Ads Targeting Starlink Users: Researchers Suspect Israel's Discover-Tech of Surveillance
An Israeli advertising technology company is specifically targeting users of Starlink, the satellite internet service of Elon Musk's SpaceX, researchers have said, and they suspect the aim may be to surveil those users. Experts at a digital defence firm gave the information citing six people familiar with the matter.
Researchers at Trend AI, a subsidiary of the Tokyo-based cybersecurity company Trend Micro, have concluded that the Israeli company Discover-Tech is one of the main sources of digital advertisements shown to Starlink users. According to the researchers, the ads are likely being used to identify users' geographic locations or to surveil them in some other way.
The researchers based their conclusion on digital advertising data from Trend AI's telemetry. They found that Discover-Tech has become one of the world's top bidders for advertising aimed at Starlink users. In more than 100 countries — including several where Starlink is banned or restricted — it was the number one bidder for Starlink traffic.
That bidding takes place through the complex auction system known as 'bidding', through which advertisers secure advertising space inside people's browsers and apps.
SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment on the allegation. Discover-Tech and its chief executive also gave no reaction, despite requests for comment over the past two weeks.
On 15 October, Trend AI published a report on the targeting of Starlink users. That report did not name Discover-Tech; instead it described the party responsible as an 'ad-tech entity' given the codename 'Shadow-Earth-79'. Six separate sources have said that 'Shadow-Earth-79' is Trend AI's codename for Discover-Tech.
According to the report, governments around the world are trying to control the spread of satellite internet terminals, and in that context finding ways to identify Starlink users has become a major industry. Because the terminals exchange data through SpaceX-operated satellites rather than nationally regulated telecom companies, they can bypass local internet restrictions and maintain communications in hostile areas.
According to the report, Starlink has become an extremely important asset for Ukraine, whose military relies on the service to maintain communications at the front line and to direct drone attacks.
