Firechat: Off grid messaging.

I stumbled across my classmate Adarsh Datt’s blog post about the newly introduced messaging app, Firechat. I have never heard of the app before reading his blog post. The concept of the app intrigued me, thus, I decided to do a little more research. Upon reading the CNN article on the role of Firechat during the recent Hong Kong protests and the app itself, I understood that Adarsh Datt’s opinion that the app will not experience significant growth may be right, but for different reasons. Adarsh thinks that amidst the modern interconnected world, a messaging service that relies on the “mesh network” is redundant. In his opinion, even the suggested places of use would not require the app for an extended period of time and thus become obsolete to consumers/ users (Dhatt).

However, the usefulness of apps that rely on the mesh network is immense. It could make search and rescue operations much more efficient. Emergency situations could be relayed faster to those who can respond. The current “everyone within the close proximity can see” function of the app is especially favorable in the above situations. Of course, this benefit will be truly experienced if the number of Firechat users increase dramatically.

The concept behind mesh networks is very vague to the general public. Due to the lack of public understanding behind the mechanism of the network, users may deem it to be not secure. Additionally, the app currently does not have a private chat function and everyone using the app in close proximity can see all messages sent. The app will possibly not increase in popularity until it can provide the chat function. Fortunately, the developers are working on implementing the private chat function.

 Works Cited List 

Dhatt, Adarsh, “Firechat “off the gird” Messaging.” Adarsh Dhatt’s blog. Oct.5, 2014. Nov.8, 2014 (https://blogs.ubc.ca/adhatt).

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