[bigiain]

While that's all true, it does hilariously increase the difficulty for the government showing up and seizing your server hardware...

[xyzzy123]

They don't need to do that if they go after your ground station operators.

To escape the law you need to hide or protect something on earth (your ground station(s), downlinks). If you can hide or protect that infrastructure on earth, why bother putting the computers in space?

[mulmen]

Because you need an enormous amount of energy to run the servers. You may hide the downlinks but you still need power.

[xyzzy123]

I'm not sure how you maintain hidden ground stations while providing a commercial service that justifies many $MM in capital and requires state support to get launch permission.

[aleph_minus_one]

> I'm not sure how you maintain hidden ground stations while providing a commercial service that justifies many $MM in capital and requires state support to get launch permission.

Who said that Starcloud's business model is about commercial services? At https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44397026 I rather speculate that Starcloud's business model is about getting big money defense contracts.

[mulmen]

Yeah exactly. We’re riffing on how implausible that is, right?

[mrguyorama]

ASAT missiles have existed since the 80s and multiple countries have demonstrated the capability to destroy something in space.

Meanwhile, you, the actual human being the government wants to coerce, are still on the earth, where someone can grab you and beat you with a wrench

[_carbyau_]

Maybe not so much... they'll just grab you. Obligatory XKCD.

https://xkcd.com/538/

Unless you go up there with it and a literal lifetime supply? Although I guess if you don't take much it's still a lifetime supply...