No. The acoustic and optical channels work with no network at all. The steganographic channel only needs the messaging app you use to send the photo, which is entirely optional. Two phones in a basement with no signal is exactly the scenario Taftan was built for.

Yes. The receiving device needs the app to decode the audio signal, the screen frames or the hidden message in the photo. It is free to download.

When using the steganographic channel through a messaging app, the other party receives only a photograph. There is no visible sign and no metadata marker. Proving the presence of hidden data requires a specialised forensic tool. Robust mode is designed specifically to resist that kind of analysis on common social platforms.

The message cannot be recovered. Taftan does not keep a copy of the password and there is no recovery option. Write it down somewhere safe before transmitting anything critical.

Taftan is software for the private transfer of messages between two people who have agreed to communicate. It uses standard microphone, camera and display hardware and applies encryption that is legal in the vast majority of jurisdictions. The user is responsible for the content of every message sent.

Not currently. The code is proprietary. The technical specification describing how messages are encoded and decoded is documented separately, so an independent security researcher can verify a complete transfer end to end. Open-sourcing under a permissive licence is being considered.

No. Taftan does not run any server in the transfer path. All encryption and channel operations happen on your device. Nobody has visibility into any message, and nothing can be retrieved after the fact.

Android 9 and later. iOS 15 and later through TestFlight. Desktop builds for macOS, Windows and Linux are in development.