Replies (78)
But Briar did the same thing and has been around for a while. Bitchat looks cooler, though.
Briar isn't on iOS. I'm not an Apple user myself, but this is a major sticking point. A large percentage of mobile users are on Apple (especially younger people), and if you're not there, you won't reach the masses.
I didn't realize. Yeah, that's a good point.
I automatically assumed it was meant to circumvent internet censorship. Probably because of those issues popping up in the western world concurrently
- Schools
- Social events (parties, weddings, ...)
- Conferences and seminars
- Protests
- Sport events
- Business meetings
- Trade shows
- Academic events
- Religious events
- ...
There's no short list of places and moments where #bitchat could shine!
🫂
☝️
Any large in person gathering. Often the very place where the cell networks start to break down due to too many users at once.
7fqx
Apparently football matches suffer from poor/no mobile phone reception, I didn't actually know this, it came up in conversation with a football-going friend. I know festivals/carnivals suffer from this and obviously protests. Makes sense that large sporting events would also suffer from this really.
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Jack wouldn't want to anything to do with those protests lol
Wrong protestors for him to actively market to, he's an open borders sorta guy I reckon. Wrong class lol.
The Disintermediation Of Social
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So...I guess the question is why would I need to talk to people off-grid at a sports game or wedding?
Too late. Get on it, meme this shit to your countrymen!
The problem is that Bitchat is as vulnerable to this, as cellular service.
Many events have dedicated cell towers but even they cannot fit enough capacity in the RF spectrum, so they start dropping users.
Now, this gets worse with Bitchat. The 2.4GHz band is subject to way more interference from WiFi and a lot of other protocols. The band is also pretty narrow too.
To make it worse, Bluetooth only uses 3 channels for advertisements, which is only 3MHz of bandwidth, and is inherently worse due to being a shared medium with no central access control and coordination system.
Now consider a massive stadium. Open air means barely any attenuation. Tens of messages per second, each one rebroadcast by thousands of devices, all talking over each other, with so little bandwidth.
Congrats you have a distributed jammer.
I've heard the same thing can become an issue if there are too many meshtastic units in an area, yeah.
I wonder if the short range of BT is actually a benefit in this case? Low power and low range would cut down on the amount of interference. You wouldn't be dealing with the entire crowd, just people within tens of meters? I've only got 2 nodes to play with so I'm not sure 😂
There are Brits protesting? Like... For real? Not a fake protest, like climate nonsense?
thats why 5g uses MIMO and will turn phones into minature cell towers in your pocket in these cases 😂 it burnz
In open air it’s much worse compared to a closed space. And signals far but not far enough will appear as noise and will still make it worse.
3MHz is also still tiny bandwidth.
not only MIMO, but the 5G tower coordinates who can talk at what time. it can optimize for the most amount of clients in parallel (say in different directions)
yep, it's pretty much a mesh.. the most well designed one so far. too bad it's all proprietary and stuff.
Nothing 2 bitchat
It'll be interesting to see. The white paper also mentions Wi-Fi direct being used as a transport. The mesh could auto configure to switch between transports depending on the local conditions. Within the local area some areas would use Bluetooth and others WiFi, with nodes at the edges working as crossovers between the two. That at least let's you get two different frequency bands, if 5ghz wifi is available, plus more & wider channels on Wi-Fi.
While this would increase throughput it would arguably make the problem worse as WiFi is longer range and uses more TX power.
And you still need to pick one channel and stick to it. You can’t listen on multiple channels.
+ Briar is permissoned. You have to exchange QR code
I guess the question is at what point does it fall apart? How many users/area, total users, etc. it's all academic until it's actually in use. Hopefully it gets tested more thoroughly at larger gatherings and can be improved.
That's a security feature IMHO. Think Hongkong 2014.
If someone really wants it it could possibly be vibe-ported to iOS.
@calle did the same for Bitchat the other way round.
(I'm not an expert though)
sounds fun
So would you think Bitchat is an evolution of (bluetooth) mesh messengers. Or a complete new innovation? Honest question bc I am always somewhat skeptical when a new freedom thing gets hyped by msm fast.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidbirnbaum/2025/07/31/can-bitchat-build-a-free-internet-with-bitcoin/That writer just knows Dorsey+messages = clicks 😂
Being open source and released into the public domain helps alleviate those concerns somewhat I think,
@calle is working on the Android version already. It's still early, it will be interesting to see where it goes.
To solve this WiFi has RTS/CTS where nodes coordinate before transmitting.
Basically, if you have 3 nodes A, B, C, and A/C wants to talk to B, they send a request-to-send. Now B can coordinate the transmission order using clear-to-send.
Otherwise what can happen is A and C transmit at the same time and interfere.
It will be huge at protests.
MIMO is pretty common on recent phones Wi-Fi hardware, does that help? I know my last two pixels can create a Wi-Fi hotspot while connected to WiFi as the source network. I've no idea if that's part of the Wi-Fi direct standard though.
MIMO does help. But even with MIMO, almost all WiFi radios are single-channel operation.
The WiFi hotspot thing is possible with SISO as wellz
It basically uses the same channel to connect to the network and to host its own.
Interesting perspectives!
It's a very easy way of making a chat between everyone sharing a space.
No registration needed. Just start up bitchat and you share a chat room with everyone.
It could be used to share useful information for the event, for playing some kind of game or raffle, to meet people with shared interests, etc.
Even to order some some drinks and food, ot request a song to the DJ...
Those are just some ideas. I'm sure people will have better ones.
🫂
It can’t (at least until the Nostr connection is established) as it doesn’t even contact the internet currently. It is exclusively a Bluetooth peer to peer protocol. Can’t solve internet censorship without being on the internet
It's more than just that writer. It's a campaign all over the world. That's what makes me skeptical. Anyway let's see.
The cool kids get it.
The current iOS release uses Nostr as a backend if you are out of BT range. It's live in the app store now.
jack
bitchat 1.2.0 (purple) shipping to testflight tonight.
this enables mutual favorites to automatically switch to a nostr-based transport when one of them leaves the mesh. only for private messages for now using NIP-17.
basically people can bitchat in person, favorite each other at that time, and then can continue the conversation if internet is available through nostr, from any distance. no need to input a npub or know anything about nostr. it just works.
https://github.com/permissionlesstech/bitchat/pull/358
Ryan
I think people miss the point of bitchat, re: local messaging vs internet messaging.
I think a likely place it pops up is kids using it in schools, I wouldn't be surprised if it makes the news at the start of the new school year.
It also solves the real person problem of Nostr, because you first add a person who is around you locally and verify them in person, and then they are a Nostr contact over the Internet.
Another place I see it being useful is any kind of protest. Set your crew up before anything starts, and you are no longer reliant on big tech and the phone networks for basic comms. It should be marketed towards all those British folks protesting their government right now.
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That’s if you’ve already met the person within BT range. Apparently, I have no Nostriches anywhere near me.
Yeah I think that's the point. A mesh messenger that can keep working after you've left the mesh, communicating with people you've verified IRL. Not to be a new Nostr app for DMs.
I expect this will move fast, being open source & public domain.
mfostr
I extended #Bitchat python to import a beacon for testing the BLE range. I have been walking around my house hunting packets! 🛜
My end goal is to build an
@Umbrel ☂️ app that tunnels to a nostr relay and up. This is just the beginning of an in person social mesh network and decentralized exchange for businesses. I haven’t even decided what NIP beyond NIP-01 and the concept for NIP-17 Gift Wrapped Messages that
@jack is working on for the local first BLE handshake.
I have built a DEX example on NIP-99 at
https://autodex.us that is currently hosted on an
@Umbrel ☂️ as well. The future is now!
I try not to let a bunch of news sites I've never heard of control my thinking, positively or negatively. It's a beta release of software anyways, not a finished product.
@calle is already working on an Android client, plus I'm sure there is lots more to come.
mfostr
I extended #Bitchat python to import a beacon for testing the BLE range. I have been walking around my house hunting packets! 🛜
My end goal is to build an
@Umbrel ☂️ app that tunnels to a nostr relay and up. This is just the beginning of an in person social mesh network and decentralized exchange for businesses. I haven’t even decided what NIP beyond NIP-01 and the concept for NIP-17 Gift Wrapped Messages that
@jack is working on for the local first BLE handshake.
I have built a DEX example on NIP-99 at
https://autodex.us that is currently hosted on an
@Umbrel ☂️ as well. The future is now!
I get it. I just haven’t had any luck converting locals to Nostr.
People using bitchat in this way wouldn't even need to know they're using Nostr. Just like 99.99% of the people using the wider Internet haven't a clue what the tcp/ip protocol is, it's just a layer hidden underneath the app. Nobody cares about how Tik Tok or Instagram actually works, they care about what it does.
I'd imagine, bluetooth jamming is relatively trivial. But will likely slip under the radar for a time (re protests etc)
That’s true. I, however, am personally curious about the connection. Let’s say I make or convert a buddy to bitchat today: how does that connect to my Nostr account, since I never entered (or was asked) for my npub or nsec?
It doesn't. Bitchat as of now has no connection to your other Nostr identities. Some people might even see that as a feature.
That’s true. I’d prefer it as an optional thing. I look at it like Simplex here: I can use my profile name, but I can also use a random incognito username too. And I can have multiple profiles each with their own names and subaliases under them. If bitchat could do that while giving me the option to have ONE of them also link to my npub, that could be the best of both worlds.
Vibe it up
I’ve never done it. I think I’ve heard about Shakespeare… I don’t know anything else about save that it uses AI to attempt to program what you want based on prompts.
I've never coded anything more than a copy paste bash script before.
Ryan
Flappy Nostrich - I'm Not Schnorring Edition
https://flappy-nostrich.vercel.app/
A pretty big update!
- Server side score validation! A side effect is all current high scores will be gone as they have no validation, but future scores will be much harder to fake.
- More characters! The Original Nostrich, You, & Knuckles. My plan for this is to enable user created characters, published to Nostr!
- More better performance. The app has been refactored and many improvements have been made to image caching & Nostr connections. It went from a slideshow to 💯 playable on my slow testing target, so hopefully it's better for you too.
- Further improvements to overall system stability and other minor adjustments have been made to enhance the user experience.
Please give it a test and let me know of any issues you find. This has some major changes and everything seems good in my testing, but more eyes may help find some bugs. Thanks for playing!
#FlappyNostrich
Given the tyrannical way that ALL of the western governments are currently slamming down on the internet and all forms of communication, having a back up plan for when the Internet goes down in your town/country is always a good idea. Some people will never be interested in Bitcoin by itself but if you introduce some anti-censorship concepts into the deal, you might have a real rebel on your hands! 😉 We should also be asking ourselves "Why?" are the governments doing this, it feels like something really bad is just about to hit us and they don't want us putting up any form of resistance - which is probably the best reason why we should! 😉
Police officer using bitchat: "Yo fools we're gonna smash u"
protester: "LOL why u here you're a cop"
police: "cause it's free, lol"
protester: "fuck you, get out!!"
police: "can't stop us <"
Absolutely. The Android version already has the ability to make topic based channels. Having them encrypted and protected would be a great feature for this exact use case, to keep comms private.
Ryan
I think people miss the point of bitchat, re: local messaging vs internet messaging.
I think a likely place it pops up is kids using it in schools, I wouldn't be surprised if it makes the news at the start of the new school year.
It also solves the real person problem of Nostr, because you first add a person who is around you locally and verify them in person, and then they are a Nostr contact over the Internet.
Another place I see it being useful is any kind of protest. Set your crew up before anything starts, and you are no longer reliant on big tech and the phone networks for basic comms. It should be marketed towards all those British folks protesting their government right now.
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The interesting part is the store & forward aspect, so a message sent but blocked could later be delivered when out of blocking range. If this includes fallback to the Nostr transport, it could even deliver messages blocked on the mesh later when internet is available.
I was saying this a couple days ago to a friend or telling them about bitchat.
"If we were still at school I'd have the whole school using this already"
Yeah, its starting to spread.. wether things kick off in a major way remains to be seen...
It is the use case for briar as well, though that isn't exclusively local.
We see clear use cases for fascist governments that take the internet down - à la Iran, Burma, Sudan, Congo, Palestine, China, etc, at least in very recent history. 💬 🗨️🗯️👁️🗨️
View quoted note →Probably also popular among soldiers. Avoid having compromised coms
I remember around maybe 15 years ago when I was in College, I used to write/draw something on page n send it via bluetooth to a friend in class as a message. Bitchat is its realisation, pretty cool.
Jack is one the best at developing comms during uprisings... 🤣 💯✌️
100%
Future Considerations: Network Bridge Extension
👀
mfostr
I extended #Bitchat python to import a beacon for testing the BLE range. I have been walking around my house hunting packets! 🛜
My end goal is to build an
@Umbrel ☂️ app that tunnels to a nostr relay and up. This is just the beginning of an in person social mesh network and decentralized exchange for businesses. I haven’t even decided what NIP beyond NIP-01 and the concept for NIP-17 Gift Wrapped Messages that
@jack is working on for the local first BLE handshake.
I have built a DEX example on NIP-99 at
https://autodex.us that is currently hosted on an
@Umbrel ☂️ as well. The future is now!
Yeah, this makes a lot of sense. I’m not sure how to explain the sense it makes yet but I like it.
Well said!
But what do you think of the bad actors who are going to use it for bad stuff?
They also used cars and electricity
If you're meeting someone in person couldn't you validate any identifier? Email address, nostr npub, etc.
Yes. And?
