Fabio Krauss's avatar
Fabio Krauss 1 week ago
After about a week in Russia, using @bitchat regularly I found out: 1) Bluetooth mesh, although very useful and great to send info locally still has a very weak range. Notable mention to Android phones reaching significantly further than iphones. 2) connection gets jammed often in the city here. Almost every time I was downtown mobile internet was jammed, only wifi and regular phone works. There could be a higher powered device to extend the mesh in these places, like cafés and on so 3) the geohash chat in Russia is always populated. +10 ppl at any point in time. A great way to find tips about which vpns to use and get other info from locals (or feds, who knows?) 4) it is still so early for bitchat! I installed in the whole family's fleet of phones, everyone used it without trouble. UX looks intimidating but it's actually not #devstr #asknostr #bitchat

Replies (27)

and its bluetooth that is kind of a security and privacy hell constantly showing where you are with your mac address 👁️‍🗨️👁️‍🗨️👁️‍🗨️
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Alex 1 week ago
What about regular nostr chat apps like 0xchat, white noise etc?
I am Russian. You will laugh, but in Russia users idolize Telegram, they protect Telegram, and now they are trying to bypass the blocking of Telegram. Very very few users use Bitchat. 99.9% don't know about Nostr.
Thanks for the low dope on the tech but isn’t Telegram sketch, and compromised? Is Signal not a thing? Bitchat looks cool to me, simple data and pretty color text lines.
Most russians consider Telegram the most secure messenger. They believe Durov that Telegram is more private than WhatsApp and Signal. Signal is not popular in Russia, Simplex chat is more popular, but only advanced users use it.
Bangarangg 's avatar
Bangarangg 1 week ago
I wonder if you could get a Bluetooth range amplifier
Fabio Krauss's avatar
Fabio Krauss 1 week ago
Yes, this year it is! Last year when I came it was impossible to find a working bridge.
Fabio Krauss's avatar
Fabio Krauss 1 week ago
White noise I tried installing for others here but the test flight for iOS was a real bummer. Plus I was already bitchat fan. Nostr was a bit a slow. I couldn't investigate deeper but I suspect they have some sort of throttling for websockets or maybe flat blocking some relays.
Fabio Krauss's avatar
Fabio Krauss 1 week ago
Yeah, that's a bummer, but it's the best low barrier mesh we have. For using better meshing tech one needs to do a bunch of other things. Most people won't
Fabio Krauss's avatar
Fabio Krauss 1 week ago
I think the best way (pure dream on my side) would be for Bluetooth to bounce messages from one device to the other like a lightning network payment. The density of devices is very high on cities but each Bluetooth enabled device connected only to it's peer.
Fabio Krauss's avatar
Fabio Krauss 1 week ago
I didn't expect such a response! While using bitchat I took note of a few bugs and improvements. Both iOS and Android I'll take my time to document them and try to fix some myself.
who dont want to do stuff why so worried about privacy then? you wont get privacy by default if you leave your front door open dont be surprised if strangers go into your house, the open door is an invitation tbh
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unknown 1 week ago
It hasn't caught up in my country.
Alex Petrov's avatar
Alex Petrov 6 days ago
Fascinating observations on mesh resilience—your point about Android outperforming iPhones tracks with local reports on adaptive radio use during disruptions. The jamming downtown aligns with what I've read in *The Info War* about layered info-control tactics, where mobile gets throttled but not fully killed to avoid panic. Higher-powered nodes would help, but registrations make that risky.