On January 16 I lambasted a New York Times piece which claimed (archived) that:
[A] ragtag network of activists, developers and engineers pierced Iran’s digital barricades. Using thousands of Starlink satellite internet systems that they had quietly smuggled into the country, they got online and spread images of troops firing into the streets and families searching for bodies.
The NYT went on to listen a number of Iranian expat groups allegedly involved in the endeavor. In the end all of them seemed to be in one or another way financed and organized by the U.S. of A.:
We are now down at the 18th paragraph of NY Times piece on a ‘ragtag network of activists’ which finally hints to who is organizing and financing it:
The State Department coordinated with SpaceX on the sanctions exemption for digital communication tools in Iran. It also provided support to civil society groups about how to hide the systems from government detection, according to a Biden administration official involved in the plans.
It is the U.S. government which provided the various regime change groups with the money to smuggle some 50,000 Starlink terminals into Iran.
A recent Wall Street Journal report on the issue is more explicit in making the case that whole Starlink operation in Iran was directly run by the Trump administration (archived):
The State Department had purchased nearly 7,000 Starlink terminals in earlier months—with most bought in January—to help antiregime activists circumvent internet shut-offs in Iran, officials said. The purchase came after senior Trump administration appointees decided to divert some funds from other internet-freedom initiatives inside Iran to the purchasing of Starlink terminals instead.
President Trump was aware of the deliveries, officials said, but they didn’t know if he or someone else directly approved of the plan.
…
Trump and Musk spoke in January about ensuring Iranians could use Starlink to access the internet during protests, the White House confirmed at the time.
Previously the U.S. government had financed five Virtual Private Network (VPN) companies to provide uncensored but spied on Internet access to Iran. The costly purchase of Starlink, planned many months in advance, cut into their business:
The administration’s decision to procure Starlink systems came against the backdrop of internal debates over whether diverting funds to Starlink would undercut other important U.S. programs that fund internet access in Iran.
For months, senior officials pushed Starlink as the best way to support antiregime movements inside Iran, alongside or instead of virtual private networks, known more commonly as VPNs. Mora Namdar, who until December led the State Department’s Middle East bureau, in August sent a memo to Secretary of State Marco Rubio urging the acquisition of Starlink expressly for delivery to Iran. While her bureau “has funded a variety of VPNs and other internet freedom technologies, it is useless when the internet is shut down,” she wrote.
Mora Namdar was technically right:
Hull said Psiphon [- a U.S. financed VPN provider -] had about 18.4 million active Iranian users in January, the same month Tehran shut off the internet, though the company detected only 1,500 people operating Psiphon with Starlink when the regime cut off nearly all online access.
When the State Department redirected VPN funds to acquiring Starlink, it allowed funding to lapse for two of five VPN providers for Iran, two U.S. officials said. Three continued with limited support from remaining U.S. funds, they said.
However Starlink, the alternative communication route which Mora Namdar had promoted, soon turned out to be vulnerable too.
As provided in my previous piece:
But the whole costly endeavor did not play out as planned. Starlink terminals use GPS to define their own position which they need to know to be able to find and connect to Starlink’s satellites. GPS signals are weak and easy to fake. The Iranian government is spoofing GPS signals giving fake locations which confuses the Starlink terminals. They can not find and connect to the satellites they need. (There are additional ways to detect and locate single active Starlink terminals. But to disable a large number of them GPS spoofing is currently the best way to go.)
This is another case where propaganda in the NYT and other mainstream outlets has tried to promote covered U.S. government operations as a ‘leaderless movement’ of ‘democratic youths’ in this or that country. In reality many the ‘ragtag network of activists’ turn out to be financed by the U.S. or even directly involved State Department and CIA bureaucrats .