Technology @lemmy.world Pro @programming.dev 1d ago

Jack Dorsey just Announced Bitchat(A secure, decentralized, peer-to-peer messaging app for iOS and macOS that works over Bluetooth mesh networks) Licensed Under Public Domain.

github.com bitchat/WHITEPAPER.md at main · jackjackbits/bitchat

bluetooth mesh chat, IRC vibes. Contribute to jackjackbits/bitchat development by creating an account on GitHub.

Technology @programming.dev Pro @programming.dev 1d ago

github.com /jackjackbits/bitchat/blob/main/WHITEPAPER.md

31 comments

Bitch At

Lmao
Where my bitchat
messaging app that works over Bluetooth mesh networks. No internet

So he's made a shitty version of Briar and crammed crypto into it?
- Briar doesn’t have an iOS client an never will
  
  This doesn’t have an android client 😀
  
  Like I said, Briar is better
- Just wait for AI enhancements.
I wanted something like this for weddings or group camping type events for sharing photos to multiple others at once.
- Isnt that what QuickShare and Airdrop solves?
  
  And LocalSend
He should try a cheeseburger once in awhile.
Let's build an app to liberate communications but only release it inside a closed garden. Great idea
- I don't trust Jack. But this does seem marginally interesting. Actually decentralized, no servers supposedly. We'll have to see. Again I sure as hell I'm not going to trust dorsey. And he's got it under some cringey edgelord "unlicense" license which basically appears to be MIT just with a different name. The actual concept seems intriguing. But definitely nothing to get excited about currently.
  
  youtube-dl and yt-dlp are under unlicense. it's just boilerplate legalese for public domain
  
  And he's got it under some cringey edgelord "unlicense" license which basically appears to be MIT just with a different name.
  
  Bro, Public Domain.
Bit chat

Bitch at

Being Jack Dorsey, I'm going with the latter.
- Ive read it called bitch@
- 'Where my bitchat?'
So he took a page from Apple, copied Firechat, and will offer it to users who use Apple products. Yeah, okay, nice, I’m in.
Oh great, yet another secure messaging app.

Getting people to move off Messenger or even WhatsApp is tricky enough already for to interview and resistance to change. But even when you can coax them to move, you then often end up in a debate about where to move to. Signal, Briar, Viber, whatever proprietary thing Apple is currently pushing, or the thousands of other options/apps. I guess we can just add this one to that long list.
- This is nothing like the ones you list, this is local only no internet
  
  Okay. But one of my points still stands that there are already a bunch of p2p Bluetooth-based messaging apps out there.
Really not interested in anything the guy with the terrible facial hair wants to make.
I mean...I guess thanks for the stepping off point? Android has the Briar Project, which couldn't be distributed for iOS due to Apple's license fuckery. I'm at least curious enough to look through this and see what they've done different.

I think the most useless part of this is using BT only which has a range of what...40ft?
- It's definitely limiting. LoRa wan meshed network is more useful. But most people don't have a LoRa capable device. I could see something like this at a protest or public event at least. If there were enough nodes in the area the network could span hundreds to thousands of feet with the right conditions. But that's a big ask ATM.
  
  Meshtastic requires bespoke hardware, it’ll always stay a marginal tool
  
  This requires: an iPhone.
  
  And someone will make a bridge from this to Meshtastic in a while anyway
This reminds me of the times I was saving text files on my phone and sending them to random classmates, which makes me think that if two people (especially between iOS and Android) want to communicate in BT, there is no need for a third party app.
Well that's odd, on the apple App Store there is a 4 year old Social Networking app called BitChat, that appears to mostly be in Japanese. I think I'll stick with Signal.

31 comments