Kimbho app blocked due to traffic
Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali Communications muchtouted app Kimbho notified users through an SMS saying that it had stopped the services due to the high traffic. Kimbho, meaning “How are you” or “What’s new”, was launched on Wednesday as a “swadeshi messaging platform” to take on Whatsapp.
Netizens soon pointed out that this was a ‘videshi (foreign) app masquerading as a swadeshi app as the authentication and permissions referred to a Bolo app built by a US-based startup. Even the description was not changed, apart from aided with several anomalies.
There are instances of social media gaints like Facebook and Google plagiarising of features of competitors, but the ‘swadesi app’ is a carbon copy. Facebook continues to copy features from Snapchat, including the famous status messages rolled out on Instagram, Whatsapp, Facebook and Messenger. Last month Google copied Apple’s iPhoneX gesture features in its Android P version.
When companies copy features, they tend to make changes as per their standards. Kimbho, however, referenced to Bolo even in the messages that the end user received.
With the French researcher Robert Baptiste pointing that Kimbho’s safey features were a joke and that it had serious security flaws, the app was taken down. He said he could access the messages of all users and asked the people not to install it.
Patanjali tried to play it down and said there was a huge volume of traffic and that it was a trial version. Mr Baptiste late on Friday night said people who installed this app had received an SMS informing them that they had downloaded the beta version and also uses “Please be with us”.
While Kimbho was taken down, several duplicates appeared on Playstore, including ‘Kimbho Official Messenger’, ‘Kimbho Ab Bharat Bolega’, ‘Kimbho app’. These apps are fake and could cause breach the user’s cyber security. They resemble the original app and some of them use the same name and picture.
Patanjali issued a statement saying that they were not responsible for the fakes.
Patanjali spokesperson S.K. Tijarawala took to Twitter and said: “Our trial version is no longer available for download on any platform. We don’t take any responsibility for any duplicate apps showing on anywhere.”