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Bitchat for Gaza – messaging without internet

updates.techforpalestine.org

161–170 of 370 posts

Re: Bitchat for Gaza – messaging without internet

#161
fast and reliable (and encrypted) communication is so important in such conditions.

not sure how important that is next to not dying of hunger, being blown up, loosing friends, family and strangers, being erased and treated like an animal, but, you know. it's a start...

Re: Bitchat for Gaza – messaging without internet

#162

whats going to happen when adversarial entities perform a supply chain attack and booby trap these devices with c4 and kill all the users (men, women and children). we already know there are parties that are perfectly happy to make no distinction when killing them.

in the context of some encrypted vhf military radio, whats going to happen when adversarial entities use an anti-radiation missile to home in and blow the soldier up? like it's not that you're wrong, but that's not really in the scope of the problem being solved.

...except that he is definitely wrong about the targeting aspect as well. Almost all of the people hit by the pager explosions were legit military targets. In the videos of the explosions, you can see people unharmed who were standing within meters of the targets. It was one of the most well-targeted anti-terrorist strikes in history.

Re: Bitchat for Gaza – messaging without internet

#163
post #34

[flagged]

> instead of linking to the project page, the link goes to a propaganda website It's detailing a specific use-case for decentralized communication > The actual project is nowhere to be found "Bitchat is a new messaging app that allows users to chat securely with or without internet access. Download it today via the App Store or Google Play store to begin communicating safely, even when connectivity disappears." > Ver…

1. The download link is not the project link (which I have provided, and the website has not).

2. No matter how much this conflict is being mislabeled as "genocide" by the interested parties, it doesn't change the reality that it isn't one by any measure¹.

I'm not afraid to sign my name under this statement either; see:

https://romankogan.net/2024/06/26/israel-palestine-vocabular...

The double-think rewriting of dictionary related to Israel-Palestine wars is outright Orwellian.

Note that your link [1], from 2024, doesn't even claim that genocide is taking place in Gaza, and that the adequate amount of aid has since reached Gaza (particularly if you count aid stolen by Hamas within Gaza).

A reminder for the all the goldfish out there that a ceasefire in Gaza has been in effect for a month already, and that active and ongoing genocides (like the one in Sudan²) have been collectively ignored by people abusing that word.

______

¹ https://www.newsweek.com/israel-has-created-new-standard-urb...

² https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/29/horrific-violation...

Re: Bitchat for Gaza – messaging without internet

#165
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you actually believe this, or are you just rage-baiting?

[flagged]

Watch this documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kJZb2Q1NmE .. The director said learning about the mass killings sanctioned by the regime that was still in power felt like coming to Germany after WW2 and realizing the Nazis had won. There's no truth and reconcilation, instead the killers lived in a place where they justify to themselves that what they did was fine...

Re: Bitchat for Gaza – messaging without internet

#166

Is it actually being used in Palestine? My problem is that when you are actually locally near someone you don't really need live chat; and if you're far, it might become too unstable to use. But I might be wrong!

it’s not just chat over Bluetooth, the message is relayed over a mesh so you can chat with people much further than Bluetooth range.

BitChat can send messages over Bluetooth, and it uses a mesh network to relay messages across nearby devices. This allows messages to hop from one phone to another, extending coverage beyond the normal Bluetooth range, though the number of hops is limited and depends on nearby devices. When a device in the mesh has an internet connection, certain messages can be published to Nostr, allowing them to move from the local mesh to the global network. Not all messages are automatically sent online, and purely mesh-local chats remain local. Messages sent via Nostr can also be accessed through clients like NYM (Nostr Ynstant Messenger). BitChat combines offline mesh networking with a decentralized protocol to enable both local and global communication.

Re: Bitchat for Gaza – messaging without internet

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Why are international journalists banned from entering Gaza then? No, Gaza is in rubble. The people are starving to death. A man made famine made by Israel in hopes to ethnically cleanse the land.

Which of course has been going on for a while now, hence Hamas' existence.

Re: Bitchat for Gaza – messaging without internet

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right but as German if I made that point publicly in regards to Palestine I would get arrested. I am not exaggerating It is crazy how we have dehumanized Palestinians to the point that just hinting on the fact that they might have a right to resist it completely taboo. Like you don't have to agree with their methods but expecting them to do nothing while Israel murders them and the world looks away is such a…

>I would get arrested Have you considered getting a gun? Why or why not?

[deleted]

Re: Bitchat for Gaza – messaging without internet

#170

What an awesome piece of technology. I've been wanting to create something similar, just on the technical merits. We have some pretty amazingly capable technology these days, but so much of it relies on IP infrastructure, which is fine when things work and you are either aligned with your government, or live in a society where there are strong checks and balances on government overreach.

Exactly. With Chat Control being revived again in the EU, various VPN bans being proposed in US states, and ID verification rolling out seemingly everywhere, this kind of tech may end up being more useful than people expect. If it works in the extremely adversarial environment of a warzone, it should work fine here.

How is this a solution to Chat Control and EU law? If this is used, governments will simply demand Apple and Google get the app declared forbidden, which both have done to apps for many reasons.

Worse: they might demand a list of people who have it installed (and this violates the Chat Control law of course).

Even worse: this app turns out to be written by a security agency or scammers and starts exploiting people.

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