Terms of use for this site

What this site is.

os.guardtalk.io is documentation for GuardTalkOS. It describes what the build removes, what it enforces, what state each item is in, and where each protection stops.

It is not a sale, an offer, a quotation or a contract. It carries no price, no order path and no download control. Access to the GuardTalk system is requested on the parent site, under that site's own terms. Request access ↗

Software is governed by its own licences, not by this page. Nothing here grants or removes a right that a licence gives you. Licences and attributions →

The state of what is described.

GuardTalkOS is alpha, and this site labels every item with a state read from one file. On-device validation is under active bisect, no release is described as finished, and no update cadence is committed.

Documentation of a planned capability is not a promise to ship it. An item marked planned may change, slip or be dropped, and the status page is where that is recorded. The status board →

Acceptable use.

This system is built for journalists, human-rights defenders, lawyers, and the civil-society organisations that support them. It is not sold for criminal use, and that sentence is a position rather than a disclaimer.

You may read, quote and cite this site. You may build the software from source and run it on hardware you own. What is not acceptable is narrow and specific:

• Using GuardTalk software or infrastructure to commit, direct, finance or conceal violence, trafficking, extortion, fraud or the sexual exploitation of anyone.
• Using it to conduct surveillance of, or to target, the people it was built to protect.
• Attacking the infrastructure that serves this site or the system, including scanning, flooding or attempting to gain access you were not given.
• Redistributing a modified build under the GuardTalk name or marks, or in a way that implies the project produced or endorsed it.

Responsible security research is welcome and is not covered by the third point. Report what you find rather than testing against people.

No warranty, and no legal immunity.

The software is provided as it is, without warranty of any kind, to the extent the applicable licences and law allow. An alpha build may fail, may lose data, and may contain defects that have not been found.

Nothing here provides legal immunity. Running a hardened device does not place you outside the law of any jurisdiction. It does not defeat a lawful order made against you, and it does not answer compulsion directed at you rather than at the software.

The lawfulness of encryption tools, hardened devices and Tor differs between jurisdictions, and in some it is restricted. Checking your own situation is your responsibility, and it is worth doing before you carry the device somewhere.

Export-control and dual-use posture is being settled with counsel and is not stated on this page until it is.

// confirm §19.12 with counselacceptable use, export and dual-use posture

Protection is bounded, and the bounds are published.

No operating system makes anyone safe, and this one is one component of a system that has limits at every layer. The threat model states what the build does not protect against, including running it without its Gateway.

Read it before relying on anything described here. It is a primary navigation item because it is not fine print. Read the threat model →

Names and marks.

GuardTalk, GuardTalkOS and the GuardTalk marks belong to GuardTalk. Use of the marks follows the identity rules published on this site, and no modified build may carry them. Brand and identity rules →

Android, AOSP, GrapheneOS, Tor and Pixel are the names of their own projects and products, used here to identify them accurately. Their owners do not endorse GuardTalk, and no upstream mark appears anywhere on this site. Lineage and attribution →

Reporting a problem.

Security reports, attribution corrections and licence questions go to the family disclosure address. It is published as security.txt, at /.well-known/security.txt on this domain, and mirrored on the parent site. The address is security@guardtalk.io, and a Tor-reachable route is being confirmed with the shared policy.

// confirm §19.11shared security.txt, disclosure route and canary cadence

Changes.

These terms change when the site changes, and both are versioned in the site's source. All legal copy on this surface is under counsel review before launch and carries its marker until that review lands.

Privacy → · Licences → · Warrant canary →