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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

#281

Post by orsenthil »

An important context is, there is a large scale non-violent protest and a Gandhian fast lead by Sonam Wangchuk. https://x.com/Wangchuk66/status/2080471599237702014

Indian Government is struggling to address this issue at face. PM Modi hasn't responded to this in public. To address this, Government is taking into all sort of measures like blocking public communication and social media. Like they have done for other measures like for terrorism , control and govt lead propaganda to control the narrative.

It is interesting that they tried to do this app with a _miniscule_ usage. Usage might be so small, that they could have bothered less about it.

But since they did it, Jack Dorsey is now using his clout to share about this app and bring some light on the situation. With what we have seen with Twitter/X and not-standing up to Elon, let's just remember that Dorsey isn't champion of free speech either.

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

#282

Post by bacheaul »

markdown wrote: post #252
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.

Sadly that wasn't possible in the US political climate and maybe a million people lost their lives as a result.

I think they're being facetious, this is basically a distopian movie plot point.

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

#283

Post by graton »

bhelkey wrote: post #219
m463 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan has no trash cans. (reaction to the japanese subway attacks) Returning to the US from japan you notice. Japanese bathrooms don't have trash cans, so no paper towels. In the US, the bathrooms have trash cans overflowing with paper towel waste and it is quite a difference.

One thing I noticed is that I tended to accumulate a lot of trash in Japan. Connivence stores were plentiful and the food was tasty, but it was all wrapped in plastic. Where does all the trash go? More often than not, I ended up carrying trash in a backpack to throw away at my hotel.

I would eat the food at the store and then throw the trash away in the store's trash cans.

For things I didn't eat at the store I carried a small plastic bag to store my trash and when I got to my lodging I would throw it away. Also once you go inside the gates of a subway/train station there often seemed to be trash cans available.

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

#285

Post by conorcleary »

inigyou wrote: post #178
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.

We already have that, except for half of real life.

They used to call it gawd and s4nta

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

#286

Post by sieve »

hamper653 wrote: post #267
anon291 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with the Modi and Hindutva project almost entirely, not only politically, but on a personal level coming from a minority community (Christian) in India. However, India is in what basically amounts to a perpetual state of war with Pakistan and has always been this way. India rarely agresses Pakistan and Pakistani terror groups do operate with seeming impunity in India (Pakistan doesn't even maintain a 'no-f…

> India is in what basically amounts to a perpetual state of war with Pakistan and has always been this way. You mean, since India and Pakistan were invented 79 years ago?

I wonder what is it with this denial of the existence of India prior to 1947. If people were specific and said that they were referring to the Republic of India as the successor state to British-controlled India, then it would at least make some sense. Otherwise it sounds completely insane.

If India was invented 79 years ago, then you need to explain the various East India companies established in the 1600s, and all the references to India and the Indians by the Romans and the Greeks and the Persians and the Chinese before the Abrahamization of Europe. Europeans were literally looking for ways to India and ran into the West Indies and North America by accident.

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

#287

Post by vkaku »

orsenthil wrote: post #281

An important context is, there is a large scale non-violent protest and a Gandhian fast lead by Sonam Wangchuk. https://x.com/Wangchuk66/status/2080471599237702014 Indian Government is struggling to address this issue at face. PM Modi hasn't responded to this in public. To address this, Government is taking into all sort of measures like blocking public communication and social media. Like they have done for other me…

This was a legit case for the students, who suffered the most here. Better systems need to exist, including parametric computer testing and same day results - thereby making re-examinations simpler for the affected students.

I am also aware of the attempts to bring down NEET here, which I feel isn't given the right amount of scrutiny, and showing the cracks in the system. Exam leaks have been happening in India for a long time, and it looks like better systems need to exist for preventing this.

As far as censorship goes, many people should start making SDR based chat systems for long distance relays as well ... they can make this easily today

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

#288

Post by GeekyBear »

adityaathalye wrote: post #154
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…

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.)

The most consequential public health failure during COVID was the denial that COVID was airborne, based on no scientific evidence.

The infection spread based on being in the same enclosed space as an infected person, and was not based on being only a few feet apart.

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

#289

Post by halfmatthalfcat »

adamfisk wrote: post #280

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…

Because it’s Jack Dorsey and that’s it. I agree it’s not novel or interesting. It’s frustrating for me particularly because I want some kind of widely decentralized network but something that actually has a chance to work, which Dorsey has the capability (financially, connections, etc) to make happen. Instead he decides to waste time on something that’s DOA.

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

#290

Post by thewhitetulip »

adityaathalye wrote: post #163
iambenm wrote: post #17

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,…

The terrorists were only able to do so because mass-media news was live broadcasting everything on the air, and the terrorists holed up with hostages in the hotel were able to follow the blow-by-blow live . (edit: i.e. SatCom alone can't do much, if there is no verifiable on-ground intel. And in 2008, our mass-media supplied it in liberal quantities, through multiple camera angles and replays and blow-by-blow comment…

I was in school back then, lived in a town near Mumbai and watched it on TV

The media was so stupid that it literally showed commando positions. Literal position second by second.

The govt then later banned this information, staggering it to one hour after the fact

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