BitTorrent's Bleep messenger is a secure, decentralized chat platform

There's a distinctive sound your computer makes when an online friend is trying to get your attention. Sometimes its high pitched, other times its a low, warm tone, but regardless of your chat software, the onomatopoeia probably reads something like "bleep" which -- by no coincidence, we're sure -- is what BitTorrent is calling its new messaging platform. Unlike Google Hangouts, AIM or Skype, however, Bleep is a decentralized communication platform, design specifically to protect user metadata and anonymity.

"Our big idea was to apply distributed technology to conversations," BitTorrent's Jaehee Lee write on the company's blog. "That means no servers required." Instead of sending your chat communications to a central company server to be redistributed to your peers, Bleep uses the same kind of peer-to-peer communication technology used for decentralized file sharing to carry and distribute encrypted messages and metadata. BitTorrent does not (and can't) track who you're talking to, what you're saying or when your conversations happened.