Star Link is best known for supplying high-speed satellite internet, but it turns out that SpaceX’s technology can also counter a persistent problem in the Middle East: GPS spoofing and interference.
“Those (Starlink) satellites are much closer than GPS satellites, so their signal is maybe 100 to 1,000 times stronger,” says Bruce Toal, a Starlink subscriber from Texas who has been surfing the world. “They can overcome all kinds of interference.”
The ongoing electronic warfare in the Middle East has crippled GPS reliability for ships navigating the Red Sea, forcing mariners to deal with dangerous signal interference from surrounding military activities. Spoofing can override legitimate GPS signals, tricking a navigation system into showing that the boat is off course and even sailing over land, as the video below shows.
But in recent months, the maritime community has found a solution in its Starlink satellite dishes, which can connect to SpaceX’s fleet of more than 8,000 active satellites to receive fairly precise positioning coordinates. The only problem? The company is preparing to close positioning data on May 20, alarming ship owners, including Toal, which recently sailed the Red Sea.
“Certainly my boat has GPS, but if it’s spoofed, then the GPS becomes basically useless,” he says. “If you’re traveling through these areas, it’s a big problem.”
A map from October showing reports of global navigation satellite system interference around the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. (United Kingdom)
SpaceX notified users about the change last week. Implies closing a little-known location data feature via a software interface, the gRPC API, on Starlink hardware. Users can manually activate the feature by entering the Starlink Mobile app and trigger in the “Debug Data” section, allowing you to see the GPS coordinates of your dish.
The Starlink app used to have a section in debug data mode to view the location of your dish. But SpaceX quietly removed it ahead of the May 20 gRPC API restriction. (Credit: Paul Sutherland)
Users who want to know the location of their dishes in real time have been taking advantage of the gRPC API. But the maritime community also realized that location data could be used as a backup to spoof-resistant GPS, says Luis Soltero, a mobile satellite communications specialist.
Soltero is the lead developer of PredictWind data centerwhich provides maritime GPS tracking data, including from a customer’s Starlink satellite dish, via the gRPC API. Last month, he also published a study on Starlink-equipped vessels traveling through the Red Sea, confirming that SpaceX’s satellite Internet system, particularly the Mini Satellite Dish, can resist GPS spoofing and interference.
(Credit: Luis Soltero)
The same study found that Starlink’s location data is quite accurate; Although traditional GPS appears to be more accurate overall, the two positioning systems were typically within 60 feet (18 meters) of each other, he says.
That’s why Soltero said he’s “distressed” that SpaceX is shutting down the feature, citing the ongoing threat of GPS spoofing and jamming in the Red Sea. “Commercial ships have had to deal with this for years,” he told PCMag from a cruise ship, where he is testing Starlink as a resilient backup to GPS. “I would really like to find a way to fix this (restriction).”
Soltero points out one reason why Starlink can evade spoofing: it can convey data in the higher radio bands in the 10 to 14.5 GHz range, unlike GPS, which uses the 1.2 and 1.5 GHz bands. The larger Starlink constellation also orbits at about 500 km altitude, while the US GPS system spreads 31 operational satellites orbiting 20,000 kilometers away.
According to Soltero, Starlink’s satellite dishes will continue to obtain positioning data from the GPS system, probably for beam steering. But it also notes that the Starlink app’s data purge mode previously included a setting that could obtain location coordinates “exclusively” from Starlink satellites instead of GPS. In his study, Soltero found the laptop mini plate could use this “exclusive mode enabled” to resist sustained GPS spoofing, outperforming the other Starlink dishes.
Soltero suspects this is because the Mini Satellite Dish was released in 2024 with newer hardware and firmware components capable of operating without a GPS signal.
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(Credit: Luis Soltero)
Although Starlink has not been widely adopted by the maritime industry as a GPS backup, it is clear that the technology has significant potential, especially when solar storms can interfere with GPS signals. “Now all that work is going down the drain” with the closure, he says.
SpaceX has not responded to a request for comment. But it’s not hard to see how anti-GPS spoofing technology could be a double-edged sword. “I can imagine a Starlink lawyer saying, ‘What? We don’t want to be responsible for people relying on that to navigate ships,'” Toal says. “Because there’s a chance something could happen, people could sue them. I can see a lawyer saying, ‘We should turn this off so we don’t have this liability.'”
Countries have also been resorting to GPS spoofing and jamming to thwart missile and drone attacks by confusing their navigation systems. “A bad actor could use this system to drive their vehicle, drone, robot or whatever to a location with an accuracy of 18 meters. If you can do this with ships, why couldn’t you do it with something else?” asks Bachelor.
Still, he urges SpaceX to consider the positives and create a way for the maritime industry to continue accessing the location feature through the gRPC API, even though it was never an official feature. “This is already being used for maritime security, it has some importance and I am very sorry to see it disappear,” he says.
Toal adds that members of his own browsing group have been messaging Starlink customer service to reverse the upcoming restriction.
About our expert
Michael Kan
Senior Reporter
Experience
I have been a journalist for more than 15 years. I started as a schools and cities reporter in Kansas City and joined PCMag in 2017, where I cover satellite internet services, cybersecurity, PC hardware, and more. I currently reside in San Francisco, but previously spent more than five years in China, covering the country’s technology sector.
Since 2020, I have covered the launch and explosive growth of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service, writing more than 600 stories on availability and feature launches, but also the regulatory battles over expanding satellite constellations, fights with rival providers like AST SpaceMobile and Amazon, and the effort to expand into satellite-based mobile service. I scoured the FCC files for the latest news and drove to remote corners of California to test Starlink cellular service.
I also cover cyber threats, from ransomware gangs to the emergence of AI-based malware. In 2024 and 2025, the FTC forced Avast pay consumers $16.5 million for secretly collecting and selling their personal information to third-party clients, as revealed in my joint report investigation with motherboard.
I also cover the PC graphics card market. Pandemic-era shortages took me camping vs. Best Buy to get an RTX 3000. Now I’m tracking how the AI-driven memory shortage is affecting the entire consumer electronics market. I’m always eager to learn more, so hit the comments with your feedback and send me tips.
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