Bitchat has vanished from the Apple and Google app stores in India. The government ordered Apple to block access to the app under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act. So what makes Bitchat different from WhatsApp and most other messaging apps? Almost all of them need the internet to work. Bitchat doesn't. It runs on Bluetooth Low Energy mesh networking, so phones that are close to each other can connect directly. A message can hop from one phone to the next, passing through several devices without touching the regular internet at all.You also don't need a phone number or any kind of account to use it. That design makes it genuinely useful when the internet goes down or gets shut off. But it also makes monitoring, interception and tracing who said what much harder, and that's likely what caught the government's attention. The Internet Freedom Foundation has pushed back on the move. Its argument is that Section 69A is meant for dealing with unlawful content, n...
I am a technology writer with a focus on cybersecurity. I cover topics such as malware, vulnerabilities, exploits, and security defenses, as well as research and innovation in information security.