11 ms·

Bitchat for Gaza – messaging without internet

517 points by ciconia 11mo ago

https://bitchat.free/ https://bitchat.free/

johnisgood 11mo ago
> /pass [password] - Set/change channel password (owner only) I assume to unset it just have to use /pass without arguments?
warkdarrior 11mo ago
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- cbeach 11mo ago
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osobo 11mo ago
I never thought I'd see FidoNet again.
adroitboss 11mo ago
The name choice is unfortunate. I read it incorrectly the first time.
- zamalek 11mo ago
  Or intentional and awesome.
- Unicironic 11mo ago
  I read it correctly, but got a laugh after reading your comment. Maybe it could be marketable to two very different demographics
  - setopt 11mo ago
    Same here. Imagining now bitch@ as the logo. EDIT: Name aside, what an awesome project.
- rich_sasha 11mo ago
  Anything with "bit" in (with the T pronounced) is a bit unfortunate for French speakers: https://context.reverso.net/translation/french-english/la+bite https://context.reverso.net/translation/french-english/la+bi... .
  - kragen 11mo ago
    "Pour info, j'ai pas la bite qui fouette."
  - adrodbort 11mo ago
    Also anything with chat (chatte). Unfortunate or intentional..
- jayd16 11mo ago
  Its almost better when you read it that way. Its at least coherent.
- deleted 11mo ago
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- supportengineer 11mo ago
  Pick better names people. I can't bring myself to use "CockroachDB" for example.
cbeach 11mo ago
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myth_drannon 11mo ago
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myth_drannon 11mo ago
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ryanisnan 11mo ago
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.
- iamnothere 11mo 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 11mo 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.
    - iamnothere 11mo ago
      If they are demanding a list of people who have apps installed, you have two options: lie down like a dog or get in the streets and fight. If you think it’s going to get to that point, you need tools like this even more.
  - nxor 11mo 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 11mo ago
nxor 11mo ago
Learning curve is probably an obstacle
- deleted 11mo ago
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NoiseBert69 11mo 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 11mo 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 11mo 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 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.
  - colanderman 11mo 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 11mo ago
Bitch about things on bitchat. How does that translate to local vernacular?
- cindyllm 11mo ago
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- deleted 11mo ago
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esbranson 11mo ago
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flaburgan 11mo ago
Source code is MIT: https://github.com/permissionlesstech/bitchat-android 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.
breppp 11mo ago
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- whatshisface 11mo ago
  Maybe the first temporally, but Israel has been killing anyone who looks like they're trying to put a phone within reach of a cell tower. The genocide survivors have last I heard learned that they needed to raise their phones in buckets attached to ropes, so that when they're identified and destroyed, they won't be killed.
  - breppp 11mo ago
    most of the gazan population has a cellphone, which has had reception most of the war. So assuming using one puts you in risk is false. About your second story, that sounds implausible, anything more substantial?
    - whatshisface 11mo ago
      Here's an article I found on Google that contains the claim about strikes associated with preventing civilian communication. Note the "physically high places." The story about the buckets fits within that frame. (My original source was an article I saw on HN; unfortunately Google's performance on search queries related to this subject is very poor, so it isn't easy to find again. I should have been saving them...) > Hassan Saeed Barakat, the father of one victim of the Israeli bombing, told the Euro-Med Monitorteam that dozens of people had gathered to attempt to contact their family members when an Israeli drone launched a surprise missile attack. The attack directly targeted the tent being used as an Internet distribution point, causing the massive and deadly explosion. > Instead of accessing the Internet via electronic SIMcards, Palestinian civilians have recently been turning to these random distribution points and physically high places to try to access communication networks due to the systematic and widespread destruction of civilian objects by Israeli forces in the Strip. With the destruction of mobile phone network transmission stations, Palestinians are struggling to communicate. https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/gaza-israel-commits-another-massacre-against-civilians-trying-access-communications-and-internet-services-enar https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/...
leosanchez 11mo ago
Read it as bitch-at the first time :(
- doctornoble 11mo ago
  I don’t think that’s unintentional or undesired
- supportengineer 11mo ago
  Exactly, it says Bitch@
  - skopje 11mo ago
    such a dumb name unless he wanted it.
- FrameworkFred 11mo 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.
hnidiots3 11mo ago
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- iamnothere 11mo ago
  The article literally starts by outlining the need. “Civilian comms in a warzone” is an actual current need in many parts of the world.
  - abduldavids 11mo ago
    Shhh the IDF stans think all civilians are combatants
    - hnidiots3 11mo ago
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- flyinglizard 11mo ago
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  - zimza 11mo ago
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drtrq 11mo ago
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diebeforei485 11mo ago
Wasn't Jack Dorsey working on this as well?
- sph 11mo ago
  I’m pretty sure he vibe coded the thing, or at least the prototype
  - sph 11mo ago
    As usual the HN hivemind disagrees with the facts: https://www.businessinsider.com/jack-dorsey-bitchat-app-vibe-coded-2025-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/jack-dorsey-bitchat-app-vibe... https://github.com/permissionlesstech/bitchat/graphs/contributors https://github.com/permissionlesstech/bitchat/graphs/contrib...
Gormanu 11mo ago
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alterom 11mo ago
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- MSFT_Edging 11mo ago
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- abduldavids 11mo ago
  > instead of linking to the project page, the link goes to a propaganda website It's detailing a specific use-case for decentralized communication > The actual project is nowhere to be found "Bitchat is a new messaging app that allows users to chat securely with or without internet access. Download it today via the App Store or Google Play store to begin communicating safely, even when connectivity disappears." > Very woke tho. When a genocide[1] is backed by major tech companies[2], its refreshing to know that alternatives exist :) [1]https://web.archive.org/web/20251002014945/https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/02/israel-defying-icj-ruling-to-prevent-genocide-by-failing-to-allow-adequate-humanitarian-aid-to-reach-gaza/ https://web.archive.org/web/20251002014945/https://www.amnes... [2] https://archive.ph/20250701174630/https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/lucrative-business-deals-help-sustain-israels-gaza-campaign-un-expert-says-2025-07-01/ https://archive.ph/20250701174630/https://www.reuters.com/bu...
  - hnidiots3 11mo ago
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  - alterom 11mo ago
    1. The download link is not the project link (which I have provided, and the website has not). 2. No matter how much this conflict is being mislabeled as "genocide" by the interested parties, it doesn't change the reality that it isn't one by any measure¹. I'm not afraid to sign my name under this statement either; see: https://romankogan.net/2024/06/26/israel-palestine-vocabulary/ https://romankogan.net/2024/06/26/israel-palestine-vocabular... The double-think rewriting of dictionary related to Israel-Palestine wars is outright Orwellian. Note that your link [1], from 2024, doesn't even claim that genocide is taking place in Gaza, and that the adequate amount of aid has since reached Gaza (particularly if you count aid stolen by Hamas within Gaza). A reminder for the all the goldfish out there that a ceasefire in Gaza has been in effect for a month already, and that active and ongoing genocides (like the one in Sudan²) have been collectively ignored by people abusing that word. ______ ¹ https://www.newsweek.com/israel-has-created-new-standard-urban-warfare-why-will-no-one-admit-it-opinion-1883286 https://www.newsweek.com/israel-has-created-new-standard-urb... ² https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/29/horrific-violations-arab-nations-slam-rsf-killings-in-sudans-el-fasher https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/29/horrific-violation...
hidden80 11mo ago
Like Briar?
- derbOac 11mo 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 11mo ago
    Briar requires manual pairing with users for some odd reason. Doesn't make sense and makes it unusable outside a family context.
- HelloUsername 11mo ago
  And Berty on iOS?
- focusedone 11mo 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 11mo 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 11mo 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.
  - immibis 11mo 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.
    - iddan 11mo ago
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    - vladgur 11mo ago
      The "wrong skin color" is projection of western ideologies to Israel/Gaza conflict. Israelis have lighter skin Ashkenazi Jews, darker skin Mizrahi Jews(majority of hte jews in Israel now) and black Ethiopian jews. And of course 20%+ Arabs living in the country. Gazan Palestinians skin color varies as well, some have light skin, while others have darker skin tones. For example, does this woman have the right skin color or the wrong one: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4e/Ahed_Tamimi_2018.jpg/800px-Ahed_Tamimi_2018.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4e/Ah...
      - wahnfrieden 11mo ago
        Despite that, isn't there a history of compulsive violence based on skin-based profiling? These are facts, not ideology. 2 off-duty soldiers assaulted after being mistaken for Arabs https://www.timesofisrael.com/2-off-duty-soldiers-assaulted-after-being-mistaken-for-arabs/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/2-off-duty-soldiers-assaulted-... Live TV shows Israeli mob attack motorist they believed to be an Arab https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/13/live-tv-shows-israeli-mob-lynch-motorist-in-tel-aviv-suburb https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/13/live-tv-shows-... Israeli soldier kills Jewish civilian in 'identity mishap' https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34602287 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34602287 3 hostages killed by Israeli soldier in Gaza were waving a white flag, Israel says https://www.npr.org/2023/12/15/1219695220/israel-soldiers-mistakenly-kill-hostages-gaza https://www.npr.org/2023/12/15/1219695220/israel-soldiers-mi... Israeli Civilian Killed by Israeli Soldier after Being Mistaken for Palestinian https://www.palestinechronicle.com/israeli-civilian-killed-by-israeli-soldier-after-being-mistaken-for-palestinian/ https://www.palestinechronicle.com/israeli-civilian-killed-b... And from Wikipedia: > The Israeli Security Forces use racial profiling at military checkpoints and during some of the duties they perform. In August 2017 Haaretz reported that security guards working for a company which provides security at Tel Aviv's Central Bus Station said they were instructed to demand ID from people who look Arab and detain those who do not have an ID with them. OP said that Israelis beat people up for having the wrong skin color. The one I replied to said that is wrong and is a projection of western ideology. But it does not appear to be wrong in reality - OP was correct.
krautburglar 11mo 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_aix 11mo 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?
  - krautburglar 11mo ago
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almog 11mo 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?
- helloworld4728 11mo ago
  The user base size is huge. This is actively being used by tens of thousands
  - almog 11mo 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?
- iamnothere 11mo 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 11mo 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?
deleted 11mo ago
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karel-3d 11mo 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!
- hnidiots3 11mo ago
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  - immibis 11mo ago
    AFAIK they used to have internet, but Israel clamped down on it more and more, at the same time they shot as many journalists as they could. Has there been anything out of Gaza in ages?
    - dodomodo 11mo ago
      what are you talking about about? they have internet and the they had it 99% of the time during the war.
      - wahnfrieden 11mo ago
        You make it sound like it's ubiquitous and constant. Just to clarify what access means: From Wikipedia: > By December 2023 200,000 people living in Gaza (around 10% of the population) had received internet access through an eSIM. > As of August 2024, according to a Palestinian source, over 70% of telecommunications have been rendered inoperable. As of June 2025, Paltel is still providing some internet and landline telephone services in southern Gaza. There have been at least 10 outages since the conflict began. The lack of reliable telecommunications has hampered efforts by first responders and humanitarian groups. From the above it sounds like maybe 3% of the population have access (as of a year ago), and there are regular outages. It also says that access has been insufficient.
    - karel-3d 11mo ago
      There is internet in Gaza. The company is called Paltel if I am not wrong. They have monopoly there so if you read online reviews (from before the current war) they were not very popular.
howmayiannoyyou 11mo ago
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- HumblyTossed 11mo ago
  Is it their job to do that?
  - JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
    > Is it their job to do that? Not that. But it should be someone’s job to monitor if Hamas adopts it.
    - HumblyTossed 11mo ago
      That is an external problem to the bitchat app.
      - JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
        > That is an external problem to the bitchat app Not really. If it becomes a tool of terrorist communication, it will get shut down. Legally, technically and/or kinetically.
        BeetleB 11mo ago
        > If it becomes a tool of terrorist communication, it will get shut down. You mean like how they shut down cell phone networks?
- wahnfrieden 11mo ago
  How do Google and Microsoft prevent their tech from being used toward genocidal/settler ends against civilians?
  - js212 11mo ago
    Umm they don’t sell to Hamas but I could be wrong.
krautburglar 11mo ago
HERE is the techforpalestine github that is worth focusing on https://github.com/TechForPalestine/boycott-israeli-consumer-goods-dataset https://github.com/TechForPalestine/boycott-israeli-consumer...
dang 11mo ago
Related. Others? Ask HN: Does Anyone Use Bitchat? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44944414 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44944414 - Aug 2025 (5 comments) Testing Bitchat at the music festival - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44815164 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 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44485342 - July 2025 (424 comments)
HumblyTossed 11mo ago
I wish phones supported 802.11ah for things like this.
- ux266478 11mo 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.
- ronsor 11mo 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.
boxerab 11mo ago
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- cultofmetatron 11mo ago
  I'm just going to leave this here per the associated press, > In April 2022, there were 4,450 Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli prisons – including 160 children, 32 women, and over 1,000 "administrative detainees" (indefinitely incarcerated without charge).
  - boxerab 11mo ago
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      - js212 11mo ago
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system2 11mo ago
I think cellphones should come with LoRa, ZigBee, or Sub-GHz FSK modules. It would reshape the communication we have today.
cultofmetatron 11mo 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_aix 11mo ago
  > and booby trap these devices with c4 bit-chat is a piece of software, it's not a hardware device
- ux266478 11mo 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 11mo 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-java 11mo 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.
- idkfasayer 11mo ago
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- Nexxxeh 11mo ago
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  - jeromegv 11mo ago
    This is entirely false, the typical propaganda narative that all is fine in Gaza and they are just faking it. All hospitals and universities have been bombed. All foreign doctors that went to Gaza and went out (about the only people allowed in Gaza because journalists are prevented by Israel) have talked of the absolute destruction and lack of medical supplies. All neighbourhoods look absolutely destroyed. Most buildlings are severely damaged, which has been documented by satellite imagery published by most medias including BBC https://www.bbc.com/news/live/czjvzmknv0lt https://www.bbc.com/news/live/czjvzmknv0lt
    - YZF 11mo ago
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      - wk_end 11mo ago
        I very genuinely - in the interest of consuming a diverse set of inputs! - would love to see some sources that persuasively, with evidence, can demonstrate a vision of the ground in Gaza that runs counter to what seems absolutely obvious to everyone following the war. A world of luxury cars, high-end iPhones, relaxing afternoons spent in cafés on street corners? After two years of relentless bombing, a near-total blockade on supplies, and on and on? It seems so absurd at this point it doesn't even pass as propaganda. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Lio 11mo 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.
tamimio 11mo 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 11mo 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 11mo ago
  Perhaps that is an indictment of the news source you take in.
- hdlothia 11mo ago
  people in palestine have been tweeting, posting to ig and tik tok throughout the entire conflict
lone-cloud 11mo ago
[flagged]
4ggr0 11mo 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...
cactusplant7374 11mo 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.
Epa095 11mo ago
We are probably all on a list for just commenting on this post :-/
rick312 11mo ago
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- hashim 11mo ago
  So standing soldiers of the occupying army taken from a military kibbutz mere miles from the world's largest open air concentration camp? Hind al-Rajab was 6 years old and was found with hundreds of bullets inside her body. This is not a game Israel can afford to play, so let's just rewind to the beginning and ask how many the Irgun and Haganah killed and bombed to strong-arm the British into giving them Palestine? Or we can skip ahead a few decades and start here: https://https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Palestinian_expulsion_and_flight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Palestinian_expulsion_and.... It's almost like Europeans have no business occupying the Middle East.
  - rick312 11mo ago
    False. Eden was bartending at a music festival when she was taken. She was not taken from a military base. Kfir Bibas was 9 months old when he was taken and Ariel Bibas was 4 years old when he was taken. Neither had been in the military. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_and_killing_of_the_Bibas_family https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_and_killing_of_the_...
    - hashim 11mo ago
      Fair enough, that particular kibbutz is not military, but most in the vicinity around Gaza were, and as I'm sure you know, the killed hostages along with most adult Israelis were either serving or former members of the IDF, the army of the occupying state that was formed by the merging of the Irgun and Haganah and still shares much of the same people and ideologies. Yes, both of those kids were killed by Israel as clearly stated in your link, along with many others, because Netanyahu preferred carpet bombing as many Gazans as possible and didn't care whether it included hostages.
      - shmulkey18 11mo ago
crest 11mo ago
[flagged]
- int_19h 11mo ago
  You don't need a Bluetooth mesh for that. A simple call or text to a cheap Nokia will do just fine, same as it always has been.
pksebben 11mo 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.
- _zagj 11mo ago
  > TIL what the green names mean on HN (new account). You've been here for five years and just figured that out?
- smt88 11mo 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)
  - pksebben 11mo ago
    my metric for now is "do they have human-sounding posts from more than a year ago"
teleforce 11mo 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-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-telecommunications-blackout-in-the-gaza-strip-is-an-attack-on-human-rights.htm https://m.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO2310/S00117/keepiton-telecom...
- hshdhdhj4444 11mo ago
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  - stopthebullshit 11mo ago
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  - davidf18 11mo ago
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  - isr 11mo ago
    If Israel improved its conduct by a factor of 1000, then maybe it could be considered "a war mongering nation". Instead, it's going down in history as a relatively-short-lived (<100 years) exercise in savagery.
    - thomassmith65 11mo ago
      This sort of sober analysis is what makes posts on this topic so edifying. /s
stopthebullshit 11mo ago
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proshno 11mo ago
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0xedd 11mo ago
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517 points by ciconia 11mo ago

https://bitchat.free/ https://bitchat.free/

> /pass [password] - Set/change channel password (owner only) I assume to unset it just have to use /pass without arguments?

warkdarrior 11mo ago

[flagged]

cbeach 11mo ago
[flagged]

osobo 11mo ago

I never thought I'd see FidoNet again.

adroitboss 11mo ago

The name choice is unfortunate. I read it incorrectly the first time.

zamalek 11mo ago
Or intentional and awesome.
Unicironic 11mo ago
I read it correctly, but got a laugh after reading your comment. Maybe it could be marketable to two very different demographics
- setopt 11mo ago
  Same here. Imagining now bitch@ as the logo. EDIT: Name aside, what an awesome project.
rich_sasha 11mo ago
Anything with "bit" in (with the T pronounced) is a bit unfortunate for French speakers: https://context.reverso.net/translation/french-english/la+bite https://context.reverso.net/translation/french-english/la+bi... .
- kragen 11mo ago
  "Pour info, j'ai pas la bite qui fouette."
- adrodbort 11mo ago
  Also anything with chat (chatte). Unfortunate or intentional..
jayd16 11mo ago
Its almost better when you read it that way. Its at least coherent.
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
supportengineer 11mo ago
Pick better names people. I can't bring myself to use "CockroachDB" for example.

cbeach 11mo ago

[flagged]

myth_drannon 11mo ago

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myth_drannon 11mo ago

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ryanisnan 11mo ago

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.

iamnothere 11mo 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 11mo 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.
  - iamnothere 11mo ago
    If they are demanding a list of people who have apps installed, you have two options: lie down like a dog or get in the streets and fight. If you think it’s going to get to that point, you need tools like this even more.
- nxor 11mo 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 11mo ago

nxor 11mo ago

Learning curve is probably an obstacle

deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]

NoiseBert69 11mo 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 11mo 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 11mo 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 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.
- colanderman 11mo 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 11mo ago

Bitch about things on bitchat. How does that translate to local vernacular?

cindyllm 11mo ago
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deleted 11mo ago
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esbranson 11mo ago

[flagged]

flaburgan 11mo ago

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

breppp 11mo ago

[flagged]

whatshisface 11mo ago
Maybe the first temporally, but Israel has been killing anyone who looks like they're trying to put a phone within reach of a cell tower. The genocide survivors have last I heard learned that they needed to raise their phones in buckets attached to ropes, so that when they're identified and destroyed, they won't be killed.
- breppp 11mo ago
  most of the gazan population has a cellphone, which has had reception most of the war. So assuming using one puts you in risk is false. About your second story, that sounds implausible, anything more substantial?
  - whatshisface 11mo ago
    Here's an article I found on Google that contains the claim about strikes associated with preventing civilian communication. Note the "physically high places." The story about the buckets fits within that frame. (My original source was an article I saw on HN; unfortunately Google's performance on search queries related to this subject is very poor, so it isn't easy to find again. I should have been saving them...) > Hassan Saeed Barakat, the father of one victim of the Israeli bombing, told the Euro-Med Monitorteam that dozens of people had gathered to attempt to contact their family members when an Israeli drone launched a surprise missile attack. The attack directly targeted the tent being used as an Internet distribution point, causing the massive and deadly explosion. > Instead of accessing the Internet via electronic SIMcards, Palestinian civilians have recently been turning to these random distribution points and physically high places to try to access communication networks due to the systematic and widespread destruction of civilian objects by Israeli forces in the Strip. With the destruction of mobile phone network transmission stations, Palestinians are struggling to communicate. https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/gaza-israel-commits-another-massacre-against-civilians-trying-access-communications-and-internet-services-enar https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/...

leosanchez 11mo ago

Read it as bitch-at the first time :(

doctornoble 11mo ago
I don’t think that’s unintentional or undesired
supportengineer 11mo ago
Exactly, it says Bitch@
- skopje 11mo ago
  such a dumb name unless he wanted it.
FrameworkFred 11mo 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.

hnidiots3 11mo ago

[flagged]

iamnothere 11mo ago
The article literally starts by outlining the need. “Civilian comms in a warzone” is an actual current need in many parts of the world.
- abduldavids 11mo ago
  Shhh the IDF stans think all civilians are combatants
  - hnidiots3 11mo ago
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flyinglizard 11mo ago
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- zimza 11mo ago
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drtrq 11mo ago

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diebeforei485 11mo ago

Wasn't Jack Dorsey working on this as well?

sph 11mo ago
I’m pretty sure he vibe coded the thing, or at least the prototype
- sph 11mo ago
  As usual the HN hivemind disagrees with the facts: https://www.businessinsider.com/jack-dorsey-bitchat-app-vibe-coded-2025-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/jack-dorsey-bitchat-app-vibe... https://github.com/permissionlesstech/bitchat/graphs/contributors https://github.com/permissionlesstech/bitchat/graphs/contrib...

Gormanu 11mo ago

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alterom 11mo ago

[flagged]

MSFT_Edging 11mo ago
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- deleted 11mo ago
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abduldavids 11mo ago
> instead of linking to the project page, the link goes to a propaganda website It's detailing a specific use-case for decentralized communication > The actual project is nowhere to be found "Bitchat is a new messaging app that allows users to chat securely with or without internet access. Download it today via the App Store or Google Play store to begin communicating safely, even when connectivity disappears." > Very woke tho. When a genocide[1] is backed by major tech companies[2], its refreshing to know that alternatives exist :) [1]https://web.archive.org/web/20251002014945/https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/02/israel-defying-icj-ruling-to-prevent-genocide-by-failing-to-allow-adequate-humanitarian-aid-to-reach-gaza/ https://web.archive.org/web/20251002014945/https://www.amnes... [2] https://archive.ph/20250701174630/https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/lucrative-business-deals-help-sustain-israels-gaza-campaign-un-expert-says-2025-07-01/ https://archive.ph/20250701174630/https://www.reuters.com/bu...
- hnidiots3 11mo ago
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- alterom 11mo ago
  1. The download link is not the project link (which I have provided, and the website has not). 2. No matter how much this conflict is being mislabeled as "genocide" by the interested parties, it doesn't change the reality that it isn't one by any measure¹. I'm not afraid to sign my name under this statement either; see: https://romankogan.net/2024/06/26/israel-palestine-vocabulary/ https://romankogan.net/2024/06/26/israel-palestine-vocabular... The double-think rewriting of dictionary related to Israel-Palestine wars is outright Orwellian. Note that your link [1], from 2024, doesn't even claim that genocide is taking place in Gaza, and that the adequate amount of aid has since reached Gaza (particularly if you count aid stolen by Hamas within Gaza). A reminder for the all the goldfish out there that a ceasefire in Gaza has been in effect for a month already, and that active and ongoing genocides (like the one in Sudan²) have been collectively ignored by people abusing that word. ______ ¹ https://www.newsweek.com/israel-has-created-new-standard-urban-warfare-why-will-no-one-admit-it-opinion-1883286 https://www.newsweek.com/israel-has-created-new-standard-urb... ² https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/29/horrific-violations-arab-nations-slam-rsf-killings-in-sudans-el-fasher https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/29/horrific-violation...

hidden80 11mo ago

Like Briar?

derbOac 11mo 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 11mo ago
  Briar requires manual pairing with users for some odd reason. Doesn't make sense and makes it unusable outside a family context.
HelloUsername 11mo ago
And Berty on iOS?
focusedone 11mo 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 11mo 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 11mo 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.
- immibis 11mo 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.
  - iddan 11mo ago
    [flagged]
  - vladgur 11mo ago
    The "wrong skin color" is projection of western ideologies to Israel/Gaza conflict. Israelis have lighter skin Ashkenazi Jews, darker skin Mizrahi Jews(majority of hte jews in Israel now) and black Ethiopian jews. And of course 20%+ Arabs living in the country. Gazan Palestinians skin color varies as well, some have light skin, while others have darker skin tones. For example, does this woman have the right skin color or the wrong one: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4e/Ahed_Tamimi_2018.jpg/800px-Ahed_Tamimi_2018.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4e/Ah...
    - wahnfrieden 11mo ago
      Despite that, isn't there a history of compulsive violence based on skin-based profiling? These are facts, not ideology. 2 off-duty soldiers assaulted after being mistaken for Arabs https://www.timesofisrael.com/2-off-duty-soldiers-assaulted-after-being-mistaken-for-arabs/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/2-off-duty-soldiers-assaulted-... Live TV shows Israeli mob attack motorist they believed to be an Arab https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/13/live-tv-shows-israeli-mob-lynch-motorist-in-tel-aviv-suburb https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/13/live-tv-shows-... Israeli soldier kills Jewish civilian in 'identity mishap' https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34602287 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34602287 3 hostages killed by Israeli soldier in Gaza were waving a white flag, Israel says https://www.npr.org/2023/12/15/1219695220/israel-soldiers-mistakenly-kill-hostages-gaza https://www.npr.org/2023/12/15/1219695220/israel-soldiers-mi... Israeli Civilian Killed by Israeli Soldier after Being Mistaken for Palestinian https://www.palestinechronicle.com/israeli-civilian-killed-by-israeli-soldier-after-being-mistaken-for-palestinian/ https://www.palestinechronicle.com/israeli-civilian-killed-b... And from Wikipedia: > The Israeli Security Forces use racial profiling at military checkpoints and during some of the duties they perform. In August 2017 Haaretz reported that security guards working for a company which provides security at Tel Aviv's Central Bus Station said they were instructed to demand ID from people who look Arab and detain those who do not have an ID with them. OP said that Israelis beat people up for having the wrong skin color. The one I replied to said that is wrong and is a projection of western ideology. But it does not appear to be wrong in reality - OP was correct.

krautburglar 11mo 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_aix 11mo 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?
- krautburglar 11mo ago
  [dead]

almog 11mo 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?

helloworld4728 11mo ago
The user base size is huge. This is actively being used by tens of thousands
- almog 11mo 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?
iamnothere 11mo 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 11mo 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?

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

karel-3d 11mo 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!

hnidiots3 11mo ago
[flagged]
- immibis 11mo ago
  AFAIK they used to have internet, but Israel clamped down on it more and more, at the same time they shot as many journalists as they could. Has there been anything out of Gaza in ages?
  - dodomodo 11mo ago
    what are you talking about about? they have internet and the they had it 99% of the time during the war.
    - wahnfrieden 11mo ago
      You make it sound like it's ubiquitous and constant. Just to clarify what access means: From Wikipedia: > By December 2023 200,000 people living in Gaza (around 10% of the population) had received internet access through an eSIM. > As of August 2024, according to a Palestinian source, over 70% of telecommunications have been rendered inoperable. As of June 2025, Paltel is still providing some internet and landline telephone services in southern Gaza. There have been at least 10 outages since the conflict began. The lack of reliable telecommunications has hampered efforts by first responders and humanitarian groups. From the above it sounds like maybe 3% of the population have access (as of a year ago), and there are regular outages. It also says that access has been insufficient.
  - karel-3d 11mo ago
    There is internet in Gaza. The company is called Paltel if I am not wrong. They have monopoly there so if you read online reviews (from before the current war) they were not very popular.

howmayiannoyyou 11mo ago

[flagged]

HumblyTossed 11mo ago
Is it their job to do that?
- JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
  > Is it their job to do that? Not that. But it should be someone’s job to monitor if Hamas adopts it.
  - HumblyTossed 11mo ago
    That is an external problem to the bitchat app.
    - JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
      > That is an external problem to the bitchat app Not really. If it becomes a tool of terrorist communication, it will get shut down. Legally, technically and/or kinetically.
      - BeetleB 11mo ago
        > If it becomes a tool of terrorist communication, it will get shut down. You mean like how they shut down cell phone networks?
wahnfrieden 11mo ago
How do Google and Microsoft prevent their tech from being used toward genocidal/settler ends against civilians?
- js212 11mo ago
  Umm they don’t sell to Hamas but I could be wrong.

krautburglar 11mo ago

HERE is the techforpalestine github that is worth focusing on https://github.com/TechForPalestine/boycott-israeli-consumer-goods-dataset https://github.com/TechForPalestine/boycott-israeli-consumer...

dang 11mo ago

Related. Others? Ask HN: Does Anyone Use Bitchat? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44944414 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44944414 - Aug 2025 (5 comments) Testing Bitchat at the music festival - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44815164 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 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44485342 - July 2025 (424 comments)

HumblyTossed 11mo ago

I wish phones supported 802.11ah for things like this.

ux266478 11mo 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.
ronsor 11mo 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.

boxerab 11mo ago

[flagged]

cultofmetatron 11mo ago
I'm just going to leave this here per the associated press, > In April 2022, there were 4,450 Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli prisons – including 160 children, 32 women, and over 1,000 "administrative detainees" (indefinitely incarcerated without charge).
- boxerab 11mo ago
  [flagged]
  - cultofmetatron 11mo ago
    [flagged]
    - js212 11mo ago
      [flagged]

system2 11mo ago

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

cultofmetatron 11mo 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_aix 11mo ago
> and booby trap these devices with c4 bit-chat is a piece of software, it's not a hardware device
ux266478 11mo 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 11mo 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-java 11mo 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.

idkfasayer 11mo ago
[dead]
Nexxxeh 11mo ago
[flagged]
- jeromegv 11mo ago
  This is entirely false, the typical propaganda narative that all is fine in Gaza and they are just faking it. All hospitals and universities have been bombed. All foreign doctors that went to Gaza and went out (about the only people allowed in Gaza because journalists are prevented by Israel) have talked of the absolute destruction and lack of medical supplies. All neighbourhoods look absolutely destroyed. Most buildlings are severely damaged, which has been documented by satellite imagery published by most medias including BBC https://www.bbc.com/news/live/czjvzmknv0lt https://www.bbc.com/news/live/czjvzmknv0lt
  - YZF 11mo ago
    [flagged]
    - wk_end 11mo ago
      I very genuinely - in the interest of consuming a diverse set of inputs! - would love to see some sources that persuasively, with evidence, can demonstrate a vision of the ground in Gaza that runs counter to what seems absolutely obvious to everyone following the war. A world of luxury cars, high-end iPhones, relaxing afternoons spent in cafés on street corners? After two years of relentless bombing, a near-total blockade on supplies, and on and on? It seems so absurd at this point it doesn't even pass as propaganda. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Lio 11mo 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.

tamimio 11mo 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 11mo 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 11mo ago
Perhaps that is an indictment of the news source you take in.
hdlothia 11mo ago
people in palestine have been tweeting, posting to ig and tik tok throughout the entire conflict

lone-cloud 11mo ago

[flagged]

4ggr0 11mo 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...

cactusplant7374 11mo 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.

Epa095 11mo ago

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

rick312 11mo ago

[flagged]

hashim 11mo ago
So standing soldiers of the occupying army taken from a military kibbutz mere miles from the world's largest open air concentration camp? Hind al-Rajab was 6 years old and was found with hundreds of bullets inside her body. This is not a game Israel can afford to play, so let's just rewind to the beginning and ask how many the Irgun and Haganah killed and bombed to strong-arm the British into giving them Palestine? Or we can skip ahead a few decades and start here: https://https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Palestinian_expulsion_and_flight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Palestinian_expulsion_and.... It's almost like Europeans have no business occupying the Middle East.
- rick312 11mo ago
  False. Eden was bartending at a music festival when she was taken. She was not taken from a military base. Kfir Bibas was 9 months old when he was taken and Ariel Bibas was 4 years old when he was taken. Neither had been in the military. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_and_killing_of_the_Bibas_family https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_and_killing_of_the_...
  - hashim 11mo ago
    Fair enough, that particular kibbutz is not military, but most in the vicinity around Gaza were, and as I'm sure you know, the killed hostages along with most adult Israelis were either serving or former members of the IDF, the army of the occupying state that was formed by the merging of the Irgun and Haganah and still shares much of the same people and ideologies. Yes, both of those kids were killed by Israel as clearly stated in your link, along with many others, because Netanyahu preferred carpet bombing as many Gazans as possible and didn't care whether it included hostages.
    - shmulkey18 11mo ago

crest 11mo ago

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int_19h 11mo ago
You don't need a Bluetooth mesh for that. A simple call or text to a cheap Nokia will do just fine, same as it always has been.

pksebben 11mo 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.

_zagj 11mo ago
> TIL what the green names mean on HN (new account). You've been here for five years and just figured that out?
smt88 11mo 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)
- pksebben 11mo ago
  my metric for now is "do they have human-sounding posts from more than a year ago"

teleforce 11mo 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-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-telecommunications-blackout-in-the-gaza-strip-is-an-attack-on-human-rights.htm https://m.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO2310/S00117/keepiton-telecom...

hshdhdhj4444 11mo ago
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- stopthebullshit 11mo ago
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- davidf18 11mo ago
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- isr 11mo ago
  If Israel improved its conduct by a factor of 1000, then maybe it could be considered "a war mongering nation". Instead, it's going down in history as a relatively-short-lived (<100 years) exercise in savagery.
  - thomassmith65 11mo ago
    This sort of sober analysis is what makes posts on this topic so edifying. /s

stopthebullshit 11mo ago

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proshno 11mo ago

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0xedd 11mo ago

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