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

github.com

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

#341

Post by epynonymous »

Beretta_Vexee wrote: post #213
elric wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can communicate in more ways than just with words. Would be great to FINALLY have a sensible, low-friction, secure way to transfer files to people. It's 2025 and that's still not a solved problem.

You probably don't need a decentralised, delay-tolerant network to send a photo to the person in front of you. It's even very likely that this will be much less efficient than a direct Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connection or an AirDrop. What would be the use case? Send the picture to someone at the other end of the lecture theatre? It's likely that there would be a phone network or Wi-Fi available. A crisis or emergency sit…

the use case is really decentralized communication. sure connecting to wifi is easy and accessible, 4g is pretty much unlimited, but what if you just want to share files/photos directly with a group of people without having to traverse the web/someone else's hw/sw? this is basically like a detached, private web. most of the time, you probably dont care if meta has your files, but for those that just dont like centralized services, this is great. think of it like an extremely private network, why not?

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

#345

Post by akimbostrawman »

dylan604 wrote: post #339
repeekad wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USPS will happily exchange your cash for a money order without an ID as long as it’s under a certain amount, if you’re willing to take the risk you can mail the money order and transfer reasonably sized checks fully anonymously, there are good reasons large transfers of cash probably shouldn’t be anonymous

If you’re really paranoid, you can mail cash directly if you’re willing that risk. I’m guessing the number of grandparents sending $5 for birthdays is getting smaller, but I’ve seen first hand the number of people willing to send cash to avoid having checks/credit card charges for specific places. There is no more anonymous method of payment than cash regardless of what cryptoBros tell you. This isn’t X-files where w…

>There is no more anonymous method of payment than cash

Very much depends. Cameras, fingerprints, banknote ids, cell tower/GPS or just people seeing you.

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

#347

Post by akimbostrawman »

buzzerbetrayed wrote: post #328
tshaddox wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you can mistakenly think the test transfer worked as intended.

Not to mention that the necessity of "do a test transfer" already shows how massively broken the process is

Or maybe that "broken" design is just the result of the actual goal of decentralized P2P...

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

#348

Post by jamaicahest »

syntaxing wrote: post #4

Whoa this is really neat. I’ve been trying to get into Meshtastic but it’s hard to convince others when you need special hardware. Would be super neat if Apple did something similar. Shouldn’t be too hard since the AirTags use the same idea? Would also be neat if there was a way to build a LoRA proxy to extend the range. I might give this a try with my meshtastic devices.

I think the reason AirTag works is because Apple turns it on-by-default on i-devices and people can't be bothered to go turn it off. For a chat to work on the same scale it would literally need Apple or Google to ship it as enabled-by-default on all phones.

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

#349

Post by Beretta_Vexee »

kragen wrote: post #258
Beretta_Vexee wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are already several open source implementations, but the Bluetooth SIG standard only supports flood propagation. This is fine for managing a few hundred temperature sensors or lighting controls up to the building's floor concentrator, which is the main use case for this standard, but it is completely unsuitable for sending individual messages from user A to user B.

Flooding does work for sending individual messages from user A to user B at a small enough scale, but it gets progressively less efficient as the network grows, and at some level it will collapse.

Flooding works if there is not too much hops between the sender and the recipient. For indoor IoT, it is very rare to have more than 3 hops and the data rates are extremely low and messages are just few bytes (on/off light, temperature).

It would only take 4 people at 5 hops apart trying to exchange photos of less than a megabyte to completely saturate a network of hundred devices.

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

#350

Post by Beretta_Vexee »

epynonymous wrote: post #341
Beretta_Vexee wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You probably don't need a decentralised, delay-tolerant network to send a photo to the person in front of you. It's even very likely that this will be much less efficient than a direct Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connection or an AirDrop. What would be the use case? Send the picture to someone at the other end of the lecture theatre? It's likely that there would be a phone network or Wi-Fi available. A crisis or emergency sit…

the use case is really decentralized communication. sure connecting to wifi is easy and accessible, 4g is pretty much unlimited, but what if you just want to share files/photos directly with a group of people without having to traverse the web/someone else's hw/sw? this is basically like a detached, private web. most of the time, you probably dont care if meta has your files, but for those that just dont like central…

I'm not against the idea, but it has already been tested with Firechat, Bridgefy, etc. during the protests in Hong Kong in 2019.

It doesn't work very well from a technical and practical point of view. Just having the app on your phone could be enough to get you charged in a totalitarian state.

So it's interesting, but it's not the use case that will democratise this type of ad-hoc network. For example, it is easier to implement end-to-end encryption on an existing infrastructure.

There must be a use case where there is no network connection, enough network participants, and that can accommodate a significant transmission delay.

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