Amid all the conversation about Signal, and the debate over decentralization, one thing has often not been raised: all of these things require an Internet connection.

“Of course,” you might say. “Internet is everywhere these days.” Well, not so much, and it turns out there are some very good reasons that people might want messengers that work offline. Here are some examples:

• Internet-using messengers leak certain metadata (eg, that a person is using it, or perhaps a sophisticated adversary could use timing analysis to determine that two people are talking using it)
• Cell signal outages due to natural disaster, large influx of people (protests, unusual sporting events, festivals, etc), or other factors
• Locations where cell signals are not available (rural areas, camping locations, wilderness areas, etc.)
• Devices that don’t have cell data capability (many tablets, phones that have had service expire, etc.)