Terms of Service

Last updated: July 6, 2026

These Terms govern your use of The Blind Machine — the hosted service at blindmachine.org and the accounts, projects, and computations that run through it. The open-source blind CLI carries its own open-source license; these Terms apply to the hosted service the CLI talks to.

They are written to be read. If a clause surprises you, ask us before relying on your interpretation: support@blindmachine.org.

1. Agreement

By creating an account, uploading a contribution, or running a computation, you agree to these Terms. You must be 18 or older. Contributors who join through an invite link without an account are bound by these Terms too — using the service is the acceptance.

2. What the service is

The Blind Machine runs governed, content-addressed computation on encrypted data: contributors encrypt locally, the server computes on ciphertext in a sandboxed environment, and results carry Computation Certificates that anyone can re-verify offline.

What you are paying for — or will be, when paid plans exist — is hosting, coordination, and convenience. The verification guarantee deliberately does not depend on trusting us: certificates re-verify with no network and no cooperation from our servers. The About page and threat model state exactly what is and is not claimed; those scoped claims are part of these Terms' description of the service.

3. Accounts and invite links

Keep your credentials to yourself and tell us promptly about any unauthorized access. You are responsible for activity under your account.

Researchers can mint short-lived, accountless invite links for contributors. Whoever holds a link can contribute to that project until it expires — treat links like the credentials they are, and share them through channels you trust.

4. Your data and content

You keep all rights to what you upload — encrypted contributions, applications, project material. You grant us only the license needed to operate the service: storing your uploads, running pinned applications over them, and producing results and certificates.

Three things you should know before uploading:

• We cannot decrypt your contributions, and we cannot recover your secret key. Keys are generated and held on your machine. If you lose a key, we cannot restore access to your results. This is a feature; it is also your responsibility.
• Some artifacts are public by design. Published applications, public crypto contexts, and Computation Certificates appear on public pages so results can be verified by anyone. Certificates are content-addressed; once published and copied, they cannot be recalled.
• You are responsible for having the right to contribute the data you contribute, in its encrypted form, under the laws and agreements that bind you. Encryption changes what we can see; it does not change your obligations to your patients, institutions, or regulators. During v1, applications run on synthetic vectors — do not upload real patient data or other regulated personal data.

5. Acceptable use

Don't:

• Break the law, or use the service to help someone else break it.
• Access or attempt to access projects, contributions, or accounts that are not yours.
• Probe, overload, or interfere with the service or the compute sandbox.
• Misrepresent what a Computation Certificate proves. It proves determinism — that a pinned application over fixed ciphertexts yields this result — not that the underlying data is real, honest, or medically valid.

To be explicit about the other direction: auditing the open CLI, recomputing hashes, and re-executing published computations to check our claims is not just permitted — it is the point of the product.

6. Fees

Core features are currently available without charge while the service is in its early stage. If you buy a paid plan when one is offered, the price and billing period are shown before you pay, payment is processed by Stripe, and you can cancel from the billing portal — cancellation takes effect at the end of the paid period. We will not silently convert free features into paid ones for data you have already committed.

7. Suspension and termination

You can stop using the service at any time and ask us to delete your account data (privacy policy, section 7). We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms, and will say why unless the law prevents it. Public certificates already published remain published — that is what content-addressing means.

8. Disclaimers and liability

The service is provided "as is", without warranties of any kind, express or implied. Results are mathematical outputs of the applications you choose to run; they are not medical, legal, or scientific advice, and we make no promise about the validity of data contributed by others. To the maximum extent permitted by law, we are not liable for indirect, incidental, or consequential damages arising from your use of the service.

9. Changes

When these Terms change, we update the date at the top. If a change materially reduces your rights, we will say so on this page rather than bury it. Continued use after a change is acceptance.

10. Contact

Questions about these Terms: support@blindmachine.org.