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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

#271

Post by permalac »

ifh-hn wrote: post #100
viktorcode wrote: post #76

> the app enables communication even during network restrictions and creates a substantial risk of misuse by anti-national elements, terrorist organisations, organised criminal groups and cyber criminals seeking to evade lawful detection and continue communication despite legally imposed restrictions. This mouthful boils down to exactly this: a form of communication not controlled by the government creates a risk for…

I'm not condoning this but what would you suggest they should be doing to keep people safe? I'm fairly sure whatever they do you'd likely be complaining about it. Glad to be wrong though.

Very similar argument to those who want to ban encryption.

Why do you need to encrypt your network traffic with ssl, is you have nothing to hide....

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

#272

Post by platevoltage »

t0bia_s wrote: post #220
viktorcode wrote: post #76

> the app enables communication even during network restrictions and creates a substantial risk of misuse by anti-national elements, terrorist organisations, organised criminal groups and cyber criminals seeking to evade lawful detection and continue communication despite legally imposed restrictions. This mouthful boils down to exactly this: a form of communication not controlled by the government creates a risk for…

and vote out incompetent persons in power. How you can vote someone out?

You vote against them when they're up for re-election. If they're not up for re-election, you vote against anyone who allies themselves with said person.

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

#274

Post by aeternum »

cutterl6 wrote: post #253
aeternum wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, and it would have saved far more lives if leveraged the app to have hazmat crews come in a forcibly carry the infected to quarantine zones.

I doubt it, unless their hazmat suits are bullet-proof.

Agreed, and I'm happy to live in a country where this is likely true. The only thing more deadly than pandemics are governments that gained sufficient power to round up their citizens systematically in the name of the public good.

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

#275

Post by mannanj »

KitN wrote: post #216
adityaathalye wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hilariously (darkly), during the pandemic, the very same reason is why the very same administrators were hell-bent on forcing Bluetooth-always-on contact tracing on the whole country's smartphone-carrying population. (edit: viz. that forcible peer-to-peer bluetooth networking works. One man's unrestricted mass-surveillance is another person's "terrorist activity". Oh how the turntables turn and turn.)

But that did save lives; I was able to know my family had Covid before the symptoms showed up. Happened with a lot of other people too.

Was your short term safety at the expense of long term safety? (assuming rights erosion and government failures ultimately harms safety long-term).

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

#276

Post by mannanj »

tavavex wrote: post #198
transcriptase wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That went live about a decade ago. Heck, a lot of the people who built it and maintain it are here on HN, each getting paid so well and contributing only so little that if they can even admit it to themselves, they would never do it publicly.

What went live a decade ago? I feel like the monitoring technology we have now (let alone what we had in 2016) is still just scratching the surface, it can (will) get so much worse. My post was talking about things like discreet microphones in public spaces that can automatically separate and recognize multiple voices, smartphones recording and sending every word (or, even better - 24/7 camera footage) to the relevan…

Doesn't the NSA technology already do all of this?

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

#277

Post by mannanj »

palmotea wrote: post #236
tavavex wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how long it's going to take until we have universal communication monitoring, including in real life. It's not an impossible technical challenge, it's just a question of time. Every spoken word recorded forever and scrutinized. After all forms of distant private communication fall, the spoken word will be the last one remaining. And all these arguments they're making apply to it, too.

> I wonder how long it's going to take until we have universal communication monitoring, including in real life. It's not an impossible technical challenge, it's just a question of time. Every spoken word recorded forever and scrutinized. After all forms of distant private communication fall, the spoken word will be the last one remaining. And all these arguments they're making apply to it, too. There's a lot that sc…

[flagged]

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

#278

Post by snark_attack »

anon291 wrote: post #256
epestr wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Largely uncited and generalised exposition of Bangladeshi's misses other factors which could be involved in their decision towards distrust of India. India's initial decisions need not be merely humanitarian but also political. https://scroll.in/article/1081784/why-are-bangladeshis-turni... . This article explains that it's due to an increasingly unequal interactions as sowing distrust. Explaining the Hindutva moment…

> Largely uncited and generalised exposition of Bangladeshi's misses other factors which could be involved in their decision towards distrust of India. It's reasonable to distrust a neighboring country with distinct interest, even if they went to war for you, sure. You don't owe them anything. Similarly, it's actually also normal for India to have concerns about illegal migration, similar to Europe, America, Australi…

[dead]

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

#279

Post by inigyou »

jolmg wrote: post #259
inigyou wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weren't some of the German tourists last year sent to an ICE camp in Mexico?

Why would there be an ICE camp in Mexico? Maybe you read "New Mexico", the US state.

To deport legal tourists to?

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

#280

Post by adamfisk »

Uggh in any given project I tend to gauge the hype to working tech ratio. The higher it is, the more annoying the project. BitChat is about as annoying as you get. The reason is simple: bluetooth connectivity only works at scale if everyone has the app, and even then it only works under extremely high node density -- packed stadiums, maybe an apartment building if you're super lucky. The combination of extremely wide distribution and extreme density never happens.

To make it even more annoying, good projects like Briar have been doing this for over 10 years. Why would BitChat suddenly succeed or get any attention at all?

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