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.
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.
bluetooth mesh chat, IRC vibes. Contribute to jackjackbits/bitchat development by creating an account on GitHub.
I once did some programming on the Cybiko, a device from 2000 that could form a wireless mesh network with peers. The idea was that you could have a shopping mall full of teens and they'd be able to chat with each other from one end to the other by routing through the mesh. It was a neat device!
Have a look at meshtastic. Yes, you do have to get a separate device, but range on it can be several tens to hundreds of miles depending on the mesh density.
Bitch@
If you're in Bluetooth range can't you chat with your mouths? Or is it for secretly chatting when you're in a group of people? I don't get the use case.
Could be useful on a plane: If you have different seats than someone and don't want to pay for your airline's ridiculous data prices. Although, most airlines I fly on(american, delta, air canada, united) all have free RCS/Facebook/Whatsapp, but not necessarily Signal, Telegram, Matrix, or your preferred secure service.
Bluetooth ranges are quite large now.
But an example even if someone is a foot away would be a concert or event where it's to loud.
I have no idea if this is correct. But imagine if you have a setup like Apple’s AirTag. Except when you receive a signal (message) you also relay it to whoever’s path you cross for the next X amount of time. The more people using the app the bigger the mesh network gets.
Neat idea 10 years ago "discovered" recently by a tech bro who thinks he's the first one to think of it. He got his clicks, I guess.
Yeah, fuck Jack.
Why?
I'm happy to see a niche decentralized thing from Jack more than if it was another commercial start-up. And I have nothing against yet another bluetooth chat. But I'm not impressed. In the whitepaper nothing is written about spam protection, so it wouldn't work as a reliable P2P app at scale. And the UI... It's mere a toy for Jack's personal nostalgia about "the good old times". And nostalgia driven development doesn't work in general, I would say.
Seems rehashed, with more enshittification likely to be baked in. Typical tech bros.
Bitch At
Lmao
Where my bitchat
I read it like that first and thought it was one of these illegal apps to track your partner without them knowing.
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 😀
Interesting. I wonder why Briar won't have an iOS client?
Like I said, Briar is better
Just wait for AI enhancements.
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.
I wanted something like this for weddings or group camping type events for sharing photos to multiple others at once.
He should try a cheeseburger once in awhile.
Bit chat
Bitch at
Being Jack Dorsey, I'm going with the latter.
Ive read it called bitch@
'Where my bitchat?'
Really not interested in anything the guy with the terrible facial hair wants to make.
💯
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.
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.
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
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.
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.