Terms of Service

Last Updated: June 27, 2026

The Simple Version

I run some services on a personal compute lab for fun. If you use them, be a decent human being: don’t break the law, don’t abuse other people, and don’t abuse the infrastructure. In return, I’ll do my best to keep things running - but no promises, because it’s a personal compute lab.

By using any service I offer, you agree to these terms. If you don’t agree, don’t use the services.

Who Can Use These Services

To use my services, you must:

Be at least 13 years old (my baseline, drawn from US COPPA). If your own country sets a higher minimum for a service like this - Australia’s 16-and-up social media rules being the obvious example - then hold yourself to that higher number. I don’t independently verify it, which is exactly why it’s on you
Provide accurate information when creating an account
Not be banned from a service or barred from using it under applicable law

If you’re using a service on behalf of an organization, you confirm you’re allowed to agree to these terms on its behalf.

A note on age verification - read this part. This is a personal compute lab, not a surveillance operation. I don’t run identity checks, age-estimation models, or document scans, and I’m not going to. That means the whole thing rests on one load-bearing assumption: you telling me the truth about your age.

Understand what’s riding on that. The legal obligations around minimum-age rules - Australia’s included - land on me, the operator, not on you, the user. There’s no penalty pointed at you; it’s pointed at me. So when you lie about your age, you’re not just risking your own account - you’re putting the whole service, and potentially me personally, in the blast radius of someone else’s enforcement action. Don’t do that to me.

And know exactly where my line is: if the law ever escalates to the point where I’d have to deploy heavy, identity-grade verification machinery - Palantir-level data collection and the like - to keep operating, I will almost certainly shut the service down instead. That kind of verification would gut the privacy promises in my Privacy Policy, and I’m not willing to trade your privacy for compliance. I’d rather turn it off than become the thing I’m trying to avoid. Which means the cheapest way to keep this service alive is simple: be honest about your age, so I never get pushed to that decision.

Services Covered

I host a self-hosted instance of Fluxer - a community chat platform (think along the lines of a self-hosted Discord alternative). The terms below apply to Fluxer and to any other service I provide - including my self-hosted Mailcow mail server and anything else I run - except where a specific service has its own additional rules.

These are independently hosted instances of third-party software. I am not affiliated with the Fluxer or Mailcow projects (or any other upstream software I run) - I just operate the software. Each upstream project is governed by its own license and developers; these terms cover my hosting of it and your use of my instances, not the upstream projects themselves.

Your Account

You’re responsible for:

Keeping your login credentials secure
Everything that happens under your account
Notifying me promptly (see Contact) if you think your account has been compromised

When you report a compromised account, be aware that the outcome cuts both ways: if I can’t satisfactorily verify that you are the legitimate owner, I’m just as likely to terminate or lock the account’s access as I am to restore it to you. Protecting the service and other users comes first - if I can’t be sure who you are, I’ll err on the side of shutting the door rather than handing over an account to the wrong person.

I may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these terms, threaten the stability or security of the service, or sit unused for a long time.

Acceptable Use

Don’t use my services to:

Break any applicable law or regulation
Harass, threaten, dox, or abuse other users
Post or share content that is illegal, including sexual content involving minors (CSAM), credible threats of violence, or content that incites violence
Distribute malware, run phishing, or attempt to compromise other users or the infrastructure
Spam, flood, or otherwise degrade the service for others
Attempt to gain unauthorized access to any system, account, or data
Resell, sublicense, or commercially exploit the service without my permission
Impersonate me, the service, or anyone else in a misleading way
Engage in abuse or conduct that could reasonably draw a law-enforcement or regulatory investigation onto the service, me, or other users

I run this on a budget and on borrowed time. Abuse that costs me money, bandwidth, or sanity is the fastest way to lose access.

To be clear about why that last point matters: this is a lawfully operated service, and I cooperate with valid legal process. I’m not interested in hiding from anyone, and I’m equally not interested in a pointless regulatory standoff on a user’s behalf. If someone’s abuse draws an investigation, the consequence falls on them - I’ll terminate the offending account and respond to lawful requests as required. Shutting the service down is a last resort, reserved for the rare case where staying online would force me to break the law or gut my users’ privacy. I’d rather run a small, clean service than let one person’s behavior turn it into someone else’s enforcement headline.

Your Content

You keep ownership of the content you create or upload (messages, files, media, and so on). I don’t claim ownership of it.

By posting content, you grant me a limited license to store, process, and display that content only as needed to operate the service - for example, delivering your messages to the channels and people you send them to, and keeping them available to you and other members of those spaces.

You’re responsible for the content you post. Only post content you have the right to share, and don’t post anything that violates the Acceptable Use rules above.

Content Moderation

I reserve the right (but am under no obligation) to:

Remove or restrict content that violates these terms or applicable law
Suspend or ban accounts
Cooperate with valid legal requests

I’m one person running a personal compute lab, not a 24/7 trust-and-safety team. Moderation is best-effort. If you see something that breaks these rules, report it (see Contact) and I’ll deal with it when I can.

I may also appoint authorized representatives (moderators) to help enforce these rules. They can act on my behalf - removing content, issuing warnings, and suspending or banning accounts. That said, make no mistake about how this place is governed: this service is a benevolent dictatorship, and I am the supreme authority. My decision is final, I can overrule any moderator, and I reserve the right to change the rules as I see fit. There is no appeals court above me - I am the court (until a government gets involved, at which point they outrank me).

Community (Guild) Rules

On Fluxer, guild owners and their appointed staff have every right to set and enforce their own rules within their respective communities. You’re free to run your guild how you see fit - your house, your rules.

That freedom has two hard limits: a guild’s rules may not override or contradict these Terms of Service, and they may not permit anything that violates applicable law. A community rule can be stricter than mine, but never more permissive. If a guild’s rules or conduct conflict with these terms or the law, my terms win - and I retain the authority described in Content Moderation to step in, remove content, or remove the guild entirely.

Copyright and DMCA

Even though this is a self-hosted, hobbyist platform, copyright law still applies - including the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Don’t upload, share, or distribute content you don’t have the right to.

If you believe content on my instance infringes your copyright, send me a notice (see Contact) that includes:

Identification of the copyrighted work you say is infringed
Identification of the infringing material and where to find it on the service
Your contact information
A statement that you have a good-faith belief the use isn’t authorized
A statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information is accurate and that you’re the rights holder or authorized to act on their behalf

I’ll review valid notices and remove or disable access to infringing material. Repeat infringers will have their accounts terminated.

Designated agent. Send DMCA notices to my designated agent through the Contact details below. To keep this legitimate rather than decorative, that agent is registered with the U.S. Copyright Office’s DMCA Designated Agent Directory - that registration is what actually lets a service like mine claim the Section 512 safe harbour, so I keep it current.

Counter-notifications. If I remove something of yours and you believe it was a mistake or a misidentification, you can send a counter-notice. Include:

Identification of the material that was removed, and where it used to live on the service
Your contact information
A statement, under penalty of perjury, that you have a good-faith belief the material was removed as a result of mistake or misidentification
A statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the federal court for the district where you live (or, if you’re outside the US, the district where I host - Washington State), and that you’ll accept service of process from whoever filed the original notice

If I receive a valid counter-notice, I may restore the material in 10-14 business days, unless the original complainant tells me they’ve filed a court action to keep it down. I’m a personal compute lab operator following the process the DMCA lays out, not a judge of who’s right.

Service Availability

Let’s be honest - this is a personal compute lab. Services are provided “as is” and “as available” with no guarantee of uptime, performance, or data durability.

I may change, suspend, or shut down any service at any time, with or without notice
Maintenance, outages, kernel panics, power bills, and the occasional act of God happen
Back up anything you care about. Do not rely on my infrastructure as the only copy of important data

Donations

I may accept voluntary, recurring or one-time donations to help offset the cost of running this service (power, hardware, bandwidth - the personal compute lab tax).

Donations are exactly that: gifts, given freely to support the project. To be clear:

A donation does not buy a product, service, subscription, or any guarantee - including no guarantee of uptime, support, features, priority, account retention, or that the service will continue to exist
Donating gives you no special rights over the service, other users, or how I run things
Everything in the Service Availability, Disclaimers, and Limitation of Liability sections still applies to you exactly the same whether you donate or not
Donations are generally non-refundable, though if you cancel a recurring donation it simply stops future charges

If you ever feel a donation entitles you to something specific, please don’t donate. Support the project because you want it to keep running, not because you expect anything in return.

Termination

You can stop using the services at any time and request deletion of your account and data (see the Privacy Policy).

I may suspend or terminate your access at any time if you violate these terms, if your use threatens the service or other users, or if I simply decide to wind a service down. Where reasonable and practical, I’ll try to give notice - but I’m not obligated to.

Disclaimers

The services are provided without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. I don’t warrant that the services will be uninterrupted, secure, error-free, or that data won’t be lost.

Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent allowed by law, I am not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for any loss of data, profits, or goodwill, arising out of your use of (or inability to use) the services. This is a free personal compute lab service offered in good faith - use it at your own risk.

Governing Law and Your Responsibility

At this time, this service is hosted in the United States, Washington State, and operates under the laws applicable there.

You are responsible for understanding and adhering to the laws and regulations of your own region. Whatever is legal where I host the service does not override your obligations where you are - that’s on you, not me.

Anyone who intentionally performs actions that could lead to, or do lead to, government or law-enforcement intervention - against me, the service, or other users - is in breach of these terms and of their own responsibility under this agreement. That includes deliberately using the service to break the law in your jurisdiction or anyone else’s. I will treat such conduct as a serious violation and may suspend access and cooperate with any valid legal process.

Information for Law Enforcement and Regulators

I operate this service in good faith and intend to comply with valid legal process issued under the laws of the United States and Washington State.

For legal requests (subpoenas, court orders, preservation requests, or regulatory inquiries), please reach me through the Contact details below. A real human will read it.
Please understand the scale of what you’re dealing with: this is a single-operator personal compute lab, not a corporation with a legal department. I will respond as promptly as I reasonably can, but please allow reasonable time.
I collect and retain only minimal data, as described in my Privacy Policy. I cannot produce information I never collected or no longer hold.
I will honor lawful requests that are valid and properly scoped, and I’ll push back on those that aren’t - through proper channels, not by ignoring them.

If you’re a regulator with a concern about how this service operates, I’d genuinely rather hear from you and fix it than end up in a standoff. Reach out.

Civil Matters and Disputes Between Users

Sometimes the issue isn’t criminal or regulatory - it’s a civil dispute (a disagreement, a defamation claim, a contract or harassment matter, and so on). A few things to set expectations:

Disputes between users are between those users. I am not a party to them, not a judge, and not a mediator. If you have a civil grievance with another user, resolve it directly or through the proper legal channels - not by demanding I take sides.
I’m not liable for user conduct or content. As stated in the Disclaimers and Limitation of Liability sections, I provide the platform; I don’t author or endorse what users say or do on it.
Civil legal process (civil subpoenas, discovery requests, court orders, or preservation demands) should come through the Contact channel below, the same as any other legal request. I’ll respond to valid, properly-scoped process and push back on the rest through proper channels.
I can only provide what I actually have. Per my Privacy Policy, I retain minimal data. I cannot hand over information I never collected or no longer hold, and I won’t fabricate or reconstruct it.
Where I’m lawfully permitted to do so, I’ll try to notify an affected user before disclosing their information in response to a civil request, so they have a chance to respond.

In short: I’ll cooperate with legitimate civil process, but I’m not your investigator, your evidence locker, or your enforcement arm against another user.

This is a free, non-commercial personal compute lab operated from the United States. It is not aimed at, marketed to, or tailored for the EU or EEA, I don’t hold myself out as offering services to people there, and English-only is part of how you can tell. I have not appointed an EU representative, and I don’t run the formal GDPR machinery - statutory response deadlines, records-of-processing paperwork, an Article 27 rep, and the rest.

What I do run is the spirit of the thing whether the law reaches me or not: I collect minimal data and I honour deletion requests. The details are in my Privacy Policy.

If that’s enough for you, welcome aboard. If you’re in the EU/EEA and you need a formally GDPR-compliant service - with all the statutory rights and guarantees that brings - this isn’t it, and you should use one that is. I’d rather tell you that up front than pretend otherwise.

Language

This service is run by one person who speaks English, so everything here - the service, these terms, and any support - is in English. I’m not translating it, and I’m not standing up French support to satisfy a particular region’s rules. Need it in another language? That’s on you to arrange.

Yes, I know about Quebec. Its Charter of the French Language (Bill 96) does impose real French-language obligations - and it would dearly love to treat a terms-of-service document exactly like this one as something a bare “English governs” clause can’t save. Happily, those obligations bind businesses with a Quebec establishment chasing the Quebec market, not a free personal compute lab in Washington State whose only dealings with Quebec are making fun of a friend who lives there.

English is the authoritative version. If a translation conflicts with the English text, the English text wins.

Privacy

Your use of the services is also covered by my Privacy Policy, which explains what minimal data I collect and how it’s handled.

Changes to These Terms

I may update these terms from time to time. Any changes will be posted on this page with an updated “Last Updated” date. Continuing to use the services after changes means you accept the updated terms.

Contact

If you have questions about these terms, want to report abuse, or need to reach me:

Email: [email protected] - general questions, support, abuse reports, and legal requests (law enforcement, civil process, DMCA)

These terms apply to all services offered by The Fat Hacker.

Disclaimer, as ever: these terms were written with the help of Claude Opus, and as ever I’ve read and approved every word. I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, and it’s a plain-language description of how a personal compute lab operates - not an airtight legal contract. If you need the real thing, go pay someone who passed the bar.