Bitchat for Gaza – messaging without internet

[ciconia]

https://bitchat.free/

[teleforce]

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...

[shevy-java]

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.

[austin-cheney]

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.

[praptak]

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.

[samtheprogram]

> 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.

[garbagecoder]

>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.

[NoiseBert69]

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.

[jabroni_salad]

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.

[almog]

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?

[nikkwong]

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?

[iamnothere]

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.

[helloworld4728]

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

[flaburgan]

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.

[ryanisnan]

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]

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.

[64756salad638]

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

[karel-3d]

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!

[helloworld4728]

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.

[nxor]

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)

[pksebben]

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.

[smt88]

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)

[anonnon]

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

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

[dang]

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)

[system2]

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

[osobo]

I never thought I'd see FidoNet again.

[Epa095]

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

[leosanchez]

Read it as bitch-at the first time :(

[FrameworkFred]

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.

[doctornoble]

I don’t think that’s unintentional or undesired

[supportengineer]

Exactly, it says Bitch@

[hidden80]

Like Briar?

[focusedone]

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.

[derbOac]

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.

[HelloUsername]

And Berty on iOS?

[diebeforei485]

Wasn't Jack Dorsey working on this as well?

[sph]

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

[tamimio]

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]

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

[hdlothia]

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

[Fellshard]

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

[4ggr0]

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...

[Lio]

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.