
FireChat messaging app unites China and Taiwan in free speech - gwendolynregina
http://www.techinasia.com/unblockable-unstoppable-firechat-messaging-app-unites-china-and-taiwan-in-free-speech-and-its-not-pretty/
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tormeh
Hey, libertarian "hackers"! If you actually want to make a difference stop
messing with cryptocurrencies and make P2P networked chat. This is the kind of
thing actually oppressed people need. Cryptocurrency is basically just cash
without any of the regulatory benefits anyway. P2P networked chat is actually
subversive stuff.

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Houshalter
There are a lot of potential benefits of cryptocurrency. And why can't we have
both?

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tormeh
Because there's a limited amount of ideologically motivated programmer man-
hours available?

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Houshalter
There has been tons of work done on mesh nets and secure messaging apps. It's
not like it's been ignored.

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morenoh149
I immediately looked up if android has the same functionality.
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19067794/ios-7-multipeer-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19067794/ios-7-multipeer-
connectivity-and-android-wifi-direct) sadly it does not

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rakoo
Yes it has, and it's far better:

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.servalproj...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.servalproject&hl=fr)

Advantages:

\- It's working in a mesh setting (although I don't see anything preventing
FireChat to do the same) \- It's based on a protocol named batman, which is a
cool name \- It's open source

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unfamiliar
This is just an app, it doesn't indicate what networking capabilities are
built into the OS.

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matznerd
I recently tested this app when I had no internet in South America and I was
able to communicate with other members of my group who were nearby in the
hotel, but different floors. It was cool and it definitely has potential for
any off-the-grid situation, especially if it can do proper multipeering. I
wonder how this will do at a place like burning man.

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teawithcarl
Open Garden's new FireChat tool is superb.

Just what the Taiwan / China doctor ordered. 台湾中国和自由 -- 加油！

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higherpurpose
Hopefully with the arrival of the pCell [1] technology, the Wi-Fi Alliance
will start working on even longer range and lower bands for Wi-Fi than the 2.4
Ghz band. Lately they've only focused on short ones, but to make Wi-Fi
meshnets work we need Wi-Fi that's longer range and doesn't suffer from
interference.

As for FireChat itself, the disappointing thing about it is that it doesn't
seem to encrypt the messages. So if there's someone listening within range,
they can get that conversation. Obviously, this won't be a huge issue in the
early days, but I hope they do intend to fix this eventually.

[1] -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6NEnLvhFCk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6NEnLvhFCk)

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kevin818
I don't get it. Since the range is so low, at the point that you're close
enough to chat via p2p, wouldn't it just be easier to actually talk? Or am I
missing something?

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3825
The promise of multipeer connectivity is that each additional node can
potentially increase the network. So for Alice, who is in range of Bob but not
Cathy, can talk to Cathy is Bob is in range of Cathy.

~~~
leberwurstsaft
Only up to 8 nodes per session (at least, at the moment), according to the
docs and this post: [http://lightyearsoftware.com/2014/03/multipeer-
connectivity-...](http://lightyearsoftware.com/2014/03/multipeer-connectivity-
panacea/)

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octapus
Qualcoms Alljoyn has SDK for all platforms,and its supposed to be peer to peer
without network connection as well. Not sure if it does the mesh networking
thing... but for crossplatform Alljoyn peer to peer has been doing it for
years now. [https://www.alljoyn.org/about](https://www.alljoyn.org/about)

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tortilla87
I am really excited about meshnet technologies. I think they could eliminate
some today's problems with internet. (Censorship, spying, throttling) Lets set
up some more meshlocals HN.
[https://projectmeshnet.org](https://projectmeshnet.org)

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caligarn
I wonder if this app has more capacity than Twitter to start and sustain
revolutions.

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niklas_a
Big congrats to Micha and team at Open Garden for this app. Really good work!

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notastartup
What about for Android? Where is such peer connectivity framework? What about
connecting Android and iOS?

What about Alljoyn SDK?

