[Starlink] Re: Starlink and Iran

Ulrich Speidel
2026-01-15T20:07:36Z

Military-grade GPS kind of lost its exclusivity a long time ago when
people came up with DGPS (differential GPS), where a local reference
station with known position transmits a "delta" signal to the GPS signal
received at that location. And then of course came GLONASS & Co., so
there's currently about four GPS-like systems out there, and most modern
receivers support all. That said - these signals can all be interfered
with and spoofed.

For Starlink, precision location isn't actually required (it's enough
for Dishy to know which cell it's in because that determines the
beams).  But GPS receiver chips are cheap and extra position accuracy
doesn't do any harm.

On 16/01/2026 6:10 am, J Pan wrote:
> easier to attack gps?
> https://github.com/narimangharib/starlink-iran-gps-spoofing/blob/main/starlink-iran.md
> although not all technically correct. "inhibitGps" is a user choice
> through the mobile app ("Use Starlink positioning exclusively") not
> system determination, but gps spoofing is indeed there. starlink could
> be authorized to decode military-grade gps signals as well?
> --
> J Pan, UVic CSc, ECS566, 250-472-5796 (NO VM), Pan@UVic.CA, Web.UVic.CA/~pan
>
--
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Dr. Ulrich Speidel

School of Computer Science

Room 303S.594 (City Campus)

The University of Auckland
u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
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