Firechat: punk mail for texts
A ton of Floridians are downloading Firechat while they still have Internet/cell phone reception. Firechat is a mesh network app that connects to other nearby phones directly via bluetooth and/or wifi. Unlike centralized networks like cell towers and ISPs, mesh networks become more efficient the more users are connected to them.
There are some limitations: a phone cannot send messages unless there is another phone in range (about 200ft) OR there is a connection to the Internet or cell networks. That means there needs to be a critical mass of phones in the area for it to work.
If you send a message and there aren’t any phones in your area’s network that are connected to the Internet or to the person you’re sending the message to, then the message waits until new devices come in range. As people move about, the messages are passed along until they get to the open Internet or to the recipient. Thus it works like punk mail but for text messages.
The app is pretty buggy and a bit slow. The security of it is also not perfect, although it does claim that messages are encrypted until they reach the recipient so it’s a little better than punk mail in that regard.
HOW TO SEARCH FOR CONTACTS AND FIND PEOPLE ON FIRECHAT
I had a hell of a time trying to find the contact I particularly wanted to talk to, even though I already knew his username. The “Discover people on Firechat” option seems to always return zero results no matter what. BUT there is a workaround: Search among the followers list of verfied user “FireChat”. By default every user is following FireChat’s official account when their account is created.
Go to your own profile
Tap on “following [#]”
Tap on FireChat
Tap on “Followers [#]”
Type in the username of the person you want to send a message to.
It’s a bit clunky and it took me forever to figure it out but it works!
