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.

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.

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)

Bwahahaha! Code lives even without github.

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.

Repo is still live as of 7/24

https://github.com/permissionlesstech/bitchat

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.

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.

Update: GitHub has started sending notices to users who forked the bitchat repo, requesting them to take them down due to Indian government order

Never heard of it. How does it compare to Briar?

There is of course reticulum.

Never heard of this. I have difficulty imagining where these Bluetooth mesh networks exist where they can cover more than a small neighborhood.

That's not how it fellows. Good advertisement for the project.