2026-07-09 –, Idea Stage
The internet is dead. Long live the Mesh: a LARP
Join us for a brief Live Action Role Play where we'll simulate an internet shutdown and break into teams to try and get messages across between different people and locations using different transports and connection types.
Testing Dash Chat, a p2p messenger built on p2panda and Iroh, that's developed in partnership with communities facing shutdowns around the world. Your playing and feedback helps us make Dash Chat better! Come play!
This is a working session, not a talk. You leave with the app on your phone and a real sense of how it behaves when the network goes away.
Dash Chat works like a normal secure messenger when you're online and keeps carrying messages when you're not. It's transport-agnostic, built on p2panda and Iroh, and released under AGPL-3.0. We build it with partners on the ground and share what we're learning with and from them — and we're keen to connect with more partners here.
Everyone installs it and connects with a QR code or contact link — no account, no phone number. We message across the room over the internet, then switch it off. We're running our own local WiFi network with a laptop acting as a Local Mailbox, so messages keep moving with no internet. From there: group chats, voice messages, end-to-end encryption.
Then we try to break it. You know where local-first systems fall down, so push — pile the room onto one network and find the edges. That's the part we care about most.
It runs on our own network in the room, not across the camp. Today it works over the internet and over a local network; mesh over Bluetooth and LoRa is on the roadmap. Android now, iOS coming. Usability matters to us as much as security, which is why we test it with real people.
