of talk and you'll hear me talk about it. I'm sure, Ethan, you and I have talked about it. Also about the commercialization of space, a real thing that is happening. But truly the number one customer for a lot of these things is still government contracts. I mean, it truly is. So when you're following that money, look at what governments are putting their money into, that will still reveal a whole lot.
- [28:34]
C
Have fun diving through spending bills. I know I do.
- [28:36]
A
Oh, if you're good at that, then you will have a blast. Yeah, I mean, I did want to mention. I feel like I should mention the NASA side of things because this is just random, but I remember a lot of people saying during the Artemis 2 mission, like, why was the video quality from the moon? I cannot believe I'm saying this. Why was the video streaming video quality from the moon worse than your average twitch streamer? And aside from me wanting to like smack people who said that, I just want to emphasize that the, the infrastructure that Artemis 2 is using to get that data back to us is from like the 80s.
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C
You're telling me I can't get a perfect image of Jupiter anytime I want at a live stream rate of 1080p.
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A
People's expectations are wild, but I mean, it's like, you know, the moon's only 250,000 miles away, so, you know, just right next door.
- [29:24]
C
I don't know, it's like a mini marathon or two.
- [29:25]
A
Right. But you know, it's still using the Deep Space Network, which was built in like the 60s or two when it's closer to Earth. TDRS, which was largely built in the 80s and 90s. So NASA is working hard on getting optical laser links up and running before we actually land people on the moon again because they know folks want it in like 4K. But we're not there yet. But part of Artemis 2 is actually testing that, so there is money on the science side being developed in that direction too. So. And then you get into conversations about WI fi on the moon, and that's a whole other show. But we're not there yet. We're not there yet. But Nokia is very interested.
- [30:01]
C
So not there yet. Key word.
- [30:03]
A
Yeah, not yet. But it's really funny talking about, like, WI fi on the moon. We don't have it yet, but we will. We will have to. We will have to. Well, that's our chat for today. Ethan. It was a joy and a pleasure to speak with you today. Thank you so much for chatting with me.
- [30:22]
C
Yeah, thank you for having me on. Yes, yes, we will.
- [30:27]
A
And that's T Minus Space Cyber Briefing, brought to you by N2K CyberWire. You know, if you like what you heard today, you will also enjoy our newsletter, Signals and Space. You'll get research and notes pulled together by our producer, Ethan Cook and me, along with this week's top Space Cyber news stories. You can subscribe by visiting TheCyberWire.com newsletters. And again, that newsletter is Signals and Space. We'd also love to know what you think of this podcast. Your feedback ensures we deliver the insights that keep you a step ahead in the rapidly changing cybersecurity landscape. If you like our show, please share a rating and review in your podcast app. You can also fill out the survey in the show notes or send an email to space2k.com we're proud that N2K CyberWire is part of the daily routine of the most influential leaders and operators in the public, public and private sector. From the Fortune 500 to many of the world's preeminent intelligence and law enforcement agencies, N2K helps cybersecurity professionals grow, learn, and stay informed as the nexus for discovery and connection. We bring you the people, technology and ideas shaping the future of secure innovation. Learn how@n2k.com thanks for listening to T Minus. I am your host, Maria Varmazes. The show is produced by Ethan Cook and Liz Stokes. We are mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Trey Hester with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Ivan with content strategy by Mayan Plout. Peter Kilpe is our publisher. See you next week.
- [32:06]
C
T minus.
- [32:21]
D
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