[HN Gopher] Bitchat for Gaza - messaging without internet
___________________________________________________________________
Bitchat for Gaza - messaging without internet
https://bitchat.free/
Author : ciconia
Score : 285 points
Date : 2025-11-14 17:43 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (updates.techforpalestine.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (updates.techforpalestine.org)
| osobo wrote:
| I never thought I'd see FidoNet again.
| adroitboss wrote:
| The name choice is unfortunate. I read it incorrectly the first
| time.
| zamalek wrote:
| Or intentional and awesome.
| Unicironic wrote:
| I read it correctly, but got a laugh after reading your
| comment. Maybe it could be marketable to two very different
| demographics
| setopt wrote:
| Same here. Imagining now bitch@ as the logo.
|
| EDIT: Name aside, what an awesome project.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| Anything with "bit" in (with the T pronounced) is a bit
| unfortunate for French speakers:
| https://context.reverso.net/translation/french-english/la+bi...
| .
| kragen wrote:
| "Pour info, j'ai pas la bite qui fouette."
| adrodbort wrote:
| Also anything with chat (chatte). Unfortunate or
| intentional..
| jayd16 wrote:
| Its almost better when you read it that way. Its at least
| coherent.
| supportengineer wrote:
| Pick better names people. I can't bring myself to use
| "CockroachDB" for example.
| ryanisnan wrote:
| 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.
| iamnothere wrote:
| 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.
| spwa4 wrote:
| 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.
| nxor wrote:
| Why is chat control controversial? It seems like the same
| people afraid of this are the same people outraged when
| people then use private chat to do bad things.
| 64756salad638 wrote:
| The thing that I really like about the approach taken by OP is
| that it AFAIK is broadcast-only, up to a certain radius. The
| hard part in mesh networking is routing, and broadcast
| sidesteps that
| nxor wrote:
| Learning curve is probably an obstacle
| NoiseBert69 wrote:
| A lot of Meshcore/Meshtastic stations popping up lately too all
| over the world too.
|
| Repeaters/Router can, if you put a bit of love in to highly
| efficient 3.3V generation, forever an a 6V solar cell and a 18650
| LiPo.
|
| I've tested 60km with a 868MHz LoRa station using a shabby 5dBi
| omni antenna. Just run out of hills to test more.
|
| But not as easy to use as BLE(+BLE Meshing) which is basically
| integrated into every smartphone.
| kpcyrd wrote:
| I looked into Meshtastic a while ago and they use AES with no
| authentication tags. Also decryption happens on the LoRa
| device, which is a lot easier to crack with physical access
| compared to my phone. Even if you delete the messages it's
| still possible to decrypt sniffed LoRa traffic if, at some
| point in the future, one device gets captured.
|
| I'd rather the protocol gets updated so the crypto key can stay
| on the phone.
| 0x1ch wrote:
| There's a few issues that have been brought to light in the
| last couple years at Hackfest and other events related to
| LoRaWAN / Meshtastic (and derivatives). I think most notably
| was the failure in entropy generated during the flashing
| process, detailed here -
| https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-52464
|
| I think we're a bit past the initial AES issues, at least the
| Meshtastic project promptly alerted people to their crypto
| issues and encouraged everyone to update firmware asap.
|
| It's not too hard to use, as long as the hardware is flashed
| and ready. For the end user, it's an app that connects to a
| bluetooth connection. I think it would very trivial to have a
| few good LoRaWAN ops in the community, flashing nodes en
| masse and handing them out to peers.
| colanderman wrote:
| Agreed - and MeshCore follows a similar "security on the
| radio" design.
|
| With the "cell phone + companion radio" setup which is
| currently very popular, it would seem the correct solution is
| to perform encryption on the phone - using the Signal
| protocol - and use the companion radio only to send/receive
| these blobs.
|
| This has the added benefit that you can pair with _any_
| arbitrary companion radio, rather than your identity being
| tied to one specific radio you own.
| andsoitis wrote:
| Bitch about things on bitchat.
|
| How does that translate to local vernacular?
| flaburgan wrote:
| Source code is MIT:
| https://github.com/permissionlesstech/bitchat-android
|
| I guess if a serious audit is done then it could be a nice
| solution. I would love to read more technical details about it,
| especially how it can be sure the messages are transmitted to the
| good person.
| leosanchez wrote:
| Read it as bitch-at the first time :(
| doctornoble wrote:
| I don't think that's unintentional or undesired
| supportengineer wrote:
| Exactly, it says Bitch@
| FrameworkFred wrote:
| Same. I once registered bithole.com because I wanted a better
| email address then what I had at yahoo.com...and I realized my
| mistake as I was typing it on my resume. This feels like a
| similar mistake.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| Wasn't Jack Dorsey working on this as well?
| sph wrote:
| I'm pretty sure he vibe coded the thing, or at least the
| prototype
| hidden80 wrote:
| Like Briar?
| derbOac wrote:
| I was wondering about Briar... seems maybe like reinventing the
| same thing over again although I assume there's some important
| functional difference I'm not thinking of.
| HelloUsername wrote:
| And Berty on iOS?
| focusedone wrote:
| Was thinking the same thing. This seems better suited for
| chatting with arbitrary people nearby, but with zero
| verification of who you're talking to. You don't have to set up
| an account at all, just install the app and start chatting as
| @anon<number> or change the username to whatever you want.
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| This will be very interesting if they can conquer the
| distribution issue.
|
| During the Hong Kong protests I recall several such solutions
| were created, but the dominant thing ended up being airdrop
| because it is what so many people already had locked and loaded.
| big-and-small wrote:
| Another problem is what happens when police stop to search you.
| You don't want to have "please beat me dead" app installed when
| it's happens.
| immibis wrote:
| I think in these kinds of places they beat you dead for being
| the wrong skin colour if they're in a bad mood. I'm not sure
| how much your installed apps are relevant to the decision.
| vladgur wrote:
| The "wrong skin color" is projection of western ideologies
| to Israel/Gaza conflict.
|
| Israelis have lighter skin Ashkenazi Jews, darker skin
| Mizrahi Jews(majority of hte jews in Israel now) and black
| Ethiopian jews. And of course 20%+ Arabs living in the
| country.
|
| Gazan Palestinians skin color varies as well, some have
| light skin, while others have darker skin tones.
|
| For example, does this woman have the right skin color or
| the wrong one:
|
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4e/A
| h...
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Despite that, isn't there a history of compulsive
| violence based on skin-based profiling? These are facts,
| not ideology.
|
| 2 off-duty soldiers assaulted after being mistaken for
| Arabs https://www.timesofisrael.com/2-off-duty-soldiers-
| assaulted-...
|
| Live TV shows Israeli mob attack motorist they believed
| to be an Arab
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/13/live-tv-
| shows-...
|
| Israeli soldier kills Jewish civilian in 'identity
| mishap' https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-
| east-34602287
|
| 3 hostages killed by Israeli soldier in Gaza were waving
| a white flag, Israel says
| https://www.npr.org/2023/12/15/1219695220/israel-
| soldiers-mi...
|
| Israeli Civilian Killed by Israeli Soldier after Being
| Mistaken for Palestinian
| https://www.palestinechronicle.com/israeli-civilian-
| killed-b...
|
| And from Wikipedia: > The Israeli Security Forces use
| racial profiling at military checkpoints and during some
| of the duties they perform. In August 2017 Haaretz
| reported that security guards working for a company which
| provides security at Tel Aviv's Central Bus Station said
| they were instructed to demand ID from people who look
| Arab and detain those who do not have an ID with them.
|
| OP said that Israelis beat people up for having the wrong
| skin color. The one I replied to said that is wrong and
| is a projection of western ideology. But it does not
| appear to be wrong in reality - OP was correct.
| vladgur wrote:
| Dont these show that skin-based profiling doesnt work in
| Israel -- Jews and Arabs are being mistaken for each
| other.
|
| Not sure what the Florida example has to do with anything
| though.
|
| Here are some similar headlines:
|
| Palestinians remove Muslim from al-Aqsa after confusing
| him for a Jew https://www.jpost.com/israel-
| news/article-692563
|
| Palestinian stabs Arab Israeli bus driver thinking he was
| a Jew https://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinian-charged-
| over-petah...
| mef51 wrote:
| The colonization of Gaza and the West Bank is entirely
| driven by western interests and ideology. Namely
| Zionism[1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism
| yoavm wrote:
| Zionism was what pushed Jews to accept the Partition
| Plan[0], and later the disengagement plan[1], both
| rejecting the idea of Gaza as an Israeli territory.
|
| The colonization of Gaza is entirely driven by Hamas's
| attack on Israel.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partitio
| n_Plan_...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_disengagement_f
| rom_the...
| mef51 wrote:
| Acting like the dominant political stream in Israel has
| not been interested in occupying Gaza since at least 1967
| to this day is a bald faced and shameless misdirection.
| vladgur wrote:
| So that interest was actualized through removing all Jews
| -- living and dead -- from Gaza in 2005?
| immibis wrote:
| Sure. Just look at how they're doing now: they have the
| full support of the world to re-invade Gaza, and this can
| be justified by the fact that no Jews live there (Just
| look three comments above yours:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45932249 )
|
| If there were Israeli Jews (I am not referring to the
| religious group, but by which side of the conflict people
| are on) living in Gaza, such arguments wouldn't work,
| just like they don't work for the West Bank (which is
| also getting genocided but we're not talking about it, so
| maybe that strategy works too).
| vladgur wrote:
| colonization? How many western zionists live in Gaza
| today?
| UltraSane wrote:
| No Jews live in Gaza.
| immibis wrote:
| Israelis live in Palestine though - it's just that any
| area they live gets renamed from "Palestine" to "Israel",
| usually accompanied by heavily artillery fire and drone
| strikes, to clear out the natives.
| umanwizard wrote:
| There are also black people in Gaza:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afro-Palestinians
| klipt wrote:
| > racism within Palestinian communities.
|
| Of course
| LightBug1 wrote:
| Projection? Really? ... Do a little research into how
| black Ethiopian Jews were given birth control shots
| without their consent or knowledge.
| mothballed wrote:
| If goons are killing you for having an app you don't need
| more apps, you need a gun.
| cardanome wrote:
| 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 cruelty that is hard to comprehend.
| Sabinus wrote:
| I don't know about that, if settlers in the West Bank cop
| some violence then that's going to be considered well
| deserved.
|
| Soldiers of 'a government' committing murder, rape and
| hostage taking on a music festival is going to earn you a
| bit of looking away to the consequences.
|
| I don't expect them to do nothing, I expect them to come
| to a deal not sacrifice everything in an eternal and vain
| attempt to remove Israel from the map.
| zhengiszen wrote:
| What about a society glorifying children murder and rape
| on prisoners of war ?
| cardanome wrote:
| > I don't expect them to do nothing, I expect them to
| come to a deal
|
| Well that is what they did. People like you told shite
| like "The war ends if they release the hostages".
|
| They agreed to the first step of the peace plan. They
| released the hostages. They are keeping the truce.
| (Israel claims they killed a few soldiers but that seem
| to be a lie, they probably died from explosive that were
| already lying around).
|
| So what did it gain them? Israels keeps murdering them.
| People are still starving in Gaza because Israel refuses
| to let food in.
|
| > committing murder, rape and hostage taking
|
| This is what Israel has been doing for decades. We just
| call the hostages prisoners.
|
| While the Palestinians have treated their hostages as
| well as they could even when Gaza was starving, the
| bodies of the dead political prisoners Israel gave back
| were so mutilated from systemic torture that not even
| family members are able to recognize them.
|
| As for the accusation of the resistance committing
| systemic rape, that is just racist propaganda. Same when
| they justified the lynching of black people in the US
| with saying they raped white women. We would have video
| evidence if something like that had happened.
| nailer wrote:
| > Like you don't have to agree with their methods but
| expecting them to do nothing while Israel murders them
|
| But Israel's not murdering them. The war has a very low
| civilian to combatant death ratio.
| shkkmo wrote:
| Do you have a source for "very low"? It seems liks a hard
| thing to measure well but as far as I can see it looks
| very average.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio
| cardanome wrote:
| According to the UN 70% of the dead are women and
| children
|
| There are children with sniper bullets in their bodies.
|
| This is not war, this is ethnic cleansing.
| sa501428 wrote:
| >80% of the dead are civilians. What world are you living
| in?
|
| https://www.972mag.com/israeli-intelligence-
| database-83-perc...
|
| (Journalist from Israel)
| UltraSane wrote:
| "they might have a right to resist "
|
| How do you define this?
|
| Killing Israel soldiers.
|
| Or killing hundreds of civilians at a concert and
| parading the dead body of a young woman around like a
| hunting trophy like Hamas did on Oct 7 2023?
|
| The main problem is that Palestinians think they can
| defeat Israel with force but they can't.
| jeromegv wrote:
| > How do you define this?
|
| Would you not try to resist if you were to live in an
| open-air prison like Gaza?
|
| What if you lived in the West Bank and someone came to
| knock on your door and tell you that settlers were now
| taking over your land your family has lived in for
| hundreds of years and the bulldozer was coming the same
| afternoon to destroy your house, how would you react?
|
| I never condone attacking civilians, but i can't
| reasonably understand what those people had to live
| through for decades while their neighbour get to go to
| the beach every weekend.
| ngruhn wrote:
| > but as German if I made that point publicly in regards
| to Palestine I would get arrested. I am not exaggerating
|
| What are you talking about? I'm also German but nobody is
| getting arrested here for that. I literally walked past a
| pro Palestine protests 1h ago.
| cardanome wrote:
| They are regularly arresting people and police brutality
| has gotten so bad that even the international press is
| taking note:
|
| > Irish officials express 'concern' after Irish protestor
| left bloodied by police in Berlin
|
| https://www.irishpost.com/news/irish-officials-express-
| conce...
|
| > Footage circulating on X shows police using brute force
| to push back protesters, with at least 28 people
| arrested, according to police reports.
|
| https://www.humanrightsresearch.org/post/crackdown-on-
| pro-pa...
|
| > Udi Raz, 34, is sitting in a cafe in Berlin, where he
| lives, reflecting on a turbulent six months. Since
| Israel's war on Gaza began following the Hamas-led
| attacks of 7 October, Raz, an Israeli Jew raised in
| Haifa, has been fired from his job and had the activist
| group he's part of labelled antisemitic by Germany's
| official antisemitism commissioner.
|
| > Last Friday, German authorities arrested Raz, a board
| member of Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle
| East, after they cancelled and then banned the group's
| three-day conference on Palestine.
|
| https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/germany-crackdown-
| israel-...
|
| Yes, even Jewish people are labeled anti-semites, it is
| that insane.
| stirfish wrote:
| >I would get arrested
|
| Have you considered getting a gun? Why or why not?
| shevy-java wrote:
| Sadly most repressive states and apartheid systems control
| who has a gun.
|
| You can see that in Russia (as one example of many more,
| mind you), where officials search through your apps on the
| smartphone, or worse, people being carried away by cops
| merely for holding up a blank piece of paper:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbzV1it1YPY
| elcritch wrote:
| Exactly when a group like Hamas controls your home and
| brutally executes any dissidents or even suspected
| dissidents in public on a routine basis it's difficult for
| any individual to fight back [1], almost worse is torture
| and maiming of anyone who even hints at "disloyalty" [2].
|
| In such situations though encrypted messaging becomes
| crucial, but it'd be hard to hide.
|
| Note: links are rather disturbing.
|
| 1: https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/15/world/video/hamas-
| killings-ga... 2:
| https://x.com/afalkhatib/status/1979752415973834965
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| Yeah, it must suck to get brutally JDAM'd (along with
| your whole family _[0]_ ), sniper-droned (seeking to main
| and kill _[1]_ ) and mown down by "gaza humanitarian
| foundation" machine-gun fire (while queueing for food)
| _[2]_ in Palestine, just for disagreeing with israel 's
| position that your land now belongs to them. If you're
| lucky, you won't be thrown into one of israel's rape-and-
| torture-camps _[3][4]_.
|
| But anyways, great submission and great work. Remember
| though, your cell phone signals will earn you a JDAM,
| because you might be a terrorist for using a cell phone.
| So stay on the move.
|
| Warning: links are very disturbing:
|
| _0:https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-
| gaza/_
|
| _1:https://www.npr.org/2024/11/19/nx-s1-5195171/witnesse
| s-say-i..._
|
| _2:https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/08/1165552_
|
| _3:https://theintercept.com/2024/08/09/israel-prison-
| sde-teiman..._
|
| _4:https://www.btselem.org/publications/202408_welcome_t
| o_hell_
| UltraSane wrote:
| Hamas is is a totalitarian theocracy that kills opponents
| to it.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| sounds like israel but with less torturing, killing, and
| genocide
| clanky wrote:
| Hamas is killing traitors from criminal gangs who aligned
| with Israel during the conflict in the hopes of getting
| their 30 pieces of silver.
| tamimio wrote:
| It's different situation in Gaza tho, unlike protests where
| you might need to hide your identity going there to
| participate so having that app will expose you, in gaza it's
| more of a concentration camp where the main resources are
| controlled but on the ground, not really, so no police will
| stop you there because you have an app, bitchat might be the
| perfect solution.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| Too often the results of these efforts (like the HK protests
| just using Airdrop) are never really called out anywhere so
| these tools become nerd catnip and nerds continue to build
| solutions that nobody ends up using. It would be cool to maybe
| collect a list of situations where comms infra was disturbed
| and what ended up being used (if anything) in those situations
| to help guide future efforts.
| sinoue wrote:
| This is a great point. Being able to run in a browser with
| airdropped code makes sense. Using Bluetooth and no central
| server does this mean getting messages out to a world wide
| audience isn't possible with the app?
| krautburglar wrote:
| This gives me the same vibe as OLPC. We had these places where
| people didn't even have electricity, running water, or public
| sanitation, yet some nerds at MIT thought (?) to themselves, "
| _Hey, you know what these people need? Laptops!_ "
|
| But even worse, you can install it from App Store or Google Play!
| Israeli territory or Israeli territory! What will these dipshits
| do next? Send the Palestinians some more pagers out of Budapest?
| perching_aix wrote:
| This in turn reminds me to a meme where a guy was complaining
| that he got an empty package from Amazon, even though he didn't
| order anything. The quote retweet then wondered: what's his
| problem then?
| almog wrote:
| Other than the cold start problem which isn't discussed (what's
| the userbase size in Gaza?), the main argument for Bitchat (or
| any other off-grid network such as Meshtastic, Briar, etc.) in
| Gaza when mainstream E2E encrypted messaging apps already exist
| and are widely used, is to not be dependent on Israel for cell
| service.
|
| While I do really like the idea of off-grid networks in general
| but for this use case, is it really that hard for a state actor
| to jam Bluetooth (or all ~2.4GHz communication) on a large scale?
| helloworld4728 wrote:
| The user base size is huge. This is actively being used by tens
| of thousands
| almog wrote:
| Tens of thousands of users? Globally you mean? I doubt it's
| the user base size in Gaza but if that is actually what you
| meant, where did you pull that estimate from?
| iamnothere wrote:
| A disaster, cyberattack, or prolonged blackout could take down
| cell towers in a broad area, this could be useful in that case.
| And in a civil emergency a government may be able to shut down
| cell towers centrally, but not have the resources to jam the
| entire country.
| nikkwong wrote:
| I feel like the idea here is cute; but does it realistically
| work at scale? Of course, a messaging app like this--if it's
| going to work anywhere, is going to work in Gaza, one of the
| (at least formerly) most densely populated areas in the world.
| But bluetooth was not designed for this type of communication
| whatsoever; phones can only establish bluetooth connections
| between devices at the very most 100ft under the most ideal
| conditions; and is probably much lower than that in practice.
|
| Even if people are living in open-air conditions I can imagine
| messages getting stuck or being delivered very late; especially
| at night when there may not be a lot of human movement. How
| well does this actually work in practice?
| karel-3d wrote:
| 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!
| helloworld4728 wrote:
| 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.
| 4cidBurn wrote:
| 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.
| nxor wrote:
| I guess if even one or two people use it that's a good thing.
| BUT. It probably would struggle with RTL and LTR stuff
| regarding arabic script vs latin script (and people across the
| world are forgoing traditional scripts for latin characters ...
| seems bad)
| howmayiannoyyou wrote:
| [flagged]
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| Is it their job to do that?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Is it their job to do that?_
|
| Not that. But it should be someone's job to monitor if Hamas
| adopts it.
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| That is an external problem to the bitchat app.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _That is an external problem to the bitchat app_
|
| Not really. If it becomes a tool of terrorist
| communication, it will get shut down. Legally,
| technically and/or kinetically.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > If it becomes a tool of terrorist communication, it
| will get shut down.
|
| You mean like how they shut down cell phone networks?
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| How do Google and Microsoft prevent their tech from being used
| toward genocidal/settler ends against civilians?
| js212 wrote:
| Umm they don't sell to Hamas but I could be wrong.
| jeromegv wrote:
| They do sell to Israel, which uses the tech to commit mass-
| atrocities against civilians.
| sa501428 wrote:
| The primary threat to Palestinian civilians in Gaza remains the
| IDF. And in the West Bank, it's the Israeli settlers.
| krautburglar wrote:
| HERE is the techforpalestine github that is worth focusing on
|
| https://github.com/TechForPalestine/boycott-israeli-consumer...
| dang wrote:
| Related. Others?
|
| _Ask HN: Does Anyone Use Bitchat?_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44944414 - Aug 2025 (5
| comments)
|
| _Testing Bitchat at the music festival_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44815164 - Aug 2025 (55
| comments)
|
| _MitM Flaw in Bitchat: Identity Is a Bitchat Challenge_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44497622 - July 2025 (6
| comments)
|
| _Bitchat - A decentralized messaging app that works over
| Bluetooth mesh networks_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44485342 - July 2025 (424
| comments)
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| I wish phones supported 802.11ah for things like this.
| ronsor wrote:
| 802.11ah hardware is sadly still rather expensive. The cheapest
| thing I could find is a $40 PCIe card (M.2 form factor); USB
| dongles for it are still $100+.
|
| At this point, it's probably worth abandoning 802.11ah as an
| idea and trying some different RF standard.
| ux266478 wrote:
| Most phone radios have RX/TX around the 40-30cm band already.
| It's just a question of having arbitrary send/receive, and I
| guarantee you the hardware is designed to make that as
| impossible as they can.
| system2 wrote:
| I think cellphones should come with LoRa, ZigBee, or Sub-GHz FSK
| modules. It would reshape the communication we have today.
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| 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.
| perching_aix wrote:
| > and booby trap these devices with c4
|
| bit-chat is a piece of software, it's not a hardware device
| ux266478 wrote:
| 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.
| warbaker wrote:
| ...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.
| shevy-java wrote:
| I imagine Gaza may currently be one of the most difficult
| environments to write software code in. I happily admit that I
| would not be able to be productive in such an environment - my
| environment here in Europe is really quite sheltered (guess this
| also depends on where one lives; areas close to Russia may not
| feel as comfortable as in central Europe or Western Europe). The
| only distraction I have here is youtube music playing in the
| background - that's about it. My brain wouldn't be able to
| operate well in any high risk high danger environment or any non-
| standard environment in general.
| praptak wrote:
| Even in Ukraine it's quite possible to code. I worked at Google
| with people who stayed in Ukraine after Russia started the war.
| I can't say they were unaffected - there was stuff like
| meetings interrupted by missile alerts - but they managed to do
| normal work despite the ongoing war.
| berdario wrote:
| 40% of the bombing victims in Gaza are under 10 years old
|
| https://msf.org.uk/article/gaza-msf-survey-shows-almost-
| half...
|
| Comparing it to the war in Ukraine ("Even in Ukraine") isn't
| really helpful or informative, to understand the condition
| under which Palestinians are surviving.
| nickff wrote:
| The website you linked to specifies a subtly different
| thing from what you're asserting:
|
| > _"Forty-eight percent of the people who died from blast
| injuries among our colleagues ' households were children
| and 40 percent were under 10 years old."_
|
| That is quite different from saying that " 40% of the
| bombing victims in Gaza are under 10 years old".
| garbagecoder wrote:
| >I imagine Gaza may currently be one of the most difficult
| environments to write software code in.
|
| That you think this says a lot about our news environment. I
| can think of a dozen places in Africa.
| nxor wrote:
| Burundi has entered the chat. Strange you're getting
| downvoted.
| Lio wrote:
| This is pretty cool. I could see the use in other disaster hit
| areas or even just large public gatherings like sports events or
| festivals where network coverage is temporarily a bit patchy.
| tamimio wrote:
| IMO, I think the decentralized tech is the next big thing, and I
| probably mentioned it before, but the current state of hyper
| surveillance especially now with AI and digital ID, plus the
| privacy violating companies like flock and ring, will push people
| further into ditching centralized to decentralized, or technology
| completely!
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| Watching news coverage I am amazed if many are able to get their
| phone working (as in not broken by the war) and charged.
| 4ggr0 wrote:
| 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...
| johnisgood wrote:
| > /pass [password] - Set/change channel password (owner only)
|
| I assume to unset it just have to use /pass without arguments?
| Epa095 wrote:
| We are probably all on a list for just commenting on this post
| :-/
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| I never see anyone on bitchat. Do people use it? I think the
| bluetooth limitation is gone, right? You can connect to users
| without being in proximity.
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