Israeli ad-tech firm Discover-Tech named in suspected Starlink tracking effort
Google and Comcast have removed the company from their ad platforms while researchers continue to examine the claims.
Israeli ad-tech firm Discover-Tech is reportedly the subject of a suspected surveillance effort aimed at Starlink users, according to Reuters, which cited six people familiar with the matter. The firm is said to have outbid rivals for advertising inventory linked to Starlink traffic across more than 100 countries, a pattern researchers think may have been designed to pinpoint users' locations or support further monitoring. TrendAI, Trend Micro's research arm, tracked the activity under the codename Shadow-Earth-79 in an October 15 report, and says the bidding concentrated in places such as Syria, Libya, Yemen and South Sudan, which it describes as resembling targeting infrastructure rather than ordinary advertising. Citizen Lab and Confiant named Discover-Tech the same day, alleging it facilitated multiple mercenary spyware partners, and Google and Comcast have since removed the company from their ad platforms. Researchers have not shown that anyone was actually tracked, and neither Discover-Tech nor SpaceX has commented.
Why it matters
The reporting points to a possible route for locating Starlink users through advertising systems, a concern for anyone who relies on the service for privacy or in sensitive regions. The researchers have not shown that anyone was actually tracked, so the impact at this stage is a question about whether ad markets can be used for surveillance. The removals by Google and Comcast show that platforms are treating the allegations as serious enough to act on, while the firm and SpaceX have yet to respond.
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