Bitchat for Gaza – messaging without internet

What an awesome piece of technology. I've been wanting to create something similar, just on the technical merits. We have some pretty amazingly capable technology these days, but so much of it relies on IP infrastructure, which is fine when things work and you are either aligned with your government, or live in a society where there are strong checks and balances on government overreach.

iamnothere3• 8 months ago

Exactly. With Chat Control being revived again in the EU, various VPN bans being proposed in US states, and ID verification rolling out seemingly everywhere, this kind of tech may end up being more useful than people expect. If it works in the extremely adversarial environment of a warzone, it should work fine here.

spwa4• 8 months ago

How is this a solution to Chat Control and EU law? If this is used, governments will simply demand Apple and Google get the app declared forbidden, which both have done to apps for many reasons.

Worse: they might demand a list of people who have it installed (and this violates the Chat Control law of course).

Even worse: this app turns out to be written by a security agency or scammers and starts exploiting people.

nxor4• 8 months ago

Why is chat control controversial? It seems like the same people afraid of this are the same people outraged when people then use private chat to do bad things.

64756salad638• 8 months ago

The thing that I really like about the approach taken by OP is that it AFAIK is broadcast-only, up to a certain radius. The hard part in mesh networking is routing, and broadcast sidesteps that

nxor4• 8 months ago

Learning curve is probably an obstacle

NoiseBert69• 8 months ago

A lot of Meshcore/Meshtastic stations popping up lately too all over the world too.

Repeaters/Router can, if you put a bit of love in to highly efficient 3.3V generation, forever an a 6V solar cell and a 18650 LiPo.

I've tested 60km with a 868MHz LoRa station using a shabby 5dBi omni antenna. Just run out of hills to test more.

But not as easy to use as BLE(+BLE Meshing) which is basically integrated into every smartphone.

kpcyrd• 8 months ago

I looked into Meshtastic a while ago and they use AES with no authentication tags. Also decryption happens on the LoRa device, which is a lot easier to crack with physical access compared to my phone. Even if you delete the messages it's still possible to decrypt sniffed LoRa traffic if, at some point in the future, one device gets captured.

I'd rather the protocol gets updated so the crypto key can stay on the phone.

0x1ch• 8 months ago

There's a few issues that have been brought to light in the last couple years at Hackfest and other events related to LoRaWAN / Meshtastic (and derivatives). I think most notably was the failure in entropy generated during the flashing process, detailed here - https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-52464

I think we're a bit past the initial AES issues, at least the Meshtastic project promptly alerted people to their crypto issues and encouraged everyone to update firmware asap.

It's not too hard to use, as long as the hardware is flashed and ready. For the end user, it's an app that connects to a bluetooth connection. I think it would very trivial to have a few good LoRaWAN ops in the community, flashing nodes en masse and handing them out to peers.

colanderman2• 8 months ago

Agreed – and MeshCore follows a similar "security on the radio" design.

With the "cell phone + companion radio" setup which is currently very popular, it would seem the correct solution is to perform encryption on the phone – using the Signal protocol – and use the companion radio only to send/receive these blobs.

This has the added benefit that you can pair with _any_ arbitrary companion radio, rather than your identity being tied to one specific radio you own.

andsoitis• 8 months ago

Bitch about things on bitchat.

How does that translate to local vernacular?

flaburgan• 8 months ago

Source code is MIT: https://github.com/permissionlesstech/bitchat-android

I guess if a serious audit is done then it could be a nice solution. I would love to read more technical details about it, especially how it can be sure the messages are transmitted to the good person.

leosanchez• 8 months ago

Read it as bitch-at the first time :(

doctornoble• 8 months ago

I don’t think that’s unintentional or undesired

supportengineer2• 8 months ago

Exactly, it says Bitch@

skopje• 8 months ago

such a dumb name unless he wanted it.

FrameworkFred• 8 months ago

Same. I once registered bithole.com because I wanted a better email address then what I had at yahoo.com...and I realized my mistake as I was typing it on my resume. This feels like a similar mistake.

diebeforei485• 8 months ago

Wasn't Jack Dorsey working on this as well?

sph2• 8 months ago

I’m pretty sure he vibe coded the thing, or at least the prototype

sph2• 8 months ago

As usual the HN hivemind disagrees with the facts:

https://www.businessinsider.com/jack-dorsey-bitchat-app-vibe...

https://github.com/permissionlesstech/bitchat/graphs/contrib...

hidden80• 8 months ago

Like Briar?

derbOac• 8 months ago

I was wondering about Briar... seems maybe like reinventing the same thing over again although I assume there's some important functional difference I'm not thinking of.

nunobrito• 8 months ago

Briar requires manual pairing with users for some odd reason. Doesn't make sense and makes it unusable outside a family context.

HelloUsername• 8 months ago

And Berty on iOS?

focusedone• 8 months ago

Was thinking the same thing. This seems better suited for chatting with arbitrary people nearby, but with zero verification of who you're talking to. You don't have to set up an account at all, just install the app and start chatting as @anon<number> or change the username to whatever you want.

jabroni_salad• 8 months ago

This will be very interesting if they can conquer the distribution issue.

During the Hong Kong protests I recall several such solutions were created, but the dominant thing ended up being airdrop because it is what so many people already had locked and loaded.

big-and-small• 8 months ago

Another problem is what happens when police stop to search you. You don't want to have "please beat me dead" app installed when it's happens.

immibis5• 8 months ago

I think in these kinds of places they beat you dead for being the wrong skin colour if they're in a bad mood. I'm not sure how much your installed apps are relevant to the decision.

mothballed• 8 months ago

If goons are killing you for having an app you don't need more apps, you need a gun.

tamimio2• 8 months ago

It’s different situation in Gaza tho, unlike protests where you might need to hide your identity going there to participate so having that app will expose you, in gaza it’s more of a concentration camp where the main resources are controlled but on the ground, not really, so no police will stop you there because you have an app, bitchat might be the perfect solution.

Karrot_Kream• 8 months ago

Too often the results of these efforts (like the HK protests just using Airdrop) are never really called out anywhere so these tools become nerd catnip and nerds continue to build solutions that nobody ends up using. It would be cool to maybe collect a list of situations where comms infra was disturbed and what ended up being used (if anything) in those situations to help guide future efforts.

sinoue• 8 months ago

This is a great point. Being able to run in a browser with airdropped code makes sense. Using Bluetooth and no central server does this mean getting messages out to a world wide audience isn't possible with the app?

bjourne• 8 months ago

Apple pulled the app after complaints from the Chinese regime. Would not surprise me if this app met a similar fate.

krautburglar2• 8 months ago

This gives me the same vibe as OLPC. We had these places where people didn't even have electricity, running water, or public sanitation, yet some nerds at MIT thought (?) to themselves, "Hey, you know what these people need? Laptops!"

But even worse, you can install it from App Store or Google Play! Israeli territory or Israeli territory! What will these dipshits do next? Send the Palestinians some more pagers out of Budapest?

perching_aix2• 8 months ago

This in turn reminds me to a meme where a guy was complaining that he got an empty package from Amazon, even though he didn't order anything. The quote retweet then wondered: what's his problem then?

almog2• 8 months ago

Other than the cold start problem which isn't discussed (what's the userbase size in Gaza?), the main argument for Bitchat (or any other off-grid network such as Meshtastic, Briar, etc.) in Gaza when mainstream E2E encrypted messaging apps already exist and are widely used, is to not be dependent on Israel for cell service.

While I do really like the idea of off-grid networks in general but for this use case, is it really that hard for a state actor to jam Bluetooth (or all ~2.4GHz communication) on a large scale?

helloworld47282• 8 months ago

The user base size is huge. This is actively being used by tens of thousands

almog2• 8 months ago

Tens of thousands of users? Globally you mean? I doubt it's the user base size in Gaza but if that is actually what you meant, where did you pull that estimate from?

iamnothere3• 8 months ago

A disaster, cyberattack, or prolonged blackout could take down cell towers in a broad area, this could be useful in that case. And in a civil emergency a government may be able to shut down cell towers centrally, but not have the resources to jam the entire country.

nikkwong• 8 months ago

I feel like the idea here is cute; but does it realistically work at scale? Of course, a messaging app like this—if it's going to work anywhere, is going to work in Gaza, one of the (at least formerly) most densely populated areas in the world. But bluetooth was not designed for this type of communication whatsoever; phones can only establish bluetooth connections between devices at the very most 100ft under the most ideal conditions; and is probably much lower than that in practice.

Even if people are living in open-air conditions I can imagine messages getting stuck or being delivered very late; especially at night when there may not be a lot of human movement. How well does this actually work in practice?

karel-3d• 8 months ago

Is it actually being used in Palestine?

My problem is that when you are actually locally near someone you don't really need live chat; and if you're far, it might become too unstable to use.

But I might be wrong!

helloworld47282• 8 months ago

it’s not just chat over Bluetooth, the message is relayed over a mesh so you can chat with people much further than Bluetooth range.

4cidBurn• 8 months ago

BitChat can send messages over Bluetooth, and it uses a mesh network to relay messages across nearby devices. This allows messages to hop from one phone to another, extending coverage beyond the normal Bluetooth range, though the number of hops is limited and depends on nearby devices. When a device in the mesh has an internet connection, certain messages can be published to Nostr, allowing them to move from the local mesh to the global network. Not all messages are automatically sent online, and purely mesh-local chats remain local. Messages sent via Nostr can also be accessed through clients like NYM (Nostr Ynstant Messenger). BitChat combines offline mesh networking with a decentralized protocol to enable both local and global communication.

nxor4• 8 months ago

I guess if even one or two people use it that's a good thing. BUT. It probably would struggle with RTL and LTR stuff regarding arabic script vs latin script (and people across the world are forgoing traditional scripts for latin characters ... seems bad)

howmayiannoyyou• 8 months ago

[flagged]

HumblyTossed3• 8 months ago

Is it their job to do that?

JumpCrisscross4• 8 months ago

Is it their job to do that?

Not that. But it should be someone’s job to monitor if Hamas adopts it.

wahnfrieden2• 8 months ago

How do Google and Microsoft prevent their tech from being used toward genocidal/settler ends against civilians?

js212• 8 months ago

Umm they don’t sell to Hamas but I could be wrong.

sa5014282• 8 months ago

The primary threat to Palestinian civilians in Gaza remains the IDF. And in the West Bank, it's the Israeli settlers.

krautburglar2• 8 months ago

HERE is the techforpalestine github that is worth focusing on

https://github.com/TechForPalestine/boycott-israeli-consumer...

dang• 8 months ago

Related. Others?

Ask HN: Does Anyone Use Bitchat? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44944414 - Aug 2025 (5 comments)

Testing Bitchat at the music festival - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44815164 - Aug 2025 (55 comments)

MitM Flaw in Bitchat: Identity Is a Bitchat Challenge - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44497622 - July 2025 (6 comments)

Bitchat – A decentralized messaging app that works over Bluetooth mesh networks - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44485342 - July 2025 (424 comments)

HumblyTossed3• 8 months ago

I wish phones supported 802.11ah for things like this.

ronsor• 8 months ago

802.11ah hardware is sadly still rather expensive. The cheapest thing I could find is a $40 PCIe card (M.2 form factor); USB dongles for it are still $100+.

At this point, it's probably worth abandoning 802.11ah as an idea and trying some different RF standard.

ux2664782• 8 months ago

Most phone radios have RX/TX around the 40-30cm band already. It's just a question of having arbitrary send/receive, and I guarantee you the hardware is designed to make that as impossible as they can.

system2• 8 months ago

I think cellphones should come with LoRa, ZigBee, or Sub-GHz FSK modules. It would reshape the communication we have today.

cultofmetatron• 8 months ago

whats going to happen when adversarial entities perform a supply chain attack and booby trap these devices with c4 and kill all the users (men, women and children). we already know there are parties that are perfectly happy to make no distinction when killing them.

perching_aix2• 8 months ago

and booby trap these devices with c4

bit-chat is a piece of software, it's not a hardware device

ux2664782• 8 months ago

in the context of some encrypted vhf military radio, whats going to happen when adversarial entities use an anti-radiation missile to home in and blow the soldier up? like it's not that you're wrong, but that's not really in the scope of the problem being solved.

warbaker• 8 months ago

...except that he is definitely wrong about the targeting aspect as well. Almost all of the people hit by the pager explosions were legit military targets. In the videos of the explosions, you can see people unharmed who were standing within meters of the targets. It was one of the most well-targeted anti-terrorist strikes in history.

shevy-java2• 8 months ago

I imagine Gaza may currently be one of the most difficult environments to write software code in. I happily admit that I would not be able to be productive in such an environment - my environment here in Europe is really quite sheltered (guess this also depends on where one lives; areas close to Russia may not feel as comfortable as in central Europe or Western Europe). The only distraction I have here is youtube music playing in the background - that's about it. My brain wouldn't be able to operate well in any high risk high danger environment or any non-standard environment in general.

praptak• 8 months ago

Even in Ukraine it's quite possible to code. I worked at Google with people who stayed in Ukraine after Russia started the war. I can't say they were unaffected - there was stuff like meetings interrupted by missile alerts - but they managed to do normal work despite the ongoing war.

berdario• 8 months ago

40% of the bombing victims in Gaza are under 10 years old

https://msf.org.uk/article/gaza-msf-survey-shows-almost-half...

Comparing it to the war in Ukraine ("Even in Ukraine") isn't really helpful or informative, to understand the condition under which Palestinians are surviving.

cryptoegorophy• 8 months ago

I have a couple of programmers currently in ukraine. Unless you are in a war zone there is low risk and life is mostly normal. Only risk right now is no electricity or getting snatched on the street to be sent to war.

garbagecoder• 8 months ago

I imagine Gaza may currently be one of the most difficult environments to write software code in.

That you think this says a lot about our news environment. I can think of a dozen places in Africa.

nxor4• 8 months ago

Burundi has entered the chat. Strange you're getting downvoted.

stavros• 8 months ago

Is there anywhere worse than Yemen?

samtheprogram• 8 months ago

I happily admit that I would not be able to be productive in such an environment

No shit. 80%+ percent of the country is rubble.

culi2• 8 months ago

To be more precise — in the UN's analysis using satellite imagery they estimated 81% to 84% of all buildings have been damaged or destroyed as of October 2025. That percentage also includes 90% of all residential buildings

https://theconversation.com/--267431

slim• 8 months ago

it's a nitpick, but country is Palestine, and Gaza is part of it

austin-cheney• 8 months ago

I taught myself to write an original software application in JavaScript while living in Afghanistan about 16 years ago.

I suspect Gaza is maybe 10x, or much more, challenging environment. I often didn’t have access to internet, but in Gaza I suspect electricity is universally hard to find. I was only out of pocket on electricity while waiting for flights, which is a lot more time than you would imagine. I also had reliable access to food and water even when my travel and living situation was completely mysterious.

Based on my own experiences danger is far less distracting than hunger and fatigue. You can generally get through danger and still be interested in learning, but it’s hard to learn if your brain doesn’t have the rest and resources it needs.

Lio• 8 months ago

This is pretty cool. I could see the use in other disaster hit areas or even just large public gatherings like sports events or festivals where network coverage is temporarily a bit patchy.

tamimio2• 8 months ago

IMO, I think the decentralized tech is the next big thing, and I probably mentioned it before, but the current state of hyper surveillance especially now with AI and digital ID, plus the privacy violating companies like flock and ring, will push people further into ditching centralized to decentralized, or technology completely!

ThinkBeat• 8 months ago

Watching news coverage I am amazed if many are able to get their phone working (as in not broken by the war) and charged.

Fellshard• 8 months ago

Perhaps that is an indictment of the news source you take in.

hdlothia2• 8 months ago

people in palestine have been tweeting, posting to ig and tik tok throughout the entire conflict

4ggr0• 8 months ago

fast and reliable (and encrypted) communication is so important in such conditions.

not sure how important that is next to not dying of hunger, being blown up, loosing friends, family and strangers, being erased and treated like an animal, but, you know. it's a start...

johnisgood• 8 months ago

/pass [password] - Set/change channel password (owner only)

I assume to unset it just have to use /pass without arguments?

Epa095• 8 months ago

We are probably all on a list for just commenting on this post :-/

cactusplant7374• 8 months ago

I never see anyone on bitchat. Do people use it? I think the bluetooth limitation is gone, right? You can connect to users without being in proximity.

pksebben3• 8 months ago

TIL what the green names mean on HN (new account).

I once worked in an Information Operations group. It has left me deeply suspicious of the verisimilitude of online personae. One of the things I appreciate about HN is the ability to check whether I'm talking to a human, and whether they have a cohesive sentiment.

_zagj2• 8 months ago

TIL what the green names mean on HN (new account).

You've been here for five years and just figured that out?

smt88• 8 months ago

Mods do their best here, but there's no way to check whether you're talking to a human (on HN or any other digital messaging service)

pksebben3• 8 months ago

my metric for now is "do they have human-sounding posts from more than a year ago"

teleforce• 8 months ago

Guess which building first demolished to the ground by Israel military in Gaza at the beginning of the conflict?

No price of getting the right answer, it's the Watan Tower building that also hosted most of Gaza Internet Sevice Provider (ISP) companies including Paltel and Jawwal and their infrastructure.

It was also a hub for several international media outlets, including the Associated Press and Al Jazeera [1],[2]. We are somewhow supposed to believe by Israel propaganda that the demolition of the Watan building is necessary to cripple the resistance but in war, truth is always the very first casualty that further leads to countless human casualties.

[1] Israels warns Palestinians on Facebook but Israel bombing decimated Gaza Internet Access:

https://theintercept.com/2023/10/12/israel-gaza-internet-acc...

[2] #KeepItOn: Telecommunications Blackout In The Gaza Strip Is An Attack On Human Rights:

https://m.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO2310/S00117/keepiton-telecom...

Bitchat for Gaza – messaging without internet

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