Where my bitchat
Holy sh*t: 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.
Submitted 4 days ago by Pro@programming.dev to technology@lemmy.world
https://github.com/jackjackbits/bitchat/blob/main/WHITEPAPER.md
Comments
isVeryLoud@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
Smack by Bitchup
FenrirIII@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Move bitch get out the way
squaresinger@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I read it like that first and thought it was one of these illegal apps to track your partner without them knowing.
RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz 3 days ago
Bitch At
Lmao
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Ingenious name
iopq@lemmy.world 2 days ago
If you want to bitch at someone, there’s an app for that
KingGimpicus@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Bitch@
Ulrich@feddit.org 3 days ago
messaging app that works over Bluetooth mesh networks. No internet
So he’s made a shitty version of Briar and crammed crypto into it?
lepinkainen@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Briar doesn’t have an iOS client an never will
This doesn’t have an android client 😀
Ulrich@feddit.org 3 days ago
Like I said, Briar is better
redhat421@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Interesting. I wonder why Briar won’t have an iOS client?
harrys_balzac@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
Just wait for AI enhancements.
explodicle@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
In this context I think “crypto” means your message is encrypted across hops, not that you have to pay to send/receive messages.
spankmonkey@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Bit chat
Bitch at
Being Jack Dorsey, I’m going with thr latter.
rottingleaf@lemmy.world 4 days ago
“IRC vibes” -> maybe intended, see BitchX.
rottingleaf@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Just realized that could be read as “bit chicks”, which would explain such a name choice for an IRC client in the times when there actually were some bit chicks on popular IRC channels.
notarobot@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
Ive read it called bitch@
Crozekiel@lemmy.zip 4 days ago
‘Where my bitchat?’
lemonuri@infosec.pub 2 days ago
There is already a really good foss app that does exactly that, it’s called briar and is as secure and private as it gets. The downside with p2p communication apps being, that they eat your phones battery for breakfast. Still a good option for activists or journalists I think. It’s a good way to get around the “server in the middle” problem. Still more convenient to run your own (xmpp) server at home imho…
hietsu@sopuli.xyz 2 days ago
- for Android (and Windows/macOS/Linux) but not iOS.
And apparently never going to be as some key component is written in Java. Other technical obstacles should be solvable (like f.ex. getting continuous running in bg by exploiting location services like iSH can do)
lemonuri@infosec.pub 2 days ago
Thanks, I did not realise that. So this app is for Mac to Mac communication only. If seems for briar you need to run a server still or messages will get lost between mobile users. How does this new app solve that problem? On mobile phones disconnecs will happen regularly as network coverage changes and different network towers connect and documen disconnect when you are on the move. You might as well spin up your own xmpp server at that point, as that protocol is tried and tested for over 20 years and very lightweight and battery friendly as well…
zapzap@lemmings.world 3 days ago
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.
hansolo@lemmy.today 2 days ago
It’s not about you being in bluetooth range of the person you want to talk to, it’s about all the people sitting in between you both that pass the message along without touching the internet.
So you can be on a cargo ship, or on a remote island, with 20 other people and all use chat. If 1 person has internet, then you can all chat globally as well.
It’s the same basic method of how airtags work. Everyone with an iPhone connects to the airtag and passes data to Apple. It’s just done in the background, so users don’t ever notice.
HertzDentalBar@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
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.
potentiallynotfelix@lemmy.fish 2 days ago
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.
cdf12345@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
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.
Mniot@programming.dev 2 days ago
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!
hardcoreufo@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I wanted a cybiko so bad as a teen. It seemed like it would be so cool if everyone I knew bought one. Of course no one did, but I still think they are awesome.
thisphuckinguy@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Yeah, fuck Jack.
percent@infosec.pub 2 days ago
Why?
Passerby6497@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Aside from the fact that he made twitter (which I blame in large part for how our political/news media landscape, as well as modern discourse, has become so thoughtless), left and made blue sky, then left blue sky and endorsed twitter?
The dude supports a ton of toxic shit and can get entirely fucked.
cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
don't nazis already have telegram
Pro@programming.dev 2 days ago
Now they have a second option.
Kolanaki@pawb.social 3 days ago
Bitch At
Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.world 2 days ago
For all those little bitches.
falynns@lemmy.world 3 days ago
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.
Jason2357@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
No one has got it right yet though. Being apple only, he hasn’t either.
shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
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.
oppy1984@lemdro.id 2 days ago
Yeahy first thought when I read the headline was “why not just use meshtastic?”
iknowitwheniseeit@lemmynsfw.com 2 days ago
In practice range seems to be a few kilometers, in places with lots of nodes.
ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 4 days ago
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.
blarghly@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I mean, what is actually needed is a secure messaging app that scrapes wraps existing apps. So when two people send messages through FancyMessages, they are secure. But then if only one person has FancyMessages, and the other has Facebook messenger, then they could still comminicate - the FB user using Messenger as usual, and our hero’s FancyMessages app picking up the FB messages and passing them on through the FancyMessages UI.
ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 2 days ago
This is a great idea, but it would be difficult to manage.
It reminds me of the instant messenger wars during the late 1990s/early 2000s.
AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) had a virtual monopoly on the industry, and so when Microsoft started breaking into it with MSN Messenger they cracked AIM’s protocol so their users could communicate with AIM users. This enraged AOL, and there was a wild cat-and-mouse updates battle for a few months. AOL would push an update to block Microsoft, then Microsoft would push an update to get around that. Sometimes there were multiple updates from both sides per day.
And then there was Trillian messenger just sneaking through the middle providing access to both, mostly unnoticed (at least for a while).
explodicle@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Signal used to work this way and I’m still mad they dropped SMS.
Jimny_Crkt@slrpnk.net 2 days ago
Beeper is like this, but the list of supported messaging apps is limited. It does have FB messenger though.
lepinkainen@lemmy.world 3 days ago
This is nothing like the ones you list, this is local only no internet
ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Okay. But one of my points still stands that there are already a bunch of p2p Bluetooth-based messaging apps out there.
mahi@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
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.
just_another_person@lemmy.world 4 days ago
I mean…I guess thanks for the stepping off point? Android has the Briar Project, which could 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?
Eldritch@piefed.social 4 days ago
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.
lepinkainen@lemmy.world 3 days ago
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
Jason2357@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
There are plenty of situations where that’s useful, especially if you can have group chats with images. Think airplanes, weddings, concerts, sports arenas. And if you have meshing and store and forward when nodes are moving around, you can cover a large area that may not have internet. It’s a legitimate tool that no one has done right yet - and as apple only, this is t yet either.
antlion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
I wanted something like this for weddings or group camping type events for sharing photos to multiple others at once.
Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
Isnt that what QuickShare and Airdrop solves?
antlion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
Airdrop is two people at a time. Say we had a group of 8 people I don’t want to do 7 air drop exchanges to get all the photos.
bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Seems rehashed, with more enshittification likely to be baked in. Typical tech bros.
anon_8675309@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Phone makers need to add LoRa radios to phones. Something like this would be more useful then.
fittedsyllabi@lemmy.world 3 days ago
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.
garretble@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Really not interested in anything the guy with the terrible facial hair wants to make.
thisphuckinguy@lemmy.world 3 days ago
💯
Kurious84@eviltoast.org 3 days ago
He should try a cheeseburger once in awhile.
icegladiator@lemy.lol 2 days ago
We already have Briar. I don’t get why Jack Dorsey is trying to get into the messaging space so hard. He also bankrolls SimpleX Chat if anyone is familiar with that platform
REDACTED@infosec.pub 4 days ago
This reminds me of the times I was saving text files on my phone and sending them to random classmates
rottingleaf@lemmy.world 4 days ago
I really like this despite using nothing Apple.
AbidanYre@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Ulrich@feddit.org 3 days ago
Briar is the much better and much more mature version of this.
52fighters@lemmy.sdf.org 4 days ago
That’s what my friends and family use!
rottingleaf@lemmy.world 3 days ago
My mobile stuff is on Android, but Briar desktop (despite being a Java application?..) swears at “unknown OS FreeBSD” and doesn’t run.
db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
Let’s build an app to liberate communications but only release it inside a closed garden. Great idea
Eldritch@piefed.social 4 days ago
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.
Pro@programming.dev 4 days ago
Bro, Public Domain.
sit_up_straight@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 days ago
youtube-dl and yt-dlp are under unlicense. it’s just standard legalese for public domain
rottingleaf@lemmy.world 2 days ago
One thing I personally like more about this than about Briar - routing of messages.
It seems Briar exchanges state of the groups with the neighboring devices, they with their neighbors, and so on.
That might take a few iterations (thus delay) to propagate a message from, say, one side of the crowd to another, and leave different members with different state all the time.
While here, apparently, messages are routed further immediately. From my own toying around - not the best thing too, but initiating synchronization by sender\relay and not by recipient seems sane.
Maybe should rewrite the toy to be nicer. It seems to be closer to real world things than I thought.
WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 2 days ago
In the context of the US fascist dictatorship and Apple being the dominant smartphone there, starting with Apple makes sense.
If it can be done within Apples curated monopoly, it will be technically possible on Android (probably).
rottingleaf@lemmy.world 4 days ago
From the description it seems to be rather clean. And perhaps not to be limited to Apple for too long.