Given recent events in the US, I’m not sure that there’s anything to stop the Clinton-era policy that turned off GPS selective availability (i.e. reduced accuracy for civilian users) from being repealed.
Just as well Europe has Galileo, shame that the UK is no longer involved.
Indeed. Completing and activating IRIS² should now become an absolute priority. It's scheduled for 2027 but Musk's blackmail will hopefully speed things up.
For starlink, Iris2 is coming but let's hope it will not be too late, especially for Ukraine. Major issue is european and national institutions and agencies relying on microsoft and amazon cloud services. Proton suite (swiss) and qwant/shadow(FR) technologies can be options with minor improvements
Europe needs to mitigate the risk. Building a genuine alternative will take a lot of time and money, but they can mandate critical infrastructure must be in the EU, data must stay in the EU, with suitable backups and technical staff to maintain it.
Even stuff like Execl and Outlook are software as a service these days. Outages could cripple business and government. Again, you have to mandate protections in the short term and replacement in the longer term.
Open source building blocks are there, could heavily invest in it.
To be fair, some things like MS Office or Windows have insane backwards compatibility and a lot features even if not all used. Moving to a SaaS model seems to have made them worse. Betting the AI push will be similar
This should already be happening! Europe has been so subserviently tolerant and deferent that I imagine my life will be over long before they would even cautiously consider taking one of these necessary steps. ⏳
It’s adorable when Europeans and Americans each make the same isolationist and, at base, racist mistake and fantasize about rawdogging a Russia-China alliance without adding new allies like Africa or the rest of the Americas.
🇪🇺🇬🇧 **BREAKING**: To end reliance on US Starlink coercion, EU/UK must fast-track a sovereign satellite network merge IRIS² + OneWeb, secure minerals via Canada/Australia, deploy in 2 years. No more blackmail. Ukraine’s security and Europe’s autonomy depend on it. #SpaceIndependenceNOW 🛰️⚡
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But they need to move.
Just as well Europe has Galileo, shame that the UK is no longer involved.
Well done Brexiters
https://www.reuters.com/technology/eu-kick-starts-new-secure-satellite-constellation-2024-12-16/
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/oneweb-merger-with-eutelsat
Every e-commerce, banks, transport, everything (exceptions apply of course)
presumably it’s not “freeloading” so not discussed much atm
Open source building blocks are there, could heavily invest in it.
Ridiculous
Risk is lower though, unlike #starlink they are not something that could be switched off at a whim.
https://european-alternatives.eu/
We need to be radical in response.
https://bsky.app/profile/jaxroam.bsky.social/post/3lira3ukhxs2b
All sorts of foreign agents could bypass the government