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Government orders GitHub to remove Bluetooth-based chat app Bitchat: Jack Dorsey

thehindu.com

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Re: Government orders GitHub to remove Bluetooth-based chat app Bitchat: Jack Dorsey

#11

Post by jdoss »

tehlike wrote: post #6
OgsyedIE wrote: post #4

Bluetooth based messaging apps are naturally able to circumvent internet restrictions that inhibit protests, citizen journalism and other kinds of unapproved activities but there are several ways Bluetooth could be updated as a protocol to introduce compatibility with some kind of antibody-esque suppression of communication standard. It's just a matter of interested parties setting up a body to create the standard, w…

Meshtastic, reticulum, meshcore... We need more.

I was thinking the same thing. We do need more. I set up a Meshtastic node at the house and joined https://chicagolandmesh.org/ which has been a fantastic community for beginners in mesh based comms.

Re: Government orders GitHub to remove Bluetooth-based chat app Bitchat: Jack Dorsey

#14

Post by iamshs »

India is now going after domains too: https://www.reuters.com/world/worlds-biggest-domain-seller-f...

To imagine that US MNCs readily obey these orders. There was a time when Gmail exited China due to Aurora attacks, and Chinese GFW is universally hated, so why is India allowed to create a GFW like censorship on US platforms? Indian courts have even blocked Reuters articles GLOBALLY before. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/01/19/india-judg...

Re: Government orders GitHub to remove Bluetooth-based chat app Bitchat: Jack Dorsey

#16

Post by dhx »

delichon wrote: post #5

Still available. https://github.com/permissionlesstech/bitchat

To add:

The request has not yet been published by GitHub to https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/tree/master/India/20...

Also not mentioned in the project's GitHub repository yet per https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Apermissionlesstech%2Fbitc...

Re: Government orders GitHub to remove Bluetooth-based chat app Bitchat: Jack Dorsey

#17

Post by iambenm »

India is pretty serious about being able to monitor all communications after the terror attacks in Mumbai in 2008. The terrorists used satellite phones to coordinate the attack. As a result, they banned most satellite communication devices.

I learned about this earlier this year because I had a connecting flight through India on the way to go trekking in the Himalayas. I had planned to take a Garmin inReach with me, but luckily a day or two before my flight out I came across horror stories of people getting pulled out of security and taken to JAIL in India for having these things in their checked bags when TRANSITING India. Security there when transiting from Switzerland to Nepal was no joke - every single electronic item including anything with wires had to come out of bags including electric toothbrush.

In light of that, banning point to point communication seems on brand for India. Note that Apple gets a pass for its satellite capable phones by geofencing India and disabling the feature.

Re: Government orders GitHub to remove Bluetooth-based chat app Bitchat: Jack Dorsey

#18

Post by pbiggar »

We evaluated Bitchat and determined it would be a really useful tool for Gaza - Israel controls all internet access to Palestine and would frequently cut off internet access to Gazans. We tried building our own but when Bitchat came out we focused on that instead.

https://updates.techforpalestine.org/bitchat-for-gaza-messag...

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