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Bitchat – A decentralized messaging app that works over Bluetooth mesh networks

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Re: Bitchat – A decentralized messaging app that works over Bluetooth mesh networks

#181

Post by derhuerst »

hashworks wrote: post #149
littlecranky67 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neat academic toy - unless you can predict why a large-scale, long-term internet outage should happen. Aside from that, most of what your concept includes (but uses Internet instead of BT) exists with Nostr+Lightning.

There have been incidents where governments disabled routing to specific services or the Internet entirely to hinder demonstrations.

to give a example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%932021_Jammu_and_...

i'm not sure if in this case "only" the 4G network was shut off, but IMO it still serves as a good reminder of when such an event might happen again.

also: https://ooni.org/reports/

Re: Bitchat – A decentralized messaging app that works over Bluetooth mesh networks

#183

Post by al_borland »

Dr4kn wrote: post #109
jacobgkau wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Works best in areas with patchy or no internet, or under censorship. The biggest problem I immediately foresee is that this sounds backwards. It doesn't work best in areas with patchy or no internet, it works best in areas with lots of participating devices. It's most needed in areas with patchy or no internet, but those areas are likely to be the opposite of the areas with lots of participating devices.

If your country shuts off Internet access for demonstrations this would work great.

But it would only really work well in a small area, such as a couple friends communicating at a demonstration, where there are a lot of people who may be motivated to participate in a particular area.

If there is a low density area between two people, a message could take a long time to show up. A message from NYC to LA is effectively relying on the messaging being cached on a phone in NYC, that person flying to LA, and then continuing the journey.

Re: Bitchat – A decentralized messaging app that works over Bluetooth mesh networks

#184

Post by master-lincoln »

wickedsight wrote: post #94
roshin wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool technology, but what is the usecase? I can imagine traveling abroad without a sim and using it as described. But is it any better than using the cellular network (when you have access to it)?

On festival sites and other crowded events, cellular sometimes gets quite saturated and slow. This might be a good alternative. Also, I could see it as a useful tool in emergency situations. But a lot of people would need to use it to be actually useful.

When I last had a university workshop where 20 people in a room worked on a bluetooth protocol I also noticed bluetooth is quickly saturated with many participants. Hopefully that changed in the last 15 years since...

Re: Bitchat – A decentralized messaging app that works over Bluetooth mesh networks

#187

Post by shakna »

linuxandrew wrote: post #125
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Delta chat does this, without the micropayment.

I wonder if one could run Delta Chat on top of yggmail[1] (very much an alpha software release) for a truly P2P IM chat. yggmail runs over IPv6 with a tun interface same as yggdrasil. Might test this out at some point for fun. Not quite the discoverable, user-friendly experience of Briar, Bitchat etc. but it can be combined with online links (Briar can technically go online, but only via Tor; both Briar and Bitchat a…

Delta Chat can already run on top of iroh [0]. No need to find some other server implementation - it can already do "truly" P2P - devices can end up running their own STUN and TURN servers, etc.

[0] https://delta.chat/en/2024-11-20-webxdc-realtime

Re: Bitchat – A decentralized messaging app that works over Bluetooth mesh networks

#189

Post by synctext »

xyzzy123 wrote: post #129
Dr4kn wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your country shuts off Internet access for demonstrations this would work great.

I guess it depends on the authoritarian government, but a sufficiently powerful one will get the app taken down or get the bluetooth features it relies on disabled (like for airdrop in China) :/ I would say that the underlying issue is that people do not really "own" their devices and the corporations that do are vulnerable to (or complicit in) state coercion. You cannot truly have freedom on a non-free device, you c…

Indeed! Advanced countries will and have blocked apps.

For a more extensive discussion on censorship resilient mesh networking, see IETF Internet Standard draft from 2012 [1]. After the Arab Spring there was global hope. Great to see revival of this topic today. Mesh networking is 1990s. The lesson from decades ago was that mesh networking can't be the killer use-case. Users need a reason to install this and allow it to drain the battery while looking for nearby nodes. Mesh networking never broke through the glass ceiling.

Blocking apps is real. Even Amazon killed a side-loaded app [2].

[1] https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-pouwelse-censorfree-sc...

[2] https://torrentfreak.com/amazon-remote-disables-piracy-apps-...

Re: Bitchat – A decentralized messaging app that works over Bluetooth mesh networks

#190

Post by akrymski »

moneywaters wrote: post #96

I’ve been toying with a concept inspired by Apple’s Find My network: Imagine a decentralized, delay-tolerant messaging system where messages hop device-to-device (e.g., via Bluetooth, UWB, Wi-Fi Direct), similar to how “Find My” relays location via nearby iPhones. Now add a twist: • Senders pay a small fee to send a message. • Relaying devices earn a micro-payment (could be tokens, sats, etc.) for carrying the messag…

I've been toying with a concept for a cryptocurrency that works without internet access (like physical money) - peer to peer credit. I believe it is the only real use case for this technology.
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