• besselj@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    Hope all the ICs in those data centers are rad-hardened, otherwise they’ll quickly become space junk.

    Aside from that, it also raises some interesting questions about sovereignty of spacecraft if there’s not a lot to stop an adversary from rendezvousing with the satellite to hijack, sabotage, or exfiltrate data.

    • nesc@lemmy.cafe
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      2 days ago

      They probably won’t? I believe, earlier predictions about radiation in space were seemingly to pessimistic and iirc there is a number of cubesats and other small junk that is powered by rpi or similar shit unshielded and works fine. But even regular maintenance of data center but IN SPACE must be a nightmare.

    • NaibofTabr@infosec.pub
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      2 days ago

      Aside from that, it also raises some interesting questions about sovereignty of spacecraft if there’s not a lot to stop an adversary from rendezvousing with the satellite to hijack, sabotage, or exfiltrate data.

      Definitely a possibility

      If you wanted to disable it, all you’d have to do is tow it somewhere that it’s own antennae couldn’t maintain communication with ground stations.

      If you got really good with remote-operated orbital rendezvous, you might be able to actually connect to the thing and steal data… but probably it would be easier to just intercept radio traffic.