Aerye Terms of Service

1. What Aerye Is

Aerye is a cybersecurity news aggregator, advisory tracker, and security-education platform. It aggregates headlines from public sources, presents government security advisories, offers educational games, labs, and learning content, and — for signed-in members — provides a community where users can post, comment, and discuss cybersecurity topics.

2. Awareness, Not Operational Guidance

Security information in Aerye — news, advisories, CVE data, threat intelligence summaries — is provided for situational awareness and education only. It is not professional security advice, and you should not rely on it as the sole basis for operational security decisions. Consult credentialed sources (vendor advisories, CISA, your security team) before acting. Data originates from third parties and may be incomplete, delayed, or inaccurate; we present it in good faith without warranty of accuracy. Market and stock information shown in Aerye is likewise informational only and is not investment, financial, or trading advice.

3. Third-Party Content

News headlines and summaries are aggregated from publishers’ public RSS feeds; every story links to and credits the original publisher, and the underlying articles remain the property of their respective owners. Where a publisher’s feed includes article imagery, Aerye displays that imagery by direct reference to the publisher’s own servers — it is not copied, hosted, or altered by Arcandel — and all images remain the property of the publisher or its licensors. Threat-activity indicators are aggregated from public threat-intelligence sources, including the Open Threat Exchange; market data is provided by Finnhub. U.S. Government data (CISA, NVD, FBI/IC3, FTC) consists of public-domain U.S. Government works. Material from non-U.S. government cybersecurity agencies — including the United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Centre and the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security — is likewise aggregated from their public feeds with attribution and a link back to the source, and remains subject to its own Crown-copyright or open-government licensing. Aerye’s presentation, design, and original content are © Arcandel, LLC. If you are a publisher or rights holder and want your feed removed, contact us and we will promptly comply.

4. Educational Content Is Simulated

Aerye’s games, labs, and training scenarios use entirely fictional data — fake companies, fake credentials, simulated terminals. They exist to teach defensive security skills. You agree not to use techniques learned in Aerye against systems you do not own or lack explicit authorization to test. Unauthorized access to computer systems is illegal in most jurisdictions.

5. Accounts

Accounts are optional. You are responsible for safeguarding your credentials and for activity under your account. Aerye is intended for adults: by accepting these Terms, you represent and warrant that you are at least 18 years of age. The Service is not directed to anyone under 18, and you may not use Aerye or create an account if you are under 18. We may suspend accounts that violate these Terms.

With an account, your progress — XP, levels, achievements, learning and game progress, saved items, and your Ciphers balance — is backed up to your account and restored when you sign in on another device. What we store, how it is protected, and how long we keep it is described in the Privacy Policy; deletion of inactive accounts is addressed in §13.

6. Usernames, Handles & Impersonation

When account and community features are available, you may reserve and use a unique handle (an “@name”) that identifies you in the app. Handles are licensed to you for use while your account remains in good standing; they are not sold to you, owned by you, or transferable, and Arcandel retains the right to manage the handle namespace.

This section addresses several distinct prohibited behaviors. We may enforce against any of them independently, based on the specific conduct involved.

Impersonation. You may not use a handle, display name, avatar, or profile to falsely present yourself as another person, creator, business, organization, or government agency, official, or public authority, or in any manner likely to deceive others about your identity or affiliation. Handles associated with public figures, content creators, brands, organizations, and government or law-enforcement entities may be reserved and protected, and are claimable only by the verified rightful owner.

Name squatting. You may not register or hold handles in bad faith. This includes, without limitation: (a) handles matching the names, brands, trademarks, or known identities of people, organizations, or government or public entities with which you have no genuine connection; (b) registering or holding handles primarily to sell, transfer, or ransom them to others; and (c) hoarding handles, or holding handles you do not actively use, in order to deprive others of them.

Offensive handles. You may not use a handle or display name that is hateful, harassing, or threatening. This includes, without limitation, names that promote, reference, or endorse racism, hate speech, slurs, or violence against — or the denigration of — any individual or group on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, or any other protected characteristic, as well as names that are sexually explicit or that harass or target others. We may block, reclaim, or rename such handles at any time, and may suspend or terminate accounts that use them.

What is permitted. Using a handle that is genuinely your own name, brand, or chosen identity in good faith is allowed — including common, clever, or desirable names. A handle is not a violation simply because others may want it. The violation is deception, trafficking, or bad-faith hoarding — never the name itself.

Enforcement. Where we determine, in our sole discretion, that a handle violates this section, we may take action proportionate to the conduct, including: reclaiming the handle or requiring you to rename it; temporarily suspending the account; or, for deliberate impersonation, trafficking, or repeat violations, permanently terminating the account. Except in cases of clear impersonation or abuse, we will generally provide notice and an opportunity to respond before reclaiming an active handle.

Inactive handles. To keep the namespace available to others, handles on accounts that remain inactive for an extended period may be reclaimed and released for reuse.

Reporting. If someone is impersonating you, or is holding a handle that reflects your name, brand, or trademark, contact legal@arcandel.com with details and proof of ownership. We will review and act where appropriate.

7. Community & User Content

Aerye includes a community where signed-in members can create posts and comments and join topic communities (“user content”). This section governs that content. It applies in addition to the handle rules in §6 and the acceptable-use rules in §9.

You are responsible for what you post. You are solely responsible for the user content you create and for the consequences of posting it. Only create content you have the right to share.

Ownership and the license you grant us. You keep ownership of your user content. By posting, you grant Arcandel a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable license to host, store, reproduce, adapt for display, publish, and distribute that content within the app and its services, for the purpose of operating, securing, and promoting the community. This license ends when you delete your content or your account, except for content others have already shared or copies retained for backup, legal, or safety purposes for a reasonable period.

Your content is public. Posts and comments you create are visible to other users of the app. Do not post anything you are not comfortable sharing, and do not post other people’s private or personal information.

Zero tolerance for objectionable content and abusive users. There is no tolerance for objectionable content or abusive behavior in Aerye. You may not post, link to, or share content that is, without limitation: hateful, harassing, threatening, or that promotes violence or the denigration of any individual or group on the basis of a protected characteristic; a slur or sexually explicit or pornographic material; content that sexualizes, exploits, or endangers minors (which we treat as an absolute prohibition and report to the appropriate authorities, including the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, as required by law); harassment, bullying, stalking, doxxing, or sharing of others’ private information; spam, scams, or deceptive solicitation; instructions or tools intended to attack, compromise, or gain unauthorized access to systems you do not own or are not authorized to test; or content that is otherwise illegal or that infringes another’s intellectual property or other rights. You also may not abuse the report or block tools, or evade enforcement (for example, by creating new accounts to continue prohibited behavior).

Moderation. We may, but are not obligated to, monitor user content. We use automated filtering and member reports, and we may remove or restrict any content, and warn, suspend, or permanently terminate the accounts of members who violate these Terms — at our discretion and, for serious or repeated violations or content that endangers others, without prior notice. We act on reports of objectionable content and remove violating content and eject violating users, and aim to do so promptly (generally within 24 hours of a report we are able to act on).

Reporting and blocking. You can report objectionable content and block other users from within the app. Reporting sends the content to us for review; blocking hides that user’s posts and comments from you. You can also report concerns to legal@arcandel.com.

Intellectual-property takedowns. If you believe content in the community infringes your copyright or trademark, send a notice with sufficient detail to identify the content and your rights to legal@arcandel.com, and we will review and act where appropriate.

8. Subscriptions & Purchases

Premium tiers and credit purchases are billed through Apple’s App Store under Apple’s payment terms. Subscriptions renew automatically unless cancelled in your App Store settings at least 24 hours before the period ends. Refunds are handled by Apple per their policies. Ciphers and virtual items have no cash value, are non-transferable, and may be modified for balance reasons. Core news and advisory features are free and are not paywalled.

9. Acceptable Use

You agree not to: abuse, overload, or attempt to breach the app or its backend; scrape or redistribute the app’s aggregated data at scale; manipulate aggregate signals (e.g., automated article-open events); misrepresent Aerye content as your own; post prohibited user content (§7); or use the app for unlawful purposes.

10. Intellectual Property

The Aerye name, design system, original artwork, educational scenarios, and software are owned by Arcandel, LLC and protected by copyright and trademark law. These Terms grant you a personal, non-transferable, revocable license to use the app; they transfer no ownership.

11. Disclaimers

THE APP IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE,” WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, ACCURACY, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE APP WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, ERROR-FREE, OR THAT SECURITY INFORMATION WILL BE COMPLETE OR CURRENT. WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR USER CONTENT CREATED BY OTHER MEMBERS.

12. Limitation of Liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, ARCANDEL’S TOTAL LIABILITY ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF THE APP SHALL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF (A) AMOUNTS YOU PAID TO ARCANDEL IN THE TWELVE MONTHS PRECEDING THE CLAIM OR (B) FIFTY US DOLLARS. WE ARE NOT LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, INCLUDING SECURITY INCIDENTS YOU EXPERIENCE REGARDLESS OF INFORMATION PRESENTED OR NOT PRESENTED IN THE APP, OR FOR USER CONTENT POSTED BY OTHER MEMBERS.

13. Termination

You may stop using Aerye at any time; deleting the app removes local data, and you may delete any account in Settings. We may suspend or terminate access for violations of these Terms.

Inactive accounts. To limit the data we retain, we may delete an account that remains inactive for an extended period and is not covered by an active subscription, together with its synced data, with advance notice to your account email where possible and a grace period before deletion. Active accounts, and accounts with an active subscription, are not deleted for inactivity. (Reclamation of an inactive handle is addressed separately in §6.)

14. Governing Law & Disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of New Jersey, USA, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Disputes will be resolved in the state or federal courts located in New Jersey, except either party may seek relief in small-claims court.

15. Changes

We may update these Terms; material changes will be announced in the app with an updated effective date. Continued use after changes take effect constitutes acceptance.

16. Contact

Arcandel, LLC — legal@arcandel.com