Comment by maqp
7 hours ago
Could someone please explain in what situation do you use a BlueTooth messaging app? Like, even BT5 range won't exceed 400 meters. What good is this? You're not going to send images to journalists from protests with it (you'd do wisely to keep it in airplane mode until you get home and then you'd upload them to their securedrop or whatever), and you don't need off-band security to let the kids know it's dinner time.
Bluetooth 5 introduced "coded PHY", which allows ranges of over 1 km in ideal conditions. As I understand it, adding support for this wouldn't even require new hardware for most recent phones.
The real obstacles here are political, not technical, as evidenced by the complete absence of any built-in solution that could be so useful in both everyday life (messaging a family member on the same plane when sitting separately, national park trips etc.) and emergencies.
We literally got smartphone-to-satellite comms now, but we're lacking the most barebones peer-to-peer functionality.
Huh I didn't know about that. Seems like it uses 8 symbols per bit to increase the range (but I would very seriously doubt you ever get close to 1km except in super ideal "both in a field in the middle of nowhere" scenarios that never actually happen.
Apparently it's an optional part of Bluetooth 5, so not necessarily supported. However I just checked my phone (Pixel 8) and it is supported. You can check in the nRF Connect app.
It falls quite close to the "super ideal scenarios" you described, but Nordic did a real world test and got a range of 1300 m using coded phy.
https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/nordic/nordic-blog/b/blog/pos...
2 replies →
One of these bluetooth messaging app was made by a developer who was on a cruise ship with family, and the Internet over satellite costs an arm and leg. So he wrote an app to communicate with his families over bluetooth.
Also why would one want to have the data go over some servers thousands miles away when the device is right next to you? Seems like bluetooth is the perfect way to communicate for devices that are close to each other.
Yeah I can imagine a jam-packed cruise ship might be useful provided the signal propagates from deck to another (unlikely), but it's quite a niché use case.
>Also why would one want to have the data go over some servers thousands miles away when the device is right next to you?
Why would that matter? Use Signal to protect the content, or use Cwtch to protect content and metadata. If you need to exchange secret communications that mustn't go through some server, why not discuss f2f with no phones around? You'd also eliminate attack vectors where your (chances are, Chinese Android) device spies on you, as well as anyone who has compromised it to read messages from screen.
> Why would that matter?
Reliability? Why should we want to centralize things unnecessarily? It's nice as a fallback but then so too is P2P.
1 reply →
I remember a different app thats was used on e.g. festivals where the local broadcast cells where overwhelmed when a quite rural area suddenly had to server 50000 to 100000 additional people and 3g and 4G basically stopped working. I think it was called Firechat or something.
On a cruise ship, isn't the cheap walkie talkies still a thing? Or did those die with cell phones?
For me the cell phone without internet is almost useless, not much I can do on it, might as well sue a purpose built device. They're also very cheap.
Even better if Nextel still worked on phones (but without service).
> For me the cell phone without internet is almost useless
Projects like this one are a step towards fixing that. Personally I choose to keep both street and topographical maps of the entire continent locally on my phone. There are plenty of uses for a computer without a WAN connection.
2 replies →
The boat could do a captive portal and provide it's own LAN?
1 reply →
Still, wouldn't a wifi meshnet be a better choice for these scenario's?
Can that be setup on a phone?
I imagine in a situation like Iran, carrying a backpack full of WiFi gear to stay connected to the meshnet is a red flag.
Establishing a bunch of base stations is likely to raise red flags too.
It's pretty trivial for a nation-state that is jamming GPS to go around and jam WiFi or analyze WiFi spectrum for a meshnet operating in and around a protest area.
It's a cruiseship. Your family are at the nearest bar. Just get off your ass and go and give them the message.
> Just get off your ass and go and give them the message...
If I need to have all 4 members of the family meet me at the pool, first I need to go find each one of them. They could all be at different place. And then tell them individually to meet me at the pool? Is that the better solution you are proposing?
This seems a bit reductive. You could use this argument for any small town
1 reply →
I've checked, they're not there. Now what?
2 replies →
Any situation when mobile internet cannot be used. That is not only protests, but also legal gatherings, i.e. street concerts, or places where mobile coverage is poor in general.
> That is not only protests, but also legal gatherings[...]
Oops! You (unintentionally?) make it sound like protests are illegal.
In many of the countries where this would be useful, protests are illegal.
It depends on the country you're in, obviously. I've been to countries where protests are illegal (even 1-man protests with a blank sheet of paper).
They are.
9 replies →
Or planes.
but i use mobile internet because of the distance. how does bluetooth help with that?
What is your implication? This app is not for talking across the globe with people.
4 replies →
In Iran right now... Internet shut down while the regime keeps slaughtering people at the order of 4x9/11.
Internet is exploited by US as a tool for regime change [1] in coordination with sponsored on the ground terrorism. [1]
[1] Washington’s War on Iran: The Importance of Defending Information Space https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiJm4zwZZHY
Hey if anyone wants know exactly what Iranian state TV spews every day on national TV, look no further. Very faithful to the source material. Totally trustworthy.
I think you need to try to get MUCH more video and photo footage out. I heard thousands have been killed.
Back in the 2010s I used the 'Notes' applications to send messages via Bluetooth on my Sony Ericsson to chat with a girl in the next bunk.
There was no signal in the remote Irish hostel so it was the perfect way to send messages covertly in the dormitory.
Fun night!
Don't keep us guessing, what did you guys talk about :)
In theory if as many people use bitchat as used whatsapp somewhere like central london, everyone actually could communicate in a fully decentralised manner - you're frequently in bluetooth range of other people's phones just walking around or even sat in your house.
Would that actually happen? No, but it's an interesting thought experiment
So other users are broadcasting messages of third parties onwards? How many devices does it take to saturate the channel? What does this do for phone battery?
Yes, but messages can be encrypted so relaying parties can't read them. And yes, it would have an effect on battery and have very limited bandwidth compared to whatsapp (no sharing videos etc).
Like I said definitely not practical for messaging but I think something along these lines is how airtags work?
4 replies →
Asking "what good is this?" in a dismissive tone should be against the rules in a space like Hacker News.
This particular one supports mesh, so the range could be way way higher.
I see two use cases: * Communication between protestors * Illegal activities, but here I can imagine that bluetooth range is too small
The use cases stem from groups needing coordination in roughly the same area, with no internet. Disaster recovery efforts fit this exactly:
Doctors Without Borders feeding centers in a famine far from anywhere, searching for people in the rubble of a building following an earthquake, searching for people in a refugee camp, etc.
Verizon went down in the US this past week - perfect use case for Bitchat (or Meshtastic with a repeater or some other LoRa BT network). Verizon goes down while you're at the mall or store or Disneyland or whatever and you can still text to find each other.
300m max range with line of sight would cover something like when I go to visit my parents who live in a desert canyon with lousy mobile phone coverage, I can send a message that I'm at the gate and put the dogs in the garage.
Is this LoRa BT network thing something that actually exists? Is there a coverage map?
2 replies →
I remember reading that men and women in Saudi Arabia are forbidden from interacting directly in a bar setting. So instead they were using Bluetooth to covertly connect and communicate.
> Communication between protestors > Illegal activities
Often one and the same since the first thing those in power try to do is make various activities by protestors illegal
This is simply an app that allows to communicate through bluetooth locally. Why are you saying its only two use cases are protesting and criminals?
Im not saying that those are the only use cases, but I really see that there multiple other apps that make the "normal" communication much easier.
I remember when Telegram had a "Nearby" feature. I remember seeing many not-so-legal activities around me, even in the range of 1 km.
I have seen a test of bitchat using radio communication over a distance of more than 5 km. There were also other methods to extend BT range.
Now that Wi-Fi Aware is supported on iOS, I think supporting it should significantly expand the transmission range.
When your Ayatollah decides to shut down internet and you are near people you don't really know in an urban environment?
Consider if you live in Gaza. Israel has destroyed all the telecoms equipment across the Gaza strip (and everything else). You were ordered to leave your home by Israeli soldiers, but now the school you're sheltering in is being bombed. You may need to leave, but you believe there may be sniper drones outside.
- You want to check in with people around you about what to do - You want to check on the health of your family, from whom you were separated