JC Laboratories LLC
JC Laboratories LLC
These Terms of Service govern your use of all JC Laboratories LLC products and services, including Cryptaverse, the Entropy-Gated AI Framework (EGAF), Abe, and jclabs.tech. By accessing or using our Services, you agree to be bound by these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Services.
JC Laboratories LLC (jclabs.tech) is an independent software company registered in Michigan, United States.
We build tools that keep your data in your hands rather than ours. We do not sell user data. We do not show advertising. We do not build advertising profiles. That applies on every tier, including the free one — privacy is not a feature we charge for.
Cryptaverse (formerly Aleph Vault) is an encrypted application for Android. Most of it is private, and a small part of it is public only if you choose to make it so.
Private. An encrypted vault for notes, passwords and other sensitive data. Post-quantum encrypted messaging. A profile screen delivered only to the contacts you grant access to, encrypted for each of them individually. Private groups. Posts. Encrypted file transfer, encrypted file storage, and encrypted backup. None of this is readable by JC Laboratories.
Shared. Folders you choose to share by link. The files stay encrypted; redeeming a link performs a key exchange that gives that person the folder key.
Public. Blocks and stacks you deliberately publish, a public profile if you create one, and the listing details of a group you make public. This is the only content stored unencrypted, and none of it exists unless you publish it.
EGAF (Entropy-Gated AI Framework) is an open AI governance protocol, defining what an AI assistant is permitted to do before it runs, so that its behaviour is bounded, reproducible and auditable.
Abe (formerly the Gaffer) is our AI assistant, with EGAF governance built into it. Both are currently offline until Cryptaverse ships.
Cryptaverse is provided to you as is, in its current state, with all faults. You accept it in that condition, in the same way you would accept a vehicle bought privately rather than from a dealer. You are responsible for deciding whether it is fit for what you intend to use it for.
In particular, you accept that:
Use of the Services is entirely at your own risk. This section does not limit any right you have under consumer protection law that cannot lawfully be waived.
You decide what stays private and what becomes public. Nothing moves between those states on its own. Content in Cryptaverse sits in one of three states:
Private — encrypted, delivered only to people you name. Your vault, your profile screen, your posts, private groups, messages, and Drive folders you have not shared. These are encrypted on your device before they reach us. We hold ciphertext and the routing information needed to deliver it. We cannot read any of it, and neither can anyone you have not sent it to.
Shared by link — encrypted, with the key released to whoever redeems the link. Drive folders you share. The files stay encrypted; redeeming a link performs a key exchange that delivers the folder key to that person. If you mark a folder link as searchable, its name becomes discoverable — the files inside remain encrypted and unreadable to us. Anyone holding the link can obtain access, so treat a link as the key it is.
Public — stored unencrypted, because it is meant to be read. Blocks and stacks you publish and any media attached to them, a public profile if you create one, and the name, description and rules of a group you make public. This content is served to anyone who asks for it, and is readable by us. A public group's messages are not in this category — the group's listing is public, its contents are not.
Publishing and sharing are always deliberate actions you take. You are solely responsible for what you make public or share by link, and you should assume anything in either state may be copied, indexed or retained by third parties beyond our control. Unpublishing removes content from our servers and revoking a link prevents further redemptions; neither can retrieve copies already made, or revoke access from someone who has already redeemed a link.
Account password — used to sign in to your JC Laboratories account. Password resets are handled by email-delivered, time-limited reset tokens. Your email address is processed for authentication and reset purposes but is not stored as plaintext; we store a keyed cryptographic representation for account lookup, which cannot be reversed.
Vault password — no recovery. Your vault password derives your encryption key locally on your device. JC Laboratories does not store, transmit, or have any access to your vault password or its derived key. If you forget it, your encrypted vault data cannot be recovered by anyone, including us. There is no reset, no recovery code and no backdoor. This is intentional and is a direct consequence of the security model: a vault we could open for you is a vault we could be compelled to open for someone else.
You acknowledge and accept this limitation by using the Services. Export your vault regularly and store the backup somewhere safe.
Available on every tier, including Free. Export creates an encrypted backup file protected by an export password you choose at the time of export, separate from and independent of your vault password. It is not stored by JC Laboratories.
Your export password cannot be recovered. If you lose it, the backup file cannot be decrypted. Store it separately from the backup file itself. You are solely responsible for the security of exported files once they leave the app.
Safety Deposit Box is our encrypted cloud backup, and it is available on every tier including Free. Vault data is encrypted on your device before upload. JC Laboratories stores only the encrypted ciphertext and cannot decrypt it.
Backups count against your storage allowance, so how much you can back up follows your tier rather than the feature being withheld. We do not put the ability to protect your data behind a payment — losing a device should not mean losing everything because you were on the free tier.
If you cancel a paid subscription, your allowance returns to the Free tier level and a 30 day grace period begins, counted from the end of the period you last paid for, so cancelling early never costs you time. Nothing is touched during those 30 days: everything stays readable and downloadable, and the app shows how much is over the Free allowance and how long remains.
After 30 days, storage is reduced to the Free allowance. Your Safety Deposit Box backup is removed first — it is a backup, so the original is still on your device and can be re-uploaded — then Drive files starting with the oldest, and only until you are back within the allowance. Published blocks and stacks are never removed by this process.
Backups count against your storage allowance, so how much you can back up follows your tier rather than the feature being withheld. We do not gate the ability to protect your data behind a payment — losing a device should not mean losing everything because you were on the free tier.
If you cancel a paid subscription, your allowance returns to the Free tier level and a 30 day grace period begins, counted from the end of the period you last paid for. Cancelling early therefore never costs you time.
Nothing is touched during those 30 days. Everything you have stored stays readable and downloadable so you can export it or reduce it at your own pace, and the app shows you how much is over the Free allowance and how long remains.
After 30 days, storage is reduced to the Free allowance. We remove your Safety Deposit Box backup first — it is a backup, so the original is still on your device and can be re-uploaded — then Drive files starting with the oldest, and only until you are back within the allowance. Published blocks and stacks are never removed by this process.
| Tier | Price | Storage | Public blocks | Searches / day |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 1 GB | 3 | 25 |
| Personal | $3 / month | 50 GB | 15 | 150 |
| Pro | $10 / month | 100 GB | 50 | 500 |
Storage is a single shared allowance across everything you store with us: Safety Deposit Box backups, Drive files, Relay transfers in flight, media attached to published blocks, profile delivery, and undelivered messages. It is not a separate quota per feature.
Public blocks is the number you may have published simultaneously. Unpublishing one frees the slot. Stacks are not separately limited — they are made from blocks you have already published.
Searches reset daily.
Every tier includes encrypted messaging, encrypted file transfer, the private profile screen, vault export and import, and one identity key pair per vault. Larger allowances are available on request: contact@jclabs.tech.
JC Laboratories reserves the right to update pricing with 30 days notice to existing subscribers.
Ours. Cryptaverse, Abe, the Entropy-Gated AI Framework, and all JC Laboratories software, branding, documentation and assets are the property of JC Laboratories LLC. All rights reserved. Using the Services does not transfer any ownership to you, and you may not copy, redistribute, reverse-engineer or create derivative works from our software except where that right cannot lawfully be excluded.
Yours. We claim no ownership of anything you store, publish or send through Cryptaverse. It is your content and it stays your content. Publishing a block or stack grants us only the narrow permission needed to store it and serve it to people who ask for it — nothing broader, no right to reuse it elsewhere, and it ends the moment you unpublish it or delete your account. We will never use your content to train anything, license it to anyone, or sell it.
EGAF. Separately licensed for non-commercial use under CC BY-NC 4.0 with attribution to JC Laboratories LLC. Commercial use requires a written licence — contact@jclabs.tech. EGAF is not currently published; this licence applies when it is.
AI-generated content from Abe is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute professional advice of any kind. You use AI-generated content at your own risk.
You agree not to use our Services to violate any law; to store, publish or distribute illegal content; to reverse-engineer our software; to abuse or overload our services; to impersonate any person or organisation; to attempt unauthorised access to any account; or to harass, threaten or target others through published content or comments.
You also agree not to use automated means to consume storage, search or publishing allowances beyond ordinary personal use. Accounts that do so may be suspended.
Subscriptions are processed via Stripe, or through the app store you installed from. We accept cards, and stablecoin payments where available. You may cancel at any time; cancellation stops future charges and access continues to the end of the paid period.
No refunds. Consistent with section 4, the Services are sold as is. JC Laboratories does not issue refunds, including for partial subscription periods, for features that do not work as you expected, for periods of downtime, or for data loss. The Free tier exists so you can evaluate the Services before paying for them.
This does not affect refunds required by law, and it does not override the refund policies of any app store or payment processor through which you purchased. Where you bought a subscription through an app store, that store's refund process applies and is handled by them, not by us.
To the fullest extent permitted by law, the Services are provided "as is" and "as available", with all faults, and without warranties of any kind, whether express, implied or statutory. JC Laboratories disclaims all implied warranties, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title and non-infringement.
JC Laboratories makes no warranty that the Services will be uninterrupted, secure, error-free, or that any defect will be corrected; that any cryptographic implementation is free from unknown vulnerabilities; or that data will not be lost. No encryption system provides absolute security.
To the fullest extent permitted by law, JC Laboratories LLC, its members, officers and agents shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages, including loss of data, loss of profits, business interruption or loss of goodwill, arising out of or relating to your use of or inability to use the Services, however caused and on any theory of liability.
To the fullest extent permitted by law, our total aggregate liability for any claim relating to the Services shall not exceed the greater of the fees you paid to JC Laboratories in the twelve months preceding the claim, or one hundred United States dollars.
Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion or limitation of certain damages, so parts of this section may not apply to you.
You agree to indemnify and hold harmless JC Laboratories LLC, its members, officers and agents from claims, damages, liabilities and expenses, including reasonable legal fees, arising from your use of the Services, content you publish, your violation of these Terms, or your violation of any third-party rights.
Reporting abuse. To report illegal content, Terms violations or abusive published content, contact contact@jclabs.tech with a description and any available identifiers (block or stack identifier, key fingerprint, timestamp).
Removal. JC Laboratories may remove any published block, stack, profile or comment that violates these Terms, without notice. Repeated violations will result in account termination.
Mandatory reporting. JC Laboratories will comply with all mandatory reporting obligations under applicable law, including:
Encrypted content. We cannot read encrypted private content and can provide only ciphertext and routing metadata in response to legal process. Published public content is readable by us and by anyone.
Section 230. JC Laboratories claims the protections of 47 U.S.C. § 230 as an interactive computer service provider. We are not the publisher or speaker of user-generated content.
JC Laboratories may suspend or terminate your account for violation of these Terms.
You may delete your account at any time, in the app at Settings → Delete Account, or on the web at jclabs.tech/delete-account.html. Deletion permanently removes your account and all associated server-side data, including published content, engagement, files, and any groups you created. It cannot be reversed. See our Privacy Policy for the full scope.
These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Michigan and the United States, without regard to conflict of law principles. Disputes shall be resolved in the appropriate courts of jurisdiction.
Material changes will be communicated via the app or email with 30 days notice for paid subscribers. Continued use after changes constitutes acceptance.
If you discover a security vulnerability in any JC Laboratories product or service, report it to security@jclabs.tech before public disclosure. We ask that you give us 90 days to investigate and remediate. We will acknowledge your report within 72 hours and will not pursue legal action against good-faith researchers. See our Security Policy.
If you believe content on our services infringes your copyright, contact our designated agent:
Copyright Agent, JC Laboratories LLC · dmca@jclabs.tech · c/o Northwest Registered Agent Service, Inc., 2222 W Grand River Ave Ste A, Okemos, MI 48864
© 2026 JC Laboratories LLC · All rights reserved