FireChat?is a?proprietary?mobile app, developed by?Open Garden, which uses?wireless mesh networking?to enable?smartphones?to connect via?BlueTooth,?Wi-Fi, or Apple?s Multipeer Connectivity?peer-to-peer?without an internet connection.
The app was first introduced in March 2014 (iTunes,?Android).?FireChat first became popular in 2014 in?Iraq?following government restrictions on internet use,?and thereafter during the?Hong Kong protests.?The developers have stated, however, that “?People need to understand that this is not a tool to communicate anything that would put them in a harmful situation if it were to be discovered by somebody who?s hostile,? he said. ?It was not meant for secure or private communications.? The app does not encrypt whatsoever.
Het werd gebruikt tijdens de massale Hong Kong protesten:
And as mentioned,?in Iraq?FireChat was already very popular:
Sources: VentureBeat, USAToday, BBC, Forbes, IBTimes, Wikipedia, TIME