We take it for granted that we almost always have cell service, no matter where you go around town. But there are places — the desert, the forest, or the ocean — where you might not have cell service. In addition, there are certain jobs where you must be able to make a call even if the cell towers are down, for example, after a hurricane. Recently, a combination of technological advancements has made it possible for your ordinary cell phone to connect to a satellite for at least some kind of service. But before that, you needed a satellite phone.

On TV and in movies, these are simple. You pull out your cell phone that has a bulkier-than-usual antenna, and you make a call. But the real-life version is quite different. While some satellite phones were connected to something like a ship, I’m going to consider a satellite phone, for the purpose of this post, to be a handheld device that can make calls.

History

Satellites have been relaying phone calls for a very long time. Early satellites carried voice transmissions in the late 1950s. But it would be 1979 before Inmarsat would provide MARISAT for phone calls from sea. It was clear that the cost of operating a truly global satellite phone system would be too high for any single country, but it would be a boon for ships at sea.

Inmarsat, started as a UN organization to create a satellite network for naval operations. It would grow to operate 15 satellites and become a private British-based company in 1998. However, by the late 1990s, there were competing companies like Thuraya, Iridium, and GlobalStar.

An IsatPhone-Pro (CC-BY-SA-3.0 by [Klaus Därr])The first commercial satellite phone call was in 1976. The oil platform “Deep Sea Explorer” had a call with Phillips Petroleum in Oklahoma from the coast of Madagascar. Keep in mind that these early systems were not what we think of as mobile phones. They were more like portable ground stations, often with large antennas.

For example, here was part of a press release for a 1989 satellite terminal:

…small enough to fit into a standard suitcase. The TCS-9200 satellite terminal weighs 70lb and can be used to send voice, facsimile and still photographs… The TCS-9200 starts at $53,000, while Inmarsat charges are $7 to $10 per minute.

Keep in mind, too, that in addition to the briefcase, you needed an antenna. If you were lucky, your antenna folded up and, when deployed, looked a lot like an upside-down umbrella.

However, Iridium launched specifically to bring a handheld satellite phone service to the market. The first call? In late 1998, U.S. Vice President Al Gore dialed Gilbert Grosvenor, the great-grandson of Alexander Graham Bell. The phones looked like very big “brick” phones with a very large antenna that swung out.

Of course, all of this was during the Cold War, so the USSR also had its own satellite systems: Volna and Morya, in addition to military satellites.

Location, Location, Location

The earliest satellites made one orbit of the Earth each day, which means they orbit at a very specific height. Higher orbits would cause the Earth to appear to move under the satellite, while lower orbits would have the satellite racing around the Earth.

That means that, from the ground, it looks like they never move. This gives reasonable coverage as long as you can “see” the satellite in the sky. However, it means you need better transmitters, receivers, and antennas.
Iridium satellites are always on the move, but blanket the earth.
This is how Inmarsat and Thuraya worked. Unless there is some special arrangement, a geosynchronous satellite only covers about 40% of the Earth.

Getting a satellite into a high orbit is challenging, and there are only so many “slots” at the exact orbit required to be geosynchronous available. That’s why other companies like Iridium and Globalstar wanted an alternative.

That alternative is to have satellites in lower orbits. It is easier to talk to them, and you can blanket the Earth. However, for full coverage of the globe, you need at least 40 or 50 satellites.

The system is also more complex. Each satellite is only overhead for a few minutes, so you have to switch between orbiting “cell towers” all the time. If there are enough satellites, it can be an advantage because you might get blocked from one satellite by, say, a mountain, and just pick up a different one instead.

Globalstar used 48 satellites, but couldn’t cover the poles. They eventually switched to a constellation of 24 satellites. Iridium, on the other hand, operates 66 satellites and claims to cover the entire globe. The satellites can beam signals to the Earth or each other.

The Problems

There are a variety of issues with most, if not all, satellite phones. First, geosynchronous satellites won’t work if you are too far North or South since the satellite will be so low, you’ll bump into things like trees and mountains. Of course, they don’t work if you are on the wrong side of the world, either, unless there is a network of them.

Getting a signal indoors is tricky. Sometimes, it is tricky outdoors, too. And this isn’t cheap. Prices vary, but soon after the release, phones started at around $1,300, and then you paid $7 a minute to talk. The geosynchronous satellites, in particular, are subject to getting blocked momentarily by just about anything. The same can happen if you have too few satellites in the sky above you.

Modern pricing is a bit harder to figure out because of all the different plans. However, expect to pay between $50 and $150 a month, plus per-minute charges ranging from $0.25 to $1.50 per minute. In general, networks with less coverage are cheaper than those that work everywhere. Text messages are extra. So, of course, is data.

If you want to see what it really looked like to use a 1990-era Iridium phone, check out [saveitforparts] video below.

youtube.com/embed/omerPV8CPZQ?…

If you prefer to see an older non-phone system, check him out with an even older Inmarsat station in this video:

youtube.com/embed/mOvUxoA7Ngs?…

So it is no wonder these never caught on with the mass market. We expect that if providers can link normal cell phones to a satellite network, these older systems will fall by the wayside, at least for voice communications. Or, maybe hacker use will get cheaper. We can hope, right?

hackaday.com/2025/06/23/eulogy…

A metà maggio 2025, Cloudflare ha bloccato il più grande attacco DDoS mai registrato: ben 7,3 terabit al secondo (Tbps). Questo evento segue di poco la pubblicazione del report sulle minacce DDoS per il primo trimestre del 2025 avvenuta il 27 aprile 2025, in cui era stato evidenziato attacchi che raggiungevano i 6,5 Tbps e 4,8 miliardi di pacchetti al secondo (pps).

37,4 terabyte non sono una cifra sbalorditiva per le dimensioni odierne, ma scaricarne 37,4 terabyte in soli 45 secondi lo è.

Equivale a inondare la rete con oltre 9.350 film in HD o a guardare in streaming 7.480 ore di video ad alta definizione senza interruzioni (quasi un anno di maratona di visione di serie TV consecutive) in soli 45 secondi.

Se si trattasse di musica, scaricheresti circa 9,35 milioni di brani in meno di un minuto, abbastanza per tenere impegnato un ascoltatore per 57 anni di fila. Immagina di scattare 12,5 milioni di foto ad alta risoluzione con il tuo smartphone senza mai esaurire lo spazio di archiviazione: anche se ne scattassi una al giorno, staresti lì a cliccare per 4.000 anni, ma in 45 secondi.

L’attacco ha preso di mira un cliente di Cloudflare, un provider di hosting, che utilizza Magic Transit per difendere la propria rete IP. I provider di hosting e le infrastrutture Internet critiche sono sempre più spesso bersaglio di attacchi DDoS, come riportato nell’ultimo rapporto sulle minacce DDoS

L’immagine sottostante mostra una campagna di attacchi condotta tra gennaio e febbraio 2025, che ha sferrato oltre 13,5 milioni di attacchi DDoS contro l’infrastruttura di Cloudflare e i provider di hosting protetti da Cloudflare.

L’attacco ha colpito a tappeto una media di 21.925 porte di destinazione di un singolo indirizzo IP, con un picco di 34.517 porte di destinazione al secondo. L’attacco ha avuto origine anche da una distribuzione simile di porte sorgente.

L’attacco da 7,3 Tbps è stato un attacco DDoS multivettore. Circa il 99,996% del traffico dell’attacco è stato classificato come flood UDP. Tuttavia, il restante 0,004%, pari a 1,3 GB del traffico dell’attacco, è stato identificato come attacchi di riflessione QOTD, attacco di riflessione Echo, attacco di riflessione NTP, attacco di flood UDP Mirai, flood Portmap e attacchi di amplificazione RIP

L'articolo Cloudflare mitiga un attacco da 7,3 terabit al secondo. Immagina 9350 film in HD scaricati in 45 secondi proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

L’avvocata Filomena Gallo, Segretaria nazionale dell’Associazione Luca Coscioni, partecipa al dibattito e alla proiezione del film La stanza accanto di Pedro Almodovar. La proiezione è organizzata da Rete dei Diritti, in collaborazione con Arianteo.

L’appuntamento è per mercoledì 9 luglio 2025 alle ore 20:45 a Palazzo Reale, a Milano.

Con Filomena Gallo partecipa anche Valeria Imbrogno, psicologa e compagna di DJ Fabo. Presenta e coordina Ilio Pacini Mannucci, magistrato del Tribunale di Milano. I biglietti sono acquistabili in loco.

L'articolo Filomena Gallo partecipa alla proiezione del film “La stanza accanto” proviene da Associazione Luca Coscioni.

Time series of O2 (blue) and VGADM (red). (Credit: Weijia Kuang, Science Advances, 2025)
In an Earth-sized take on the age-old ‘correlation or causality’ question, researchers have come across a fascinating match between Earth’s magnetic field and its oxygen levels since the Cambrian explosion, about 500 million years ago. The full results by [Weijia Kuang] et al. were published in Science Advances, where the authors speculate that this high correlation between the geomagnetic dipole and oxygen levels as recorded in the Earth’s geological mineral record may be indicative of the Earth’s geological processes affecting the evolution of lifeforms in its biosphere.

As with any such correlation, one has to entertain the notion that said correlation might be spurious or indirectly related before assuming a strong causal link. Here it is for example known already that the solar winds affect the Earth’s atmosphere and with it the geomagnetic field, as more intense solar winds increase the loss of oxygen into space, but this does not affect the strength of the geomagnetic field, just its shape. The question is thus whether there is a mechanism that would affect this field strength and consequently cause the loss of oxygen to the solar winds to spike.

Here the authors suggest that the Earth’s core dynamics – critical to the geomagnetic field – may play a major role, with conceivably the core-mantle interactions over the course of millions of years affecting it. As supercontinents like Pangea formed, broke up and partially reformed again, the impact of this material solidifying and melting could have been the underlying cause of these fluctuations in oxygen and magnetic field strength levels.

Although hard to say at this point in time, it may very well be that this correlation is causal, albeit as symptoms of activity of the Earth’s core and liquid mantle.

hackaday.com/2025/06/23/earths…

IT'S MONDAY, AND THIS IS DIGITAL POLITICS. I'm Mark Scott, and here's a quick scheduling update. I'm taking the first two weeks off in July, so next week's newsletter will be the last until July 14.

Don't worry. I've got some programming planned for my upcoming break, but FYI.

— The United States is pursuing a "cake-and-eat-it" strategy on digital policymaking. It's leaving many confused, at home and abroad.

— The United Kingdom just passed the world's second mandate requiring social media companies to open up to outsiders in the name of accountability and transparency.

— Social media dominates how we all access information online. But artificial intelligence tools are likely to upend that status-quo.

Let's get started:

digitalpolitics.co/newsletter0…

In November 2023, EDRi and members filed a complaint against the French decree implementing the EU regulation addressing the dissemination of 'terrorist content' online. Last week, the French supreme administrative court rejected our arguments and refused to refer the case to the Court of Justice of the European Union.

The post French Administrative Supreme Court illegitimately buries the debate over internet censorship law appeared first on European Digital Rights (EDRi).

The European Commission’s new legislative proposal for a deportation regulation fuels detention, criminalisation, and digital surveillance. The #ProtectNotSurveil coalition is demanding the end of the deportation regime and for the Commission to withdraw its proposal.

The post The EU must stop the digitalisation of the deportation regime and withdraw the new Return Regulation appeared first on European Digital Rights (EDRi).