Starlink at Tai Chang, Myanmar, the border region where a human-trafficking victim was forced to interfer with a mobile phone
The plea for help was received last summer. A Chinese human-trafficking victim stated in an email that he worked for a fraud company and was currently in Myanmar. They were tricked into modern slavery, and forced to scam people online for hours on end, after they were promised legitimate work. Tai Chang, which backs on to the Myanmar-Thailand border, has been linked to incidents of torture. “I’m not safe, I’m chatting with you secretly,” they said. Despite the risk, their first request wasn’t to be rescued.
Reports of the use of Starlink at Tai Chang are not a one-off—criminals running multibillion-dollar empires across Southeast Asia appear to be widely using the satellite internet network. At least eight scam compounds based around the Myanmar-Thailand border region are using Starlink devices, according to mobile phone connection data reviewed by WIRED. The data was collected by an online advertising industry tool and it shows that Starlink has been used more than 40,000 times by hundreds of mobile phones.
The chair of the parliamentary committee on national security and border issues in Thailand thinks the capacity of the space company to stop this problem is very strong. Rome tagged Musk in a post at the beginning of february, saying that criminals were exploiting Starlink for massive fraud in the region. He did not get a reply, he says.
The eight compounds, spread around the Myawaddy region of war-torn Myanmar, likely have installed multiple Starlink devices. A review of photos of Tai Chang indicates that there are dozens of white Starlink satellite dishes on a rooftop, while human rights watchdogs say that use of the service at the scam compounds has increased in the past year.
The Challenge of Modernizing the FAA: The Starlink Story of Musk’s Letter to the President of the US Department of Transportation and the Air Transport Secretary
There have been four commercial aircraft crashes globally in the last 11 weeks, as well as a handful of private plane crashes and several near misses. Hundreds of employees were cut from the air traffic control system. Despite air travel being safer than before, people are left with a perception that the global aviation system is collapsing.
Musk has a lot of governmentsse. His companies have received over $38 billion from the government over the years according to the Post.
While Musk goes away from the federal bureaucracy in order to be more efficient, his company Starlink has a deal with the government that could net it Billions of dollars.
Several SpaceX employees now have FAA email addresses, the Post reports. One employee of the company posted a photo of the team with the statement “working to improve the safety of the national air space system.”
A team from SpaceX, Starlink’s parent company, has been working within the FAA in recent weeks to help modernize the agency’s aging technology system. US Department of transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said they were tasked with developing a new, better, modern and safer system.
This, of course, follows a pattern, in which Musk posts on X about something regarding the FAA and then seems to will it into existence. Previously, the billionaire called for FAA administrator Michael Whitaker’s resignation, after the agency fined SpaceX for failing to get approval for rocket launch changes. The day after the inauguration, Whitaker resigned from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Source: Starlink poised to take over $2.4 billion contract to overhaul air traffic control communication
A Transportation Editor for The NY Times and City & State, with over 10 Years Experience in Public Transportation and EV (An Introduction to the Topical Series)
A transportation editor with 10 years of experience covers aviation, public transportation, and EV. His work has appeared in The New York Daily News and City & State.
