We all know Signal, Matrix, Telegram, SimpleX, etc… But if you can’t access the internet you can’t communicate. Pretty logic. But would it be possible, at least theoretically, to create an app that permits to message people even if the internet goes down?

It might be a dumb question I really have no idea to be honest.

  • root@lemmy.world
    231·
    9 days ago

    Meshtastic can be encrypted and is LoRa based. Can easily hit nodes dozens of miles away with a good line of sight. It also relays messages across nodes to reach even further distances.

  • Radioactive Butthole@reddthat.comEnglish
    20·
    9 days ago

    Depending on how far you’re willing to push the definition of “messaging” you could look into getting your ham radio license. It can’t possibly be censored and allows you to communicate all over the world. You can even build your own radios if a government cracks down on them for some reason.

  • QuazarOmega@lemy.lol
    15·
    10 days ago

    Besides the already mentioned Briar, there’s Berty, can’t speak to its quality since I never used it, but I always found the project neat in and of itself

    • Ju135@lemmings.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      9 days ago

      I found Berty yesterday just after making this post. But as a neophyte in cryptography and everything, how am I supposed to know which one is better for my privacy ? (e.g. between Briar and Berty) Because right now the only thing that I have is what the apps are “telling” me so… Yeah I don’t know how to chose.

      • QuazarOmega@lemy.lol
        2·
        8 days ago

        Honestly if you don’t want to think too much about it, go with Briar, it’s way more battle tested, while Berty seems like it hasn’t seen much adoption since it’s younger, both have a bit of development activity I saw, so I can’t say if one is more or less maintained than the other

        As for the actual question of gauging which has the better cryptographical implementation, I don’t know either, beside the most surface level information I know very little.
        I believe if you want to look into it, you’ll have to start from their whitepapers

  • jagged_circle@feddit.nlEnglish
    161·
    8 days ago

    This was a common thing that was developed for the international protests after Arab Spring, which would frequently have their Internet shut down as a State tactic to prevent communication amongst protestors.

    Mesh net chat apps like FireChat were born in response

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FireChat

    Edit: apparently wikipedia says it wasn’t developed for protests, it just happened to be released at the same time

  • Ferk@lemmy.ml
    11·
    9 days ago

    Yes, it’s possible. To be honest, I find it very sad that we have grown so dependent on ISP and big telecom companies to have a working network.

    In theory, you could have an infrastructure in your neighborhood and be able to play Quake with your neighbors without making use of the phone line at all, completely free of monthly fees and with a very efficient and fast connection too! you’d just need cabling connecting the apartments/houses and some decent routers controlling/restricting access on each subnet. It’s a pity that’s not a standard thing when designing residences.

    Though less efficient and more limited in range, you can technically do it with Wifi and mesh networking too… there are projects like B.A.T.M.A.N (https://www.open-mesh.org/), however, it’s not very user-friendly to set up. I believe there have been some projects that attempted to launch embedded devices to act as mini routers for this, but the spread has not been wide enough to make it worth it, sadly.

  • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
    10·
    8 days ago

    Telegram isn’t P2P and isn’t recommended. Signal is good, but not P2P. Matrix is decentralized, not P2P. SimpleX is P2P, I think, but not sure.

  • foremanguy@lemmy.ml
    9·
    9 days ago

    If you don’t want to use internet the only ways are to use radio or deploy your own network infrastructure (optic fiber or cell tower), so there’s no really any messaging app that can be used without internet. Briar can use Bluetooth but with a limited range, needing an actual dense mesh network.

  • bad_news@lemmy.billiam.net
    101·
    10 days ago

    There used to be one years ago that used WiFi radios or Bluetooth or whatever so you could chat to people near you… I totally forget what it was called though.