Looks like the #government of #Iran manages to enforce #censorship even beyond landlines and cell connectivity. They managed to render #Starlink terminals useless by jamming #GPS signals:
https://restofworld.org/2026/iran-starlink-internet-shutdown/
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@resingm Wouldn't that be disrupting a lot of other services too?
@dartigen - It depends on how much GPS connectivity is actually required in day-to-day operations in Iran. Further, one has to distinguish between civil cervices and military services.
Disregarding the purpose of the service, on the one hand, I am certain that many services are accepted as a collateral if they loose GPS connectivity. On the other hand, I am also quite convinced that almost all services that otherwise rely on GPS are also fully dependent on Internet connectivity. Thus, since Internet connectivity is disrupted on purpose, the loss of GPS functionality would not affect the availability of the service any further.
@resingm I did some quick searching, thinking that the biggest hit is going to be to EFTPOS and banking generally, and there'd be a risk of a run on banks for cash.
But, from at least once source I've found, apparently the GPS disruption (along with aggressive disruption of access to CDNs like CloudFlare - which apparently aren't widely used for domestic banking and payment services) doesn't affect the services needed for EFTPOS and banking.
So it's probably more just an added pile of annoyances to the general disruption.
@dartigen - Uhm, I am not sure if you are tracking what's happening in Iran. Western media (at least in my country) does not cover it to the extend which I would appreciate. Demonstrations are happening since late December. On January 08, the government imposed a nationwide Internet outage. Not only that, but also telephone and SMS services are offline as far as I am tracking.
I am unsure how familiar you are with Iranian censorship and the inner-workings of the country. But there is no Visa or Mastercard. There is no Paypal or Shopify.
The concerns are about people trying to contact their loved ones. Folks who lost contact and are left unclear about the whereabouts of relatives and friends. This is not about being able to use a western credit card. I have no doubts about a widespread disruption of the banking system. Alas not because of the GPS jamming, but because of the Internet outage.
Until recently, Starlink terminals were a last straw for the people of Iran, for journalists, for im- and emigrants, expats and others to contact anyone within or outside of Iran. With the recently successful disruption of Starlink, even this last bit of working communication is compromised now. This is what my post was about.
@resingm I've been skimming the updates that I can find, but they're mainly from more technical sources. Media here have been covering it because there are a lot of expats, but they all seem to have been repeating the same points for days now.
It's unusual for banking systems to be disrupted, but as you said, it's probably an acceptable disruption. Usually, governments prioritise keeping money circulating.
You seem to be more across all of it though.