FemtoStar
Satellite communications, done differently.
+ ++ The FemtoStar Project is a global community developing a satellite + constellation for secure, open, and private communications - anywhere on + planet Earth. +
+All FemtoStar services are delivered on a best-effort basis, at the highest speed technically feasible with the user's hardware and with network + traffic at that time. We do not impose artificial restrictions on bandwidth. The flipside of this is that, while we do not limit you to a maximum + speed, we cannot guarantee you will always get one particular speed either - getting the maximum possible at all times means that, unlike a service + where you are constantly limited to a certain bandwidth even when more is possible, FemtoStar performance will vary. Performance at some times + being lower than at some others should be expected.
+ +FemtoStar service is paid for in terms of the amount of beam time a session consumes - that is, + how long the satellite needs to spend using one of its beams to transmit data for that session. This is not the same as the amount of time a user + stays connected to the network - because the beam must also serve other users and any particular user's terminal is unlikely to be consuming the + full throughput of its link at all times, a connected terminal consumes much less beam time than the amount of time it remains connected, especially + when usage is light. What all of this means is that there is no data cap - we don't care about how many bytes you send through the satellite, only + how long the satellite must spend doing it.
+ +This means that users with larger, higher-speed terminals (see the above point) able to transfer the + same amount of data in a shorter period of time will pay less for the same amount of data transferred, as they will consume less beam time in doing + so. Because beam time is the network's most important resource, and is the limiting factor in terms of network performance, we believe that charging + for service in terms of the actual resource - beam time - being consumed is the most fair model for service pricing.
+FemtoStar is a midband Mobile Satellite Service network, designed for speeds in line with other midband Mobile Satellite Service offerings. + Here, the term "midband" refers to the level of bandwidth between narrowband services, designed to provide a low-speed connection to small, + usually IoT/embedded terminals, and broadband services, designed to provide a high-speed connection to large, expensive, fixed terminals.
+ +While this middle category of service may be unfamiliar to those more used to terrestrial services, it's common in the in Mobile Satellite + Service landscape, and is what's offered by services such as Inmarsat BGAN, Iridium Certus, or Thuraya IP. In these services, as in FemtoStar, + designing for this middle category means that users can expect performance much better than a narrowband system, while still having a portable + terminal much smaller than those needed for broadband systems. Like the aforementioned MSS options, a typical FemtoStar terminal should provide + in the mid-hundreds of kbps, using a terminal roughly the size of a tablet or small laptop.
+ +Of course, FemtoStar's design still allows for + flexibility on the size and speed of terminals - users should be able to choose their own balance between speed, cost, and portability. As + such, depending on the size of the terminal, FemtoStar should be able to accomodate larger terminals in the megabits-per-second range, or + smaller terminals with reduced (if still better than typical narrowband offerings) speeds in a pocket-sized form factor.
+No, at least not by any usual definition of the term. While they are a digital system used to pay for service, and while they do make use of + cryptographic signatures for security, FemtoStar Credit Tokens are not transacted on a blockchain, cannot be mined, and are not intended + for use as anything other than payment for FemtoStar service. While third-party users are free to buy and sell Credit Tokens at any price + they are able to, their value in FemtoStar service is fixed.
+Once our network is operational, you will be able to purchase FemtoStar tokens from FemtoStar via a retail token sales portal, from a + third-party reseller, in bulk from FemtoStar via a wholesale agreement, or from anyone else willing to sell them to you. While the FemtoStar + Project is capable of pre-issuing tokens that will be usable once the network is operational, we do not currently offer pre-issued retail + tokens to the general public, due to the inherent risk to consumers of purchasing a service before it is available. If you are interested in + working with us to purchase wholesale tokens, for resale as a token reseller or for a large deployment of FemtoStar hardware as an enterprise + user, please contact us.
+Starlink is a low-earth-orbit communications constellation developed by SpaceX. While we have a tremendous amount of + respect for the engineering accomplishments of the Starlink network, its goals and those of FemtoStar are almost entirely separate. While + both intend to provide satellite communications service using low-earth orbit constellations, Starlink is designed to provide consumer + broadband services to large, fixed terminals (in the satellite industry, this is known as Fixed Satellite Service). FemtoStar, on the + other hand, is designed for midband services to small and medium, portable or in-motion terminals (also known as Mobile Satellite Service).
+ ++ While the Starlink network is large, its architecture is traditional - it is designed to connect users to official ground stations providing + official services. While there has been talk of limited use of Starlink for point-to-point connectivity, such as for high-speed securities + trading, SpaceX holds complete control over use of this feature, and it is not a part of their consumer-facing services, nor is it known to + be possible with their consumer hardware. FemtoStar's open-infrastructure architecture ensures an inherently net-neutral network, wherein + all hardware is usable as a ground station, and even our own services are simply one of many a satellite is able to connect users to.
+ +Starlink + terminals are uniquely identified on the network, and can be easily geolocated by the network (whether they report their GPS location is currently + unknown, but the network is certainly able to geolocate them accurately, as they are disallowed from accessing the network outside of the + small region, or "cell", where their user's address is registered). Starlink users are required to provide a substantial amount of personal + information in order to purchase service. Payments are handled on ground infrastructure, based on user accounts. FemtoStar does not require + any user account whatsoever, is not restricted to use in a small cell, and handles payments on the satellite itself using FemtoStar Credit Tokens.
+Blockstream is a cryptocurrency company which offers a service named Blockstream Satellite. + Othernet is a company which broadcasts data, primarily news and other text content, via satellite.
+ +Blockstream Satellite broadcasts the Bitcoin blockchain, one-way, over six geostationary broadcasting satellites, and offers an API to transmit + your own short pieces of data over the network, with payment in Bitcoin. While Blockstream does allow for remote access to the Bitcoin blockchain, + it is a one-way system - it cannot be used for two-way communications, or to make online cryptocurrency transactions, unless you already have an internet + connection and can connect to its API.
+ +Othernet provides one-way, broadcast data service via two geostationary satellites. This data typically consists of news, Wikipedia articles, and + other low-data-rate content which can be delivered one-way.
+ +Both of these companies purchase time on existing geostationary broadcasting satellites, of the type typically used for consumer satellite television. + These services do not support, nor is the hardware provided for them capable of, any form of uplink from the user terminal. While both services are + useful as tools for broadcast data distribution, they are one-way, Broadcasting Satellite Service systems, distinct from two-way communications systems + in the Fixed Satellite Service (such as Starlink) and Mobile Satellite Service (such as FemtoStar).
+We're big fans of a number of the terrestrial privacy-respecting communications projects currently in development - in fact, FemtoStar began as a terrestrial + network, named Private Mobile Data Protocol (PMDP).
+ +The fundamental issue of terrestrial networks is the amount of hardware necessary to provide adequate coverage. It has taken decades of development, + thousands of licenses to thousands of companies in hundreds of countries, hundreds of billions of dollars at least, and more than 7 million cell + towers to build mainstream cellular networks out to their current coverage, and even with this it's likely you still sometimes have problems + getting cellular service. We began with the assumption that a terrestrial network would be the only practical solution, and extensively tested + PMDP hardware in real-world urban and suburban environments. Eventually, even we - the developers of the technology - were forced to admit that + it was impractical without an impractically dense network, even for a small, urban implementation - letalone regional or global coverage.
+ +As a thought experiment in community-run terrestrial networks, next time you leave home, ask yourself if you are ever more than 1 kilometer (3200 feet) + away from somewhere a mesh node or base station in a community-run terrestrial network could be installed without being removed, stolen, or + tampered with, and if anyone nearby would be willing to pay for, install, and maintain such a device. We tried this, with real hardware, in a real + city, in 2019, and came to the conclusion that that, in contrast to being an easier solution, it was likely outright impossible in most circumstances.
+ +Where such networks can exist, they genuinely do have some advantages over satellite-based networks - however, in most places, it is simply not realistic to + build them. We found this out the hard way. It's also worth noting that FemtoStar can coexist with these networks symbiotically - where these networks can + be built, given that this is likely to occur in clusters of nodes or base stations (such as in a city center) separated by a substantial distance, we + believe FemtoStar could be extremely useful to link these sections together into larger, more resillient networks.
+See the above point. While mesh networks are able to partially solve the problem of base station range by allowing every user device to extend coverage, + this still does not allow for coverage where there are no nodes. The same thought experiment applies - are you always within a kilometer of someone else + who might have a node in the mesh? If you have your own node in the mesh, is there ever another node nearby for it to mesh with? If not, a mesh network + may not be practical in your situation. Even where mesh networks are practical, FemtoStar could still be used to interconnect regions where the mesh is + available, even when they are separated by large regions with no nodes.
+Not to nearly the same degree. While the distance to the satellite does add some amount of latency due to the time taken for the signal to reach the satellite, + the round-trip propagation time to a low-earth orbit satellite is a handful of milliseconds, not the hundreds of milliseconds familiar to users of geostationary + satellite networks. Ping time on FemtoStar should be less than a tenth of that which a geostationary satellite user would experience, if even that.
+In contrast to the vast majority of small satellites, FemtoStar plans to include electric propulsion onboard our satellites, allowing them to be repositioned + as needed and cleanly deorbited at end-of-life. The FemtoStar Project is working closely with Applied Ion Systems, a leading developer of open-hardware + mallsat propulsion hardware, to develop a specialized implementation of their technology for use onboard the FemtoStar space vehicle. Even in the event of a thruster failure, + the solar panel can be positioned to drastically increase atmospheric drag on the satellite, rapidly increasing orbital decay and deorbiting the satellite.
+The network can theoretically work with as little as a single satellite, however of course this configuration does not allow for continuous coverage. + Practical constellation layouts begin at around 48 satellites (and include the layout shown on our homepage. We have also considered + the possibility of starting with a larger constellation of up to 96 satellites, however we believe the most reasonable approach would be to begin with + the minimum practical number of satellites (likely 48) and then scale up the constellation with new satellites as needed.
+The FemtoStar network provides multiple levels of protection against failure of spacecraft, and against failure of the network due to failure of a spacecraft, + resulting in a resilient network able to mitigate and work around hardware failures onboard satellites. Each satellite incorporates a degree of redundancy + previously seen only on far larger satellites, and is designed with longevity in mind. The network as a whole also protects against network-wide failure as + a result of the failure of a single satellite - most regions, especially those with a latitude near the inclination of the satellites such as North America + Europe, and Oceania, and much of Asia and South America - are covered redundantly, and even elsewhere, the "gap" caused when the only satellite visible to + a user has failed is short - lasting only minutes or less before working satellites come into view.
+ +For most users, a satellite failure would likely be noticeable only as a decrease in the network's coverage angle, while for those in the aforementioned + near-inclination regions, it might not be noticeable at all. Finally, FemtoStar would be able to rapidly and inexpensively replenish its network with new satellites, + either newly-launched or simply moved into place if already available in a storage orbit.
+FemtoStar is not purely a "privacy" system - we believe it to be competitive with other mobile satellite options, and in all likelihood there will be plenty + of FemtoStar users who aren't even aware of, much less interested in, its privacy features. We also believe there will be a number of FemtoStar terminals + installed as a part of machine-to-machine data installations, as backup connections for enterprise networks, or as backhaul to community-run terrestrial + networks. A user using it for privacy reasons is indistinguishable from any of these users.
+ +Additionally, by this rationale, any privacy-respecting product, service, or system is bad for your privacy, as its use demonstrates that you are looking + for privacy. Even if your threat model truly does require that you obscure even the fact that someone is using a system that could be used for + privacy-respecting communications, FemtoStar still does substantially better than just about any other privacy-respecting communications network. For one thing, it uses + a substantially more directional antenna than any terrestrial mobile, which means its transmitted signal is very weak in any direction but that of the + satellite.
+ +Its connection to the satellite is also is encrypted, and even to the satellite, it does not contain a location, terminal identifier, user account, or any + other identifying details. The terminal never transmits when it has no session open with the satellite, and, unlike mesh network nodes, it cannot be made + to transmit by the traffic of another user unless the terminal's owner has chosen to operate their own service over the network.
+In theory, to some extent, but in practice, not meaningfully. In contrast to traditional communications satellites, a FemtoStar satellite, at least for + transmit, does not have a consistent beam pattern. Instead, electronic beamforming is used to point each of only a handful of beams, rapidly switching + beam patterns as the satellite jumps between active sessions. The footprints within which these beams are usable are hundreds of kilometers across, + even at their narrowest, and more than 2000 kilometers long. In addition, knowing where "you" are, as opposed to just knowing the rough area in which + one of the network's users is located, requires knowing who you are. As such, the satellite could determine that an anonymous session is within, for + example, northern Europe, western North America, or eastern Asia, but not that it is in a particular country or city, and certainly not who that + session belongs to. +
+We do not feel that we can promise that there is any two-way wireless communications system where it is truly impossible for an adversary to locate a + transmitter given enough time to search for it on the ground. In particular, it is extremely difficult to prevent just about any transmitter from + being detectable by a high-gain antenna at short range, no matter how directional or low-power the transmitter may be. However, we also believe + that such a search would need to begin relatively close to any terminal it wanted to have a chance of finding, and that it would likely be + complicated by the presence of more than one FemtoStar terminal in an area.
+ +Additionally, there's the question of why finding terminals would be worthwhile to an attacker to begin with. Given that such an attack would almost + certainly involve the rather labor-intensive task of traveling around an area of interest with a vehicle full of equipment looking for terminals that + you cannot identify and cannot monitor the activity of, while also being unable to tell the difference between two intermittently-used terminals and + one terminal which has moved, we do feel we can say that this attack is unlikely to fit into many threat models.
+ +A FemtoStar terminal can even be used as a receive-only device if this is acceptable for the user's use case - in this configuration, it would likely be + nearly impossible to geolocate, even with this sort of attack.
+ +In short, we don't believe any transmitting device is truly geolocation-proof, but we do believe that geolocation of users can be made impractical for to + perform at a large scale, and that its value to an attacker can be substantially diminished. On top of this, we do feel we can safely say that FemtoStar + is substantially more geolocation-resistant than any currently-available two-way wireless communications system, and that it is likely that its + geolocation-resistance could only be matched or exceeded by another satellite-based system including most or all of the same geolocation-resistance features.
+The FemtoStar architecture does not require that you trust the FemtoStar Project, even to begin with. Because the user is not required to trust the FemtoStar + network, in order for the FemtoStar Project, or or an entity who had taken it over, to meaningfully compromise the security of FemtoStar users, many core + design elements of the network would need to be changed, necessitating, at minimum, a firmware update to user terminals to accomodate substantial protocol changes. A new update published without + source code would be immediately suspicious, as would a new update where the newly-released source code disabled privacy features. +
+See the above point. Even if a malicious governmen were to take over the FemtoStar Project and attempt to surveil its users, they would be + incapable of doing so without making changes that would be immediately obvious to users, and to our own developers in other countries. Additionally + FemtoStar Inc. in Canada is only one part of the overarching FemtoStar Project - we have developers all over the world. +
+While we would never claim that it is impossible that a FemtoStar satellite could be compromised, either remotely or through physical attack, we believe + the likelihood of this to be low for a number of reasons.
+ +The most important point here is that FemtoStar satellites are not especially useful targets to an attacker. Due to not being a trusted part of the network, + even if they themselves are fully compromised, they cannot be used to compromise FemtoStar users, nor would they be much use as part of a botnet, nor would + they provide an attacker with any additional utility in their intended purpose (communications) than is available officially.
+ +With regards to compromising the satellites from the ground, the satellite's onboard software is subject to intense scrutiny, including through formal + proofs, makes extensive use of sandboxing, and, given the relative simplicity of the FemtoStar protocol, presents a small attack surface.
+ +In terms of physical security, while FemtoStar's placement of its infrastructure in orbit certainly grants it a degree of inaccessibility compared to terrestrial + infrastructure, there are of course spacecraft which could conceivably reach a FemtoStar satellite, and could hypothetically either tamper with or replace it. + However, tampering would require physical capture and substantial disassembly of the satellite, which is detectable and would result in the deletion of onboard + keys, resulting in a tampered-with satellite being easily detectable from the ground (even if new software attempted to obscure this tampering), while a + replacement satellite would lack the cryptographic keys of the satellite it replaced entirely.
+ +An attacker could opt to attempt to disable, capture, or destroy a satellite altogether - after all, if you want to assume that truly no adversary is off the table, + you could choose to consider even the use of anti-satellite weapons. However, an attacker trying to make the network truly unusable would need to destroy or disable + not just one satellite, but the entire constellation, and any replacement satellites, and to do so in a way which obscured their involvement, a daunting task + even for the largest possible adversaries. This type of attack is also immediately obvious (especially if the satellite is physically destroyed, resulting in + the generation of orbital debris), and even this still does not result in an actual compromise (geolocation, identification, etc.) of FemtoStar users.
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