Twitter co -founder Jack Dorsey has launched a new messaging application that works without WiFi or mobile signal.
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Instead of using conventional internet infrastructure or mobile networks, Bitchat uses the phone’s Bluetooth to allow communication between users in situations where the signal is weak or non-existent, as often at festivals, protests or in isolated areas, notes The Independent.
How Bitchat works
Although Bluetooth usually has a limited coverage ray of about 100 meters, the application exceeds this barrier through an automatic retransmission system. Bitchat creates a decentralized mesh network, in which each phone becomes transmitter and receiver simultaneously, sending the messages further, from one device to another, to the recipient. In total, messages can be transmitted, further, up to seven successive jumps, without the need for internet connection or any external infrastructure.
Max Keiser, a pioneer in Bitcoin, told Beincrypto: “What happens if the current falls? It is a classic question of Bitcoin skeptics. Bitchat solves this with cheap mesh networks and easily implemented. ”
Dorsey compares the system with old IRC chatrooms, but with modern encryption and without central servers. There is no need for accounts nor mobile signal. According to the technical documentation (White Paper), the service is completely decentralized and encrypted. The network does not request an email address, phone number or creating an account to operate. “Bitchat responds to the need for resilient and private communication, which does not depend on centralized infrastructure”shown in the application of the app.
At each session, the application generates a temporary ID. No personal or metadata data are collected. The messages are not stored in the cloud and are automatically deleted after delivery or after 12 hours if not transmitted.
Bitchat is in Beta version and is available by Apple Testflight for a limited number of users (10,000 slots, fully occupied in the first days after launch).
The technical documentation mentions that the application uses encryption with X25519 for the exchange of keys and AES-GCM to encrypt messages. “Dummy” packages are also generated, randomly encrypted, to increase the degree of confidentiality and make it impossible to distinguish the real traffic from the false one.
Devices are constantly scanning beacons and sets encrypted connections for pending message exchange. Each user has an ID derived from the public key, which changes periodically to increase anonymity.
The application is optimized for low battery consumption, by scan at adaptable intervals and discrete operation in the background.
In the future, developers take into account the extension of the application with direct WiFi support and other offline communication protocols.
An experiment with real risks
According to an analysis published by The Register, the Bitchat application-although promoted as “safe, decentralized and encrypted”-is still at an incipient stage of development. The source code available on Github was not audited externally, and several engineers in Dorsey’s company (Block) publicly reported encryption vulnerabilities and users impersonation risks.
One of them, Jordan Mecom, has even proposed to include an explicit warning in the application, to discourage its use in sensitive contexts. “In the current form, Bitchat does not reach the stated security goals,” MeCOM transmitted, suggesting the implementation of consecrated protocols such as X3DH and Double Ratchet, used in applications as a signal.
Jack Dorsey described Bitchat as the “weekend project”, a personal learning experiment related to Mesh networks, encryption and Store-and-Forward models. The application is not officially available in the App Store, and iOS users must compile it manually. As for Android, porting the application is only in the request stage.
The Register recalls that this technological approach is not new: the Firechat application, used in the protests in Hong Kong and Iraq, operated on a similar model, but was abandoned in 2020, including due to a viable monetization model.
In the absence of a viable business model, the maintenance of the application and the network cannot be guaranteed. And if the local authorities do not look at the idea of people to communicate and organize themselves through channels impossible to monitor, it is possible that they do not try to break the encryption of messages, but to directly target the management of the company, as Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, as warns The Register.
One of the founders of the Firechat application, Micha Benoliel, is also the co -founder, a decentralized wireless network that encourages the participation of users by connecting mobile phones through various protocols, including Bluetooth, and instead providing NodL token, a cryptocurrency used to reward network traffic. In a recent post on social networks, Benoliel noted that Dorse’s projectY “Remember the good times of Firechat”later suggesting that the Nodle network could support Bitchat, facilitating the retransmitting messages.
Given that Jack Dorsey’s current company is focused on blockchain and digital payments, it would not be surprising for Bitchat to integrate cryptocurrency features in the future. However, those who need a high level of security, such as activists or dissidents in authoritarian regimes, should not play their safety using this application, at least not in its current form.
