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Government orders GitHub to remove Bluetooth-based chat app Bitchat: Jack Dorsey
- iamnothere 2mo agoToo bad it operates on Nostr, which is crypto-adjacent, otherwise they could move to Codeberg.
- jmclnx 2mo agoWith google banning side loaded apps, is what India wants to do just a waste of time by India. Does Apple still allow side loaded apps ?
- lardosaurusrex 2mo agoguess im downloading a copy of each version + the source code lmfao and im not even in india
- ithadhumor 2mo agoDemocracy Dies in Darkness
- DenisM 2mo agoFor clarity: Indian government.
- OgsyedIE 2mo agoBluetooth 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, which might genuinely be a huge bottleneck under the current geopolitical landscape.
- tehlike 2mo agoMeshtastic, reticulum, meshcore... We need more.
- jdoss 2mo agoI was thinking the same thing. We do need more. I set up a Meshtastic node at the house and joined https://chicagolandmesh.org/ https://chicagolandmesh.org/ which has been a fantastic community for beginners in mesh based comms.
- thenthenthen 2mo agoQuestion, what do you do with the network?
- em-bee 2mo agoyou use it to access the internet, but the point is if the internet access is disabled you still have a local network for p2p communication across the city. also multiple people/hubs in the network can provide provide internet access over different ISPs providing resilience if some ISPs go down, but not all of them. freifunk in germany and funkfeuer in austria do the same thing.
- tehlike 2mo agoreticulum, in theory, can go over any medium. Radio or internet, whichever is present.
- delichon 2mo agoStill available. https://github.com/permissionlesstech/bitchat https://github.com/permissionlesstech/bitchat
- iamshs 2mo agoIndia.
- dhx 2mo agoTo add: The request has not yet been published by GitHub to https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/tree/master/India/2026 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%2Fbitchat%20india&type=code https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Apermissionlesstech%2Fbitc...
- miohtama 2mo agoIf Modi government wants to ban something, it is usually good stuff. > “The application’s design, which enables communication even during network restrictions, creates a substantial risk of misuse by anti-national elements, terrorist organisations, organised criminal groups, and cybercriminals seeking to evade lawful detection and continue communication despite legally imposed restrictions,” the notice mentioned.
- soulofmischief 2mo agoLiterally any encrypted mesh net communication protocol would be subject to the same propaganda. The point of this stuff is providing checks and balances for the people against a rogue government, or emergency situation. Yeah, did you know criminals can use roads to commit crimes, too? We should destroy all of the roads. Terrorists also use food to give them energy to commit more terrorism, so we should start regulating access to food behind mandatory ID checks.
- Barbing 2mo agoHonestly no idea what I’d do if I were in government. Originally you’d communicate by mail and they could get a warrant. The day encrypted comms showed up, they wouldn’t just want to give up. If you love the encryption but hate the terrorism, what to do? Double down on old school / physical surveillance? (Obviously not my field)
- mcherm 2mo agoOriginally, you'd communicate by mail, but some people didn't write things out in plain language; they used coated messages. That was why the government decided to ban mail, and since that didn't cover all cases, they also banned people handing things to each other. At least, I think that is how I remember it going in an alternate world where physical laws mimiced electronic laws.
- applfanboysbgon 2mo agoIf you were sane, you would realise that restricting the right of billions of people to communicate privately, a right they have enjoyed for all the thousands of years of human history, is handing terrorists a complete and total victory far beyond any act of violence they could commit. The purpose of a government is not to prevent 100% of all crime and terrorism by locking every citizen in a straitjacket. This also isn't even motivated by terrorists, but rather people daring to oppose the government.
- paxys 2mo agoThank you Indian government for announcing the existence of this app to the public.
- voakbasda 2mo agoSing it for me, Streisand!
- iamshs 2mo agoIndia is now going after domains too: https://www.reuters.com/world/worlds-biggest-domain-seller-fears-indias-fake-site-crackdown-could-damage-2026-07-03/ 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-judge-reuters-story-00136339 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/01/19/india-judg...
- thebrid 2mo agoWhat an excellent idea. This will surely make the protesters go away.</s>
- iambenm 2mo agoIndia 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.
- ranger_danger 2mo agoSo what happens if you have a flight that gets diverted to India and they search your bags and find a satellite phone?
- iamnothere 2mo agoBelieve it or not, straight to jail.
- vsviridov 2mo ago[flagged]
- actionfromafar 2mo agoYou jail them so they can't leave? :-D
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- pbiggar 2mo agoWe 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-messaging-without-internet/ https://updates.techforpalestine.org/bitchat-for-gaza-messag...
- SpyCoder77 2mo agoTitle should specify that it is Indian government. I was worried for a second there that it was the American government. I should have read the url though.
- chevalier_1222 2mo agoBut how far are they from such a headline do you think?
- lionkor 2mo agoWill there be a headline?
- petcat 2mo agoSomething like this would be basically impossible in the US, and it wouldn't even matter what kind of administration tried it. The US government doesn't even order ISPs to block websites because they run afoul of all kinds of 1st amendment litigation. They just have the FBI seize a domain after a court order. Honestly I would think something like this would come from the EU or UK. UK is trying to ban VPNs, EU is trying to ban private chat completely. EU countries routinely block whole swaths of IPs and websites, etc.
- lava_pidgeon 2mo agoOh boy , this is American exceptionalism at its finest. The US has by far the most authoritarian government of all mentioned entities. Really you should protest against your government.
- mcherm 2mo agoWhat a mix! Yes, it is American exceptionalism (and quite foolish) to make the claim that "This could never happen in the US". No, the American government is NOT more authoritative than the UK in the way they handle freedom of websites. The grandparent comment is correct: the US government does not (currently) order ISPs to block specific websites. Yes, those in the US should protest the current government (many of us already are doing so).
- i_idiot 2mo agoIn long term, it seems democracies transform to autocracies. Well, china is the future indeed.
- whattheheckheck 2mo agoRegression to the mean...
- nozzlegear 2mo agoSome relevant wisdom from the founding fathers of the United States: When asked about when kind of government the founding fathers had created, Ben Franklin replied "A Republic, if you can keep it." On democracy, John Adams wrote: "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." Thomas Jefferson further wrote that "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." tl;dr democracies need to be fought for, or else they won't stay democracies forever.
- abernard1 2mo agoJohn Adams wrote that as a reason why the United States is not a democracy. It's a Constitutional Republic. It's a consistent theme throughout the Federalist Papers. Individual States and localities have elements of democracy, but the US—built upon knowledge of Rome—is not. The United States of America is the second iteration of American government, after the one that failed in 1787. The arguments leading up to the 1789 Constitution are quite explicit around why democracies don't work. America is a nation of nations, which is why "these United States" as a plural term was used frequently until after the Civil War, when having it be a singular concept once-and-for-all was of paramount importance. That said, this is ban is clearly a restriction on freedom of expression, and highly un-American.
- nozzlegear 2mo agoGreat point about what Adams is actually arguing! Of course, I know the country was founded as/is a Constitutional Republic, but it's always interesting to see how much our modern (American) understanding of democracy differs from how the founders understood it – and also how they shaped the fact that most of us now equate Constitutional Republic with the best form of democracy.
- lebuffon 2mo agoIndia is kind of cute. In the late 90s I attended a Telephone industry conference while working for a telephony test equipment company. A rep. from the Indian government gave a talk on their telephone system regulations. During the question period I got up and asked how India was dealing with voice over internet protocol (VOIP). With a straight face the speaker replied "We will not allow it". :-)
- toast0 2mo agoLots of countries ban voip in some way or another. Not allowed to connect to the PSTN. Disrupted by licensed ISPs based on traffic inspection. Large vendors yelled at. Etc.
- em-bee 2mo agoisn't phone tech itself digital over the internet nowadays just like VOIP if it isn't using VOIP directly? on the other phone calls are getting replaced by video chat with the various messengers, making VOIP a dying technology, at least the part that end users access directly.
- toast0 2mo agoYes, but PSTN using voip is paying all the telecom fees and taxes and respecting the government surveillance mandates which is what the Indian Government is concerned about. > on the other phone calls are getting replaced by video chat with the various messengers, making VOIP a dying technology, at least the part that end users access directly. Not so much in countries where it's banned and the ban is enforced.
- inigyou 2mo agoIt's not the tech they care about, it's the network structure.
- em-bee 2mo agosure, but i as a user care about the tech, and what i am trying to say is that VOIP as tech for endusers is no longer interesting because we use video chat now.
- abhisek 2mo ago#2 post on HN currently is: India’s first privately developed rocket reaches orbit on dramatic debut launch. In the same page, there is this news about banning an OSS app, built on open tech. Just saying.
- __coder__ 2mo ago2 Indias
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- caruasdo 2mo agoOn the contrary, these projects should be given a boost.
- smalltorch 2mo agoAgree, sounds like it is working for its intended purposes. The thing about it is they specifically are targeting the repo which is interesting because the only thing that can really stop the proliferation of these apps is not allowing user to install from other sources which would have to come from Google preventing this. Hopefully google won't prevent people from installing from outside sources /s This change is largely drivin by claims that installing apps from other sources is insecure... I'd argue this is why it's insecure... Not insecure for individuals. Insecure for oppressive governments.
- tyleo 2mo agoWow I didn’t know about this technology but it sounds like seriously cool stuff
- patrickmay 2mo agoI sincerely hope that Microsoft responds with "If the Indian government wants to block content hosted on U.S. servers, they are more than welcome to set up their own Great Firewall."
- parisiansam 2mo agoAside of if it's right or not (i actually think it is), the bag is out in the open, anyone any countries, any bad person or security persons are going to look at it now
- EmbarrassedHelp 2mo agoIf a country wants to ban private open source communication, then they do not deserve to enjoy the benefits of modern technology.
- logicchains 2mo agoFor context, there are currently mass protests against the Indian government which the government is violently suppressing. It also just cut off the internet in a major city to stop the protesters communicating, so this ban is probably to try and suppress other means of communication.
- sailfast 2mo agoOoh definitely time to install this on my personal device then. Thanks Mr. Modi! Aside: oof yeah this seems like terrible policy and takes India off my bucket list.
- inigyou 2mo agoBe careful. It seems a massive battery, CPU and memory drain. Be aware when it's running and when not.
- viktorcode 2mo ago> 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 the country. Sorry for pointing out the obvious, but if your country's safety depends on ability to block all forms of private person to person messages, your government has failed in one of its primary goals: providing safety for its citizens. They can blame Dorsey, Telegram, WhatsApp and what not, but it is their failure. Things will not change until people notice the obvious and vote out incompetent persons in power.
- darreninthenet 2mo agoPlaying Devils Advocate... isn't this the government taking action?
- viktorcode 2mo agoBlocking communications is basically sweeping the issue under the rug in the hopes that it dissolves on its own. This is closer to avoiding of "taking action"
- danw1979 2mo agoYes, misinformed and counterproductive action.
- stanfordkid 2mo agoI mean one could say they are taking action when they lock up and kill random immigrants... or getting into unnecessary wars in the middle east. I would hardly call that a measure of competence. In fact, I would love a government that did absolutely nothing at all ahead of this one.
- amanaplanacanal 2mo agoThe article is about India, not the US.
- tamimio 2mo agoBitchat, berty, briar, all do use Bluetooth for communication. It would be funny if popular apps also add p2p Bluetooth options or just over any network, and seeing them trying to ban the internet.
- antibull 2mo agoOnly despots are afraid of people talking in channels they can't eavesdrop on.
- skeledrew 2mo agoI do hope they were ignored. But then this is ultimately Microsoft we're talking about.
- WhyComboNadir 2mo agoBan Post-It notes and any other piece of paper than can be passed around with messages written on them by bad people. No whispering into people ears either unless your lips are plainly readable.
- shevy-java 2mo agoWell, this also shows why we all should remove our dependency on Microsoft-GitHub in the long run. The US government just fiddle-influences too much here. Tomorrow it could be your project too.
- jatins 2mo agoIndian government also blocked Telegram a while back to prevent exam leaks and stopped Whatsapp's rollout of usernames (which has some legitimate concerns) but more or less it wants complete China-like control of it's citizens' communications. Except no one uses any homegrown chat app (for good reasons)
- wtmt 2mo agoThis may not be much, but if you’re outside India, please write to your local representatives and also to the Indian government that you are going to avoid products made in India as much as possible, will avoid visiting the country for tourism or work, and will not invest in the Indian markets or in foreign currency bank deposits. Clearly state the reasons why, and ask how the “largest democracy in the world” could be so short sighted and dictatorial. Note that India is heavily dependent on money from elsewhere (hence a lot of recent policy changes to bring in more foreign money). It is a net importer and isn’t strong enough on exports. There are some recent policy changes to attract more foreign currency deposits with lots of expectations. If there is a hint that these subversive actions are also going to hurt the economy, there is a tiny, tiny sliver of a chance that the powers that be will be a bit more afraid of losing the next round of elections in the state governments and in a few years at the union level. That could possibly limit the ignorant knee jerk reactions and bans.
- kpcyrd 2mo agoUnfortunately Bitchat feels like an unfinished proof of concept. At a festival I got notifications there are "other users nearby", which made me question if and how the app is broadcasting it's presence, possibly at all times. I also couldn't figure out a way to turn off these notifications (there's barely any settings) and I ended up uninstalling the app.
- gowld 2mo agoTItle is missing a clarification: Indian government.
- rolph 2mo agothats one, only 3.999, kiloforks to go https://github.com/permissionlesstech/bitchat/forks https://github.com/permissionlesstech/bitchat/forks
- cheschire 2mo agoIn a few hours someone will release Streisand Chat as a fork
- inigyou 2mo agoThey'd have been safe on Codeberg. Just saying, given yesterday's outrage.
- inigyou 2mo agoNot stated in the headline: it's the government of India.
- LowLevelKernel 2mo agoThere are certain shadow govt groups who have added aspects to Bluetooth protocol itself literally opening up any device
- inigyou 2mo agoLike what
- dclavijo 2mo agofor their goverment and every goverment the problem is not the comunication channel, the problem is the dissenting ideas...
- opem 2mo agoIf your country's security depends on someone on the internet taking their product off for the whole world something must be wrong with the people in power. This is censorship and suppression at its peak. Fun fact: They have deployed facial recognition vans, AI smart glasses and illegally tracking the protesters (most of which are students) without their consent to threaten and deter them.
- ra0x3 2mo agoI understand the source is thehindu.com - but I'm assuming there's no way we can get that title updated? "Government orders..." sort've misleadingly implies something that "Indian government orders..." does not.
- adamfisk 2mo agoUggh 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?
- halfmatthalfcat 2mo agoBecause 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.
- mdgld 2mo agoIt’s more in his own self-interest to vibe-code a rudimentary solution than to just support a good existing project, sadly.
- orsenthil 2mo agoAn 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 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.
- vkaku 2mo agoThis 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
- dguest 2mo ago> Jack Dorsey is now using his clout to share about this app and bring some light on the situation Failed attempts at censorship are the best thing that could ever happen to Bitchat: free advertising for a vibcoded and questionably secure entry in a space with plenty of competitors. As others have commented it's basically impossible to shut down an open source app by blocking the source distributor, but press is priceless. I played around with Briar [1] for a while: it worked well, and had an option to install peer-to-peer without going through any app store, was sad to see that the authors put it in maintenance mode. It also had a security audit. [1]: https://briarproject.org/ https://briarproject.org/
- maxlin 2mo agoChilling hearing communicating with willing nearby people being called "misuse of communication". Maybe in a prison.
- MegagramEnjoyer 2mo agoTranslation: "We can't spy on you and we don't like it"
- Crunchified 2mo agoI figured with an app name like "bitch at", the government was simply getting tired of hearing peoples' gripes. I was saddened to see I was way off.
- forabi 2mo agoRemember that Google is working to introduce developer verification to Android soon, making it trivial for governments to force Google to revoke a certain developer's apps within that country. The whole developer verification thing is about security... for Google's grip on Android and goverments' grip on communication
- LocalH 2mo agoinb4 some government tries to ban independent IRC, since it can be used over a VPN and thus can be equally unspyable
- inigyou 2mo agoI think VPNs are banned in India
- PeterHolzwarth 2mo agoHoly crap, this article has been active here for 13 hours - it really needs a country callout (ie India) in the title.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 2mo agoOh good someone is using it?
- mr-house 2mo agoLets imagine that github does give in and it does take down bitchat, will it result in the death (or at least a huge loss) for github? I mean of course a lot of open-source projects on github won't feel safe when they know that github can easily give in to the government pressure. Plus the general state of github right now is already causing projects to migrate to some better alternatives.
- inigyou 2mo agoGitHub is currently a dead zombie, but it won't get any deader from this than it did when it deleted a bunch of stuff to please the Russian government or the American government.
- bacheaul 2mo agoI hadn't heard of Bitchat before, will need to check it out! Streisand Effect in full force...
- drweevil 2mo ago> “The application enables anonymous communication without mandatory user registration, phone number verification, or centralised logging of communications.“ Those are features, not bugs ;) Seriously tho, the I4C is describing face-to-face communication. Is that illegal too? Perhaps the problem here is not the protesters, but an overreaching government.
- j1elo 2mo agoWhat Jack Dorsey could do for decentralized local chat, better than creating yet another copy of what already exists, is taking 0.1% of his wealth and using it to solve the problems that Briar project has: money. https://briarproject.org/news/2026-maintenance-mode/ https://briarproject.org/news/2026-maintenance-mode/
- Robotbeat 2mo agoWhat about encrypted ultrasound modems?
- inigyou 2mo agoFun idea. You should make that.
- miohtama 2mo agoIt is not the first time. In 2014, the Hong Kong protesters used an app called FireChat. I had the pleasure of meeting the founder, Micha, a few times. The company was called OpenGarden. The app was popular - distributed in the App Store. Same idea: Bluetooth and wi-fi networks. User numbers growing like a hockey stick. 100k+ downloads a day. Micha was in Hong Kong during the 2014 protests (originally for a layover en route to meetings in China) and gave many interviews to international/Western media outlets while there, including the New York Times, TIME, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, BBC, and Reuters. Mica expressed support for free speech. Authorities limited or blocked downloads and information about the app. The term sheet for the funding round disappeared. Too early?
- lr1970 2mo agoJust to clarify -- this article is about Indian government order.
- qstyk 2mo agoIncidentally, this is the same reason that we no longer have the ability to receive from everyone on AirDrop in perpetuity anymore. Apple caved to pressure from the Chinese government to block distribution of flyers during protests by changing it to 10 minutes only.