Jack Dorsey's new unorthodox messaging app has piqued the interest of many, yet the Twitter founder's latest venue might already have one major flaw that was revealed in a worrying admission from the creator.
People are always searching for a safer and more secure way to communicate online, especially as government censorship and oversight appear to be increasing across the globe.
Apps like Signal and WhatsApp offer their own cybersecurity benefits with end-to-end encryption, although the latter's implementation of artificial intelligence has began to sow doubt in some users.
Apps like these are still controlled by a centralized organization though and remain reliant on methods like WiFi to continue working, and that's why Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey's new alternative 'Bitchat' has drawn plenty of attention.
How does Bitchat work?
Instead of relying on a WiFi connection to send and receive messages, Bitchat users can take advantage of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) mesh networking, which passes messages through clusters and bridges in order to extend the proximity.
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Each device acts as both a client and server in the eyes of Bitchat, ensuring that the service remains peer-to-peer and completely decentralized, unlikely almost every other major messaging service you can use.
It has already been lauded as an effective anti-censorship tool as it would allow people to continue to communicate even if a government disabled internet services, and boasts a number of security features that would hypothetically keep everything secure.
All messages should be end-to-end encrypted, and the nature of the service means that you don't need to connect your phone number or email address, and there is no 'account' tied to your messages.
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However, it does appear to have a potentially major black mark that could compromise the attractive promises, as Dorsey revealed in a new worrying admission.
What is Dorsey's worrying admission?
As reported by TechCrunch, a new warning has been added to the official GitHub page for Bitchat, pointing out the potentially glaring security flaws that could be present in the beta version.
"[!WARNING] This software has not received external security review and may contain vulnerabilities and does not necessarily meet its stated security goals," the text reads. "Do not use it for protection use, and do not rely on its security whatsoever until it has been reviewed."
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It's unclear how many vulnerabilities there might be where they would manifest in Bitchat's design, but it's a clear warning for anyone currently testing the app out that it might not be all that it's worked up to be.
Security researcher Alex Radocea has already figured out that it's possible to intercept messages by impersonating someone else and tricking people into thinking they're talking to the person you're mimicking, as revealed in a recent blog post.
While this understandably can be seen as a major blow to Bitchat's ultra-secure branding, the app remains still in beta and you'd imagine (or at least hope) that any issues that do crop up would be ironed out before the full release.
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However, it does serve as a clear red flag for anyone currently using the app that there could be some vulnerabilities, so you should only really use it for testing purposes and keep anything you'd want hidden from prying eyes away from the messages that you send.