Developer Mark Katakowski has created an app that facilitates a social network without an Internet connection or cell service, according to The Daily Dot. The app, called Tin Can, allows phones to relay messages between one another when in close proximity, without having to use data or SMS. Most importantly, Tin Can allows phones with the app to act as relay points for a message, even if those phones are not the intended destination.

Tin Can works by connecting phones via their Wi-Fi radios, but it doesn’t require reception from any network. Messages can be sent by this connection, and they can be sent to more than one phone.

The range is only about 100 feet, depending on the phone, according to the app’s Google Play page. But because of the relay capability, one message could potentially spread to many phones over a large area using other relay points.

The use case isn’t universal, but The Daily Dot lays out a number of scenarios where both reception typically fails and users might need to get out a message to a lot of people in close range: protests, concerts, sporting events, and festivals, not to mention more remote parts of the world where reception is sparse or nonexistent.

Still, an app that opens this type of connection would be susceptible to spreading malware or viruses, and Katakowski is aware of this potential. Messages sent from the app don’t carry identifying information about the phone they are sent from, so they are effectively untraceable.

The app is available only to Android phones for now and may soon make its way to Windows Phone, but Katakowski suspects that Apple will never allow Tin Can into the famous walled App Store garden.