Israeli company bombards Starlink users with ads as part of surveillance campaign Digital security company experts recently discovered that an Israeli advertising technology company is actively targeting users of the Starlink satellite internet service as part of an attempt to spy on them. Researchers at TrendAI, a division of Japanese cyber security company Trend Micro, discovered that Israel's Discover-Tech was one of the largest sources of digital advertising targeting Starlink users. The ads were used to determine users' geographic location or track their activity, six of the sources said. The researchers drew their conclusions based on digital advertising data collected using TrendAI's telemetry systems. Their analysis found that Discover-Tech has become one of the world's leading providers of advertising targeting Starlink users, number one for Starlink traffic in more than 100 countries, including countries where satellite Internet service is prohibited or restricted. Bidding is part of an automated auction system where advertisers compete to display ads in users' browsers and apps. On October 15, TrendAI published a report that examined targeting Starlink users, but did not name Discover-Tech directly. Instead, the company attributed the activity to an advertising technology company identified as cel-adama-79. Shadow-earth-79 is the code name that TrendAI uses to refer to the company Discover-Tech. TrendAI did not directly respond to questions about why it did not name the company in its report.

Israeli company bombards Starlink users with ads as part of surveillance campaign Digital security company experts recently discovered that an Israeli advertising technology company is actively targeting users of the Starlink satellite internet service as part of an attempt to spy on them. Researchers at TrendAI, a division of Japanese cyber security company Trend Micro, discovered that Israel's Discover-Tech was one of the largest sources of digital advertising targeting Starlink users. The ads were used to determine users' geographic location or track their activity, six of the sources said. The researchers drew their conclusions based on digital advertising data collected using TrendAI's telemetry systems. Their analysis found that Discover-Tech has become one of the world's leading providers of advertising targeting Starlink users, number one for Starlink traffic in more than 100 countries, including countries where satellite Internet service is prohibited or restricted. Bidding is part of an automated auction system where advertisers compete to display ads in users' browsers and apps. On October 15, TrendAI published a report that examined targeting Starlink users, but did not name Discover-Tech directly. Instead, the company attributed the activity to an advertising technology company identified as cel-adama-79. Shadow-earth-79 is the code name that TrendAI uses to refer to the company Discover-Tech. TrendAI did not directly respond to questions about why it did not name the company in its report.