India has directed GitHub to disable access to the repositories of Bitchat, Jack Dorsey’s decentralized Bluetooth mesh messaging application, under Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act and the IT Rules, 2021. According to the official notice issued by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), authorities argue that Bitchat’s decentralized architecture, lack of mandatory user registration, absence of centralized logging, and ability to operate without internet connectivity make lawful interception and criminal investigations significantly more difficult.
As an Indian, this is for those who wouldn’t mind a better context.
The ruling party BJP in India has hit it’s lowest point in the last 10 years and losing its political captial like never before. This is happening on the background of some big leaks and alleged corruption in a national level entrance test for medical students and now in demand for the resignation of the current Education Minister, whose departure will undo all of BJP’s progress in some key Indian states.
But a big part of this is the student-led protests all over India, so huge and so intense that no political spin is helping BJP anymore. To dampen the students’ voices and restrict their movement in some ways, the officials have set jammers in the protest areas so that the cell network would stop working and no one will be able to use Whatsapp or any other services. The students obviously outsmarted this by using bluetooth mesh messaging apps (Bridgfy, Briar and Bitchat) in these areas and now apparently no one in the govt. knows what to do about it.
Students 1 - 0 Government
So now, apparently this govt. order is an attempt to keep prople from using Bitchat on mass level. I am not a tech expert but I think these apps have an architecture unlike others which make them difficult to regulate.
Thanks for the explanation! Hope the students teach those ponces a lesson
Happy to report that as of a few hours ago, the protest has achieved the targets
lack of mandatory user registration, absence of centralized logging, and ability to operate without internet connectivity make lawful interception and criminal investigations significantly more difficult.
I mean, it 100% does make lawful interception more difficult, that’s just factually correct. But it is a byproduct of needing to make unlawful interception more difficult.
Streisand effect much? I’ve never heard of this, but it sounds interesting. GitHub isn’t the only game in town. I expect to see this become more widespread. (There’s already 2.8k forks)
My github is just a clusterfuck of improperly documented keyboard firmwares, but it now also contains fork of bitchat. Performative, maybe, but kinda feels right. And if they all get taken down, maybe I need a codeberg account and the zip file I also saved.
Git doesn’t even need a central repository.
I’ve had this app for quite a long time, but I’ve never seen anybody in the mesh, just because of how short-range Bluetooth is.
However, I have successfully used both meshtastic and meshcore, and I prefer meshcore.
Streisand effected the shit out of that
Bwahahaha! Code lives even without github.
Mirror mirror mirror. How many are they gonna take down🗿
Yup. Good luck taking down mirrors outside of India. For example mine are not in India, come at me Indian government.
We’re gonna see a lot of i2p and webtorrent tech in the coming years. I should spin up my amnesia node again now that I think about it. I moved and never got around to setting it back up.
Repo is still live as of 7/24
It will be blocked for Indian IP addresses
Still available via my VPN node in India but I don’t know if that actually means anything.
Great advertising. I’ve had bitchat for a while but have never seen anyone else on the mesh. It is an amazing idea and I’d love hear some success stories of people using it in different circumstances.
I’ll defo look into it too
There is of course reticulum.
I’ve had it for a while myself, but haven’t managed to find anyone on the Bluetooth mesh outside of DEF CON. Would be cool to see it more in the streets!
This official response from I4C just adds to the legitimacy of Bitchat’s use as a local and decentralized chat.
Never heard of it. How does it compare to Briar?
Never heard of this. I have difficulty imagining where these Bluetooth mesh networks exist where they can cover more than a small neighborhood.
If you have enough density people can become relays; which expands the area. Plus you can always meet in a general location in a mall or some other public space without making de-anonimizing actions.
Youeally have to have a dedicated community however I was very surprised that my city did have one and they are extremely enthusiastic about it.
If you live in a bigger city you should check and see if they have one unfortunately Facebook and discord are the best ways to find them but I think there’s also a website of some sort that shows mesh network communities near you or something like that.
That’s not how it fellows. Good advertisement for the project.
