Phononym

1. Executive Privacy Policy (Zero-Knowledge Statement)

1.1 Our Core Cryptographic Pledge

Phononym is engineered strictly on a Zero-Knowledge Architecture. Unlike traditional communication utilities that store plaintext chat history or process unencrypted audio recordings on central cloud infrastructure, Phononym executes 256-bit AES-GCM encryption and decryption purely on the user's local computing device via the browser's native WebCrypto API.

1.2 No Data Retention or Telemetry Harvest

• No Server Storage: Our signaling cloud relays operate entirely in transient volatile memory. Once a meeting chamber closes or all participants disconnect, socket states are permanently expunged. No cryptographic vectors, passphrase keys, audio streams, or chat text are ever recorded to disks or databases.
• No Profiling Required: Phononym requires zero phone numbers, email addresses, user registrations, or government identity documentation to initiate secure meeting rooms.
• Anonymized Traffic Counters: Our production routing layer collects only aggregated, anonymized traffic volume metrics (such as daily room counts and one-way hashed timestamps) solely for network load balancing and denial-of-service prevention.

2. Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) & Zero-Tolerance Rules

To preserve Phononym as a secure utility for legitimate enterprise communication, journalists, educators, whistleblowers, and ethical privacy advocates, all visitors explicitly agree to adhere to binding behavior restrictions.

2.1 Prohibited Communications

By accessing phononym.in or operating our application locally, users agree NEVER to utilize the platform for broadcasting, dictating, or facilitating:

• Terrorism & Violent Extremism: Any coordination, solicitation, instruction, or praise regarding acts of terrorism, bomb fabrication, explosive manufacturing, cyber-terrorism, or mass violence.
• Harm to Human Life & Exploitation: Any activities involving human trafficking, physical harassment, threats of assassination, coercion, ransomware attacks, child harm, or illegal weapons trafficking.
• Malicious Cyber Payloads: Distribution of destructive computer malware, automated DDoS command tunnels, or unauthorized digital intrusion.

2.2 Client-Side Safety & Misuse Prevention Guard

Because cloud infrastructure cannot inspect encrypted ciphertexts, Phononym enforces Content Safety natively within the client-side JavaScript runtime engine prior to cryptographic transmission:

• If vocal speech dictation or typed text triggers safety heuristics containing critical danger terms (such as unlawful violence or explosive manufacturing keywords), the transmission engine instantly terminates the cryptographic packet broadcast.
• Prohibited messages are blocked locally on the device, preventing unlawful content from ever traversing web sockets or reaching peer endpoints.

3. Comprehensive Limitation of Liability & Developer Disclaimer

3.1 Provided "As-Is" Without Warranty

Phononym is provided by its creators, engineers, and open-source contributors on an "AS-IS" and "AS-AVAILABLE" basis for educational research, cryptographic verification, and secure communication. To the maximum extent permitted by governing law (including the Information Technology Act, 2000 and applicable global electronic utility statutes), the developers disclaim all commercial warranties, express or implied, regarding uninterrupted uptime, data retention of ephemeral sessions, or local hardware compromise resulting from unauthorized third-party malware installed on user devices.

3.2 Developer Liability Shield & Indemnification

• No Vicarious Liability: Users acknowledge and agree that the Platform Developers and Hosting Administrators assume zero statutory, criminal, or civil liability for peer-to-peer conversations, shared text, or communications generated between independent third-party endpoints.
• Hold Harmless Agreement: By entering a Phononym session, users agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless the Phononym development team, hosting networks (Railway/GoDaddy), and domain registrars from and against any claims, financial damages, litigation, or legal liabilities arising directly or indirectly from the user's violation of this Acceptable Use Policy or governing local laws.

4. Jurisdiction & Regulatory Compliance

This architectural framework adheres to global data minimization principles (such as GDPR Data Minimization and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act / DPDP). Because Phononym's mathematical architecture precludes centralized decryption or plaintext archiving, compliance requests seeking historical chat logs cannot physically be fulfilled, as no decryptable records exist on cloud server storage.