Jack Dorsey floats specs for decentralized messaging app that uses Bluetooth

Serial entrepreneur Jack Dorsey, who co-founded Twitter and currently acts as CEO of payments company Block, has released the source code for a peer-to-peer messaging app called bitchat that relies on Bluetooth for network connectivity.

In the project's GitHub repo, Dorsey describes the project thus: "A secure, decentralized, peer-to-peer messaging app that works over Bluetooth mesh networks. No internet required, no servers, no phone numbers – just pure encrypted communication."

The "secure" aspect of things appears to be more a TODO than an audit-backed commitment, at least to judge by reported issues about cryptographic gaps, user impersonation concerns, and Dorsey's closure without comment of a request for a security reporting process.

To underscore the app's insecurity, Jordan Mecom, an embedded software engineer at Dorsey's company Block, has submitted a pull request asking Dorsey to add a warning message to the project.

"As is, bitchat may not meet ...