Murmur 2.0 (Revival)

Murmur 2.0 (Revival)

Is Coming

De Novo Group is working quickly to launch the revival of Murmur to support communications during the Iranian internet blackout!

Murmur (aka Rangzen, Murmur/Rangzen) is a resilient one-to-many micro-blogging (eg tweeting) system that enables anonymous communication without internet infrastructure. The app is free and open-source.

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Messages are broadcast from one phone to another via Bluetooth, WiFi Direct, and WLAN using a delay-tolerant mesh network (DTN). The more devices the faster the message spreads and if no device is around, the message is queued to be sent later. Message transmissions are prioritized by means of a social-trust graph while preserving user anonymity.
The motivation for the project originated in the days of the Arab Spring when a need to help citizens of oppressive regimes circumvent government-imposed communication blackouts was identified. Our implementation followed the tenets laid down in the UC Berkeley EECS research paper called “Rangzen: Anonymously Getting the Word Out in a Blackout”

• Anonymity Preservation Communication employs cryptographic techniques to de-link the message content from the identity and spatial-temporal coordinates of the sender and subsequent relays.
• Trust-Network-Informed Routing Message prioritization is not based solely on geographical distance or shortest path, but on a hidden metric derived from a user’s inferred or declared social trust network.
• Infrastructure Independent Delay-tolerant mesh network (DTN) easily scales without compromising users’ safety and allows message broadcasting with only users smartphones

We Need Your Help

Help Us Test

• Android users only
• No technical experience required
• 5 minutes to get started
• Share with nearby friends/colleagues for critical mass
• Only during QA, anonymized data will be sent back to us for testing and troubleshooting
• Download and Get Started! (Please turn on QA mode in Settings)

Help Get the App into Iran

• Organizations or individuals with reach into Iran
• Start preparing now
• ETA for distribution-ready: early February 2026
• We don’t need or want operational details about your channels
• Trust is essential – You should and can validate our code for yourself
  • All source code and history of commits are public
  • Link to the Source Code Repo: https://github.com/De-Novo-Group/rangzen-revival
  • Please review Source Code Repo in conjunction with Original Research Paper (2016) and Murmur Revival Project Details for context
  • AI-based security analysis on the source code makes reviews practical, even on a short timeline
  • If you could share your validation, that will help others trust more quickly
  • Please refer to the Original Research Paper (2016) and Murmur Revival Project Details for more in-depth analysis on threat model.

Get Started

• Tutorial
• FAQs
• Tester’s Guide
• Download

Learn More

• Murmur Revival Project Details
• Original Research Paper Summary (2016)
• Murmur 1.0 Rangzen History

Contact

We are a small volunteer team moving on a tight deadline.

• General Questions: Please first check FAQ
• Technical Questions: Please first work with your own technical expert to review Source Code Repo in conjunction with Original Research Paper (2016) and Murmur Revival Project Details for context; AI-based security analysis on the source code may yield the answers to your question
• All other inquiries Please contact murmur-revival@denovogroup.org