A satellite company owned by Elon Musk is on a possible fast track to take over a large federal contract to modernize the nation’s air traffic communications system.

Summary

Elon Musk’s Starlink is positioned to take over a $2 billion FAA contract from Verizon to modernize air traffic communications, raising concerns over conflicts of interest.

Musk criticized Verizon’s system, as Starlink equipment is already being tested at FAA sites without review about its benefits and drawbacks.

Former officials warn of insufficient oversight, and ethics waivers have allowed SpaceX employees to work on the project despite potential financial gains.

Verizon’s unawareness of the contract amendment or termination further raises concerns about Musk’s influence due to his companies’ extensive federal contracts and regulatory dealings.

  • masterofn001@lemmy.ca
    4·
    3 days ago

    https://lemmy.ca/comment/14682818

    (I commented previously, this is just the start)

    Musks long dream of x, the “everything app” (ie, the app all must use to buy, sell,travel,work,receive medical care,and be surveilled by means of starlink, and all federal systemds will run through, etc)is soon to come to fruition.

    Kinda sounds like the mark of the beast.

    https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/26/23808796/elon-musks-x-everything-app-vision

    https://landfamilyhome.substack.com/p/a-household-guide-for-cyber-defense

    Possible motive: “X” —> American WeChat

Like other crimes, with cyber attacks it is important to identify a motive to understand your attacker better and anticipate their next move. In this attack I believe the motive is a forced cutover of critical infrastructure systems in banking, telecommunications and travel to a centralized model. In plain terms what I’m saying is that DOGE wants to migrate American federal systems to X using the WeChat model where all network and transactional systems are centrally routed and processed. I believe this is the case because of these signals:

Elon Musk said he was going to do this with X, see reporting here from The Verge.

Apple silently released an update as part of 18.3 on Friday that includes Starlink support.

What this could look like from a rollout perspective is:

X is assigned as the communications authority for all government agencies, this is already underway: NTSB exclusively communicating via X.

Route all federal transactions through X: This is underway as DOGE has taken control of the federal treasury and pushed out the acting director.

Create X profiles that map to the US citizen records database, to streamline management of identity and act as proof of citizenship.

Standardize on a government monitored telecommunications network, Starlink, to allow network traffic control of all domestic communications, giving federal agencies (or just DOGE) the authority to censor information at wil