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submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by Pro@programming.dev to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[-] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 48 points 1 week ago

Let's build an app to liberate communications but only release it inside a closed garden. Great idea

[-] Eldritch@piefed.social 14 points 1 week 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 13 points 1 week ago

And he's got it under some cringey edgelord "unlicense" license which basically appears to be MIT just with a different name.

Bro, Public Domain.

[-] Eldritch@piefed.social 2 points 1 week ago

He used different terms in different places. And to be frank, I'm not sure I'd heard about unlicense before. But upon closer look it does seem to be a the goal. Despite not being valid or applicable in a few jurisdictions.

[-] sit_up_straight@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

youtube-dl and yt-dlp are under unlicense. it's just boilerplate legalese for public domain

[-] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

From the description it seems to be rather clean. And perhaps not to be limited to Apple for too long.

[-] isVeryLoud@lemmy.ca 31 points 1 week ago

Smack by Bitchup

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[-] Ulrich@feddit.org 24 points 1 week 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?

[-] harrys_balzac@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 week ago

Just wait for AI enhancements.

[-] lepinkainen@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

Briar doesn’t have an iOS client an never will

This doesn’t have an android client 😀

[-] redhat421@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Interesting. I wonder why Briar won't have an iOS client?

[-] BackwardsUntoDawn@infosec.pub 1 points 1 week ago

I'm sure the background limitations are a big part, but I wonder if there's also limits to what they can do with bluetooth

[-] Ulrich@feddit.org 2 points 1 week ago

Like I said, Briar is better

[-] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 22 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Bit chat

Bitch at

Being Jack Dorsey, I'm going with the latter.

[-] notarobot@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 week ago

Ive read it called bitch@

[-] Crozekiel@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 week ago

'Where my bitchat?'

[-] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

"IRC vibes" -> maybe intended, see BitchX.

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[-] RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz 19 points 1 week ago

Bitch At

Lmao

[-] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Ingenious name. I feel like Bitchat should be connected somehow with PenIsland.

[-] KingGimpicus@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 week ago
[-] zapzap@lemmings.world 10 points 1 week 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.

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 1 points 1 week 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.

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[-] antlion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 week ago

I wanted something like this for weddings or group camping type events for sharing photos to multiple others at once.

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[-] Mniot@programming.dev 8 points 1 week 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!

[-] Kolanaki@pawb.social 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

The best app to Bitch At things.

[-] falynns@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week 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.

[-] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 6 points 1 week 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.

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[-] ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week 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 2 points 1 week 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 3 points 1 week 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).

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[-] Kurious84@eviltoast.org 4 points 1 week ago

He should try a cheeseburger once in awhile.

[-] thisphuckinguy@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago
[-] percent@infosec.pub 2 points 1 week ago
[-] lemonuri@infosec.pub 3 points 1 week 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 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week 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)

[-] just_another_person@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I mean...I guess thanks for the stepping off point? Android has the Briar Project, which couldn't 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 2 points 1 week 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.

[-] mahi@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week 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.

[-] fittedsyllabi@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week 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.

[-] Atelopus-zeteki@fedia.io 2 points 1 week ago

Well that's odd, on the apple App Store there is a 4 year old Social Networking app called BitChat, that appears to mostly be in Japanese. I think I'll stick with Signal.

[-] REDACTED@infosec.pub 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

This reminds me of the times I was saving text files on my phone and sending them to random classmates, which makes me think that if two people (especially between iOS and Android) want to communicate in BT, there is no need for a third party app.

[-] bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago

Seems rehashed, with more enshittification likely to be baked in. Typical tech bros.

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this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
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