Use hardware already in the device.
Every channel works with the speaker, screen and camera that come standard in every mobile phone. No specialist hardware, frequency licence or additional peripheral needed.
About
About Taftan
Taftan was built for situations where the internet is absent, messaging apps cannot be trusted, or information must not travel in plaintext.
Taftan grew out of a problem that kept repeating: people sharing sensitive information through messaging apps that were never designed for it, because nothing better existed.
With Taftan, the room becomes the channel. The speaker, the screen and an ordinary photograph each carry encrypted messages without any extra hardware or account. You already have everything you need.
The application uses established, independently audited encryption standards. Each channel is named after its physical mechanism: acoustic, optical and steganographic. The encryption layer is always active and runs before any channel operation begins.
Origin
Built during a shutdown.
In September 2022, Iran's government cut mobile internet access across the country in response to the protests that followed the death of Mahsa Amini. Messaging apps went dark. Taftan was started that same month with one question: how do two people in the same building exchange an encrypted message when every network is gone.
The answer was to use hardware already in every phone. The speaker encodes data as audio tones. The screen transmits through a grid of QR codes. A photograph carries a hidden payload using steganography. None of these paths require a network connection or a server. The first working version ran on Android.
An alpha shipped on 30 January 2023 and the first public release followed two days later. In May 2026 the application was fully rebuilt and extended to Android, iOS, macOS and Windows. The optical channel was upgraded to a multi-tile QR grid capable of moving several hundred kilobytes per minute between two phone screens.
In memory of Kian Pirfalak
A small voice that imagined big machines. Taftan is dedicated to his memory, and to every voice that should still be in the room. We built it so a message can travel where the network cannot follow.
- 27 Sep 2022First commit. The idea took shape during the first week of the shutdown.
- 30 Jan 2023Alpha release. Android app with acoustic and optical channels working end to end.
- 01 Feb 2023v0.0.16 shipped. First public release.
- May 2026Full rebuild. Cross-platform: Android, iOS, macOS and Windows.
Operating principles
Encrypt before transmitting.
No data leaves the device before encryption is applied. The channel carries only the encrypted payload. Encryption is what actually protects the message.
No server in the transmission path.
Taftan does not run any server that has visibility into transmitted messages. There is no centralised infrastructure to breach, misconfigure or compel through legal process.
The person behind it
Iman Samizadeh
I hold a PhD in Computational Intelligence and have spent nearly two decades working across AI, cybersecurity and digital infrastructure. My life's work is keeping Iranians connected.
Taftan is the latest in a line of tools I have built over more than a decade. Every time connectivity was disrupted, I built something to restore it.
Who it is for
Journalists
Taftan gives you a channel that keeps working even when the internet goes down. During a blackout you can pass a source's statement, a document or a working VPN address between two phones in the same room. No network, no record, no trace.
Researchers and developers
Taftan is a working implementation of acoustic data transfer, optical frame encoding and steganographic concealment on standard mobile hardware. The protocol specification is published separately. Use it as a reference for building censorship-resilient communication systems.
People of Iran
When the network goes down, Taftan still works. Two phones in the same room can exchange a message in under a minute. No account, no SIM card, no server that can be ordered to shut down.
Get started
Two devices. One shared password. No intermediary.
Install Taftan on both devices, agree on the password through a separate channel beforehand, and run a quick test transfer using whichever channel fits your situation.