Terms of Use

Effective Date: August 24, 2026
Last Updated: August 24, 2026

These Terms of Use (“Terms”) are a binding agreement between you and Colin Patrick, an individual operating under the name KryptosBot (“KryptosBot,” “we,” “us,” or “our”).

These Terms govern your access to and use of kryptosbot.com, including its subdomains, pages, databases, research materials, archives, software tools, application programming interfaces, submission forms, status pages, and related services collectively referred to as the “Site.”

1. Agreement to These Terms

By accessing, browsing, or using any part of the Site, submitting material through the Site, or clicking a button or checkbox indicating acceptance, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these Terms.

When the Site presents an “I agree,” submission, or similar electronic acceptance mechanism, your use of that mechanism constitutes your electronic signature and affirmative acceptance of these Terms.

If you use the Site on behalf of an organization or another person, you represent and warrant that you have authority to bind that organization or person to these Terms. In that situation, “you” includes both you and the organization or person you represent.

If you do not agree to these Terms, do not access or use the Site and do not submit material to it.

2. Eligibility

The Site is not directed to children under 13 years of age.

You may use the Site only if you are at least 13 years old; are legally capable of entering into these Terms, or your parent or legal guardian has reviewed and agreed to them on your behalf; are not prohibited from using the Site under applicable law; and your use complies with all applicable laws, regulations, and legal obligations.

You may make a Submission only if you are at least 18 years old or your parent or legal guardian has reviewed and accepted these Terms and authorized the Submission.

3. Nature and Independence of the Site

KryptosBot is an independent research and educational project focused on Kryptos, Kryptos K4, classical cryptography, cryptanalysis, historical research, and related subjects. The Site documents theories, experiments, exclusions, methodologies, source materials, software, and research findings, and may provide tools for exploring cryptographic methods or submitting theories for possible review.

The Site is not affiliated with, operated by, endorsed by, sponsored by, or acting on behalf of the Central Intelligence Agency; Jim Sanborn; Ed Scheidt; the Smithsonian Institution; the Archives of American Art; Paradigm Operations LP; any owner, purchaser, keeper, or verifier of the official Kryptos solution; or any other person or organization associated with Kryptos unless expressly stated in writing.

The Site does not claim to possess the official sealed K4 solution, official verification authority, confidential inside information, or any legal authority to determine who solved Kryptos. References to third parties are made for identification, research, criticism, commentary, education, reporting, or historical context and do not imply affiliation, sponsorship, endorsement, authorization, or approval.

4. Limited License and Permitted Use

Subject to these Terms, KryptosBot grants you a limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable, and non-sublicensable license to access and use the publicly available portions of the Site for lawful personal, educational, journalistic, scholarly, or research purposes.

You may link to publicly available Site pages; cite the Site in research, reporting, or commentary; quote limited portions of our original written content where permitted by law; and use separately licensed open-source code in accordance with the license accompanying that code. You must not falsely imply that KryptosBot endorses, validates, sponsors, or authored your work.

Nothing in these Terms restricts rights that you independently possess under applicable law, including fair use, public-domain rights, or rights granted under an applicable open-source license. No license granted under these Terms gives you any rights in third-party material displayed or referenced by the Site.

5. Prohibited Conduct

You agree not to do, attempt, assist, encourage, or permit any of the following:

1. Use the Site in violation of applicable law, regulation, court order, export-control rule, sanctions restriction, or third-party legal right.
2. Access or attempt to access any server, account, administrative function, credential, system, database, file, endpoint, or portion of the Site that you are not authorized to access.
3. Probe, scan, penetrate, test, exploit, or attempt to identify vulnerabilities in the Site or its infrastructure without our prior written authorization.
4. Circumvent authentication, rate limits, robots directives, access controls, security controls, geographic restrictions, or other technical protections.
5. Interfere with or disrupt the Site, its infrastructure, its service providers, or another user’s access, including through denial-of-service activity, abusive request volumes, resource exhaustion, or malformed traffic.
6. Use bots, crawlers, scrapers, automated browsers, scripts, or other automated means to systematically extract Site content or data, except for ordinary indexing by generally recognized search engines that comply with applicable robots directives or automation expressly authorized by us.
7. Harvest private status links, submission tokens, contact information, personal information, credentials, or other data from the Site.
8. Upload, submit, transmit, introduce, or attempt to introduce malware, ransomware, spyware, malicious code, destructive instructions, fraudulent links, or other harmful material.
9. Impersonate another person or organization, falsely state your identity or authority, or misrepresent your relationship with KryptosBot or any Kryptos-related person or organization.
10. Represent any theory, result, classification, elimination, score, or output as officially verified, endorsed, accepted, or adopted by KryptosBot or a third party when it has not been.
11. Copy, reproduce, republish, sell, license, commercially exploit, or systematically appropriate substantial portions of the Site’s original content, selection, arrangement, or database value except as permitted by law or an applicable written license.
12. Remove, obscure, or alter copyright, attribution, trademark, authorship, provenance, or legal notices.
13. Submit material that is unlawful, defamatory, threatening, harassing, fraudulent, deceptive, infringing, confidential, classified, export-controlled, privacy-invasive, or otherwise prohibited by these Terms.
14. Submit personal data about another person without lawful authority and any required consent.
15. Use the Site or its outputs to facilitate unlawful conduct, unauthorized access, fraud, deception, harassment, or infringement.
16. Use the Site in a manner that creates unreasonable legal, technical, operational, reputational, or security risk for KryptosBot or another person.

We may investigate suspected violations and may preserve or disclose information where reasonably necessary to protect the Site, enforce these Terms, comply with law, or respond to valid legal process.

6. Research Nature, Accuracy, and No Professional Advice

Kryptos K4 is an unresolved cryptographic and historical problem. The Site’s content may include hypotheses, experimental findings, negative results, statistical inferences, machine-generated analyses, incomplete data, historical interpretations, and unresolved questions.

Although we attempt to use rigorous and reproducible methods, the Site may contain factual errors, coding defects, mathematical mistakes, incomplete or stale information, methodological limitations, incorrect assumptions, misleading scores, transcription errors, inaccurate historical interpretations, false positives or false negatives, third-party data errors, or conclusions that are later narrowed, corrected, superseded, or withdrawn.

You must independently evaluate and verify Site content before relying on it. Nothing on the Site constitutes legal advice, intellectual-property advice, investment advice, valuation advice, archival authentication, professional cryptographic certification, security advice, or a representation that any theory is correct, novel, valuable, protectable, compensable, or connected to the official K4 solution.

We do not warrant or represent that any theory is correct or novel; any test conclusively excludes a method under every possible implementation; any output will be reproducible in another environment; any submission will be reviewed or tested; any theory will be recognized by Jim Sanborn or another verifier; any person will receive credit, compensation, a prize, or commercial value; any result corresponds to the official K4 solution; or continued use of the Site will produce a solution.

You assume all risk associated with relying on, executing, adapting, or distributing Site content, code, tools, or outputs.

7. User Submissions

7.1 Definition

“Submission” means any theory, proposed solution, comment, correction, report, suggestion, code, algorithm, formula, image, document, link, name, handle, attribution request, metadata, or other material that you transmit or make available to KryptosBot through the Site, email, GitHub, or another submission channel.

7.2 Ownership

As between you and KryptosBot, you retain whatever copyright or other rights you lawfully possess in the original expression contained in your Submission. Submitting material does not transfer ownership of your copyright to KryptosBot; it grants us the license described below. You acknowledge that copyright generally does not protect facts, ideas, systems, methods, mathematical concepts, algorithms as such, historical discoveries, or other unprotectable subject matter.

7.3 License Granted to KryptosBot

By making a Submission, you grant KryptosBot and its successors and assigns a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable to the maximum extent permitted by law, royalty-free, fully paid-up, transferable, and sublicensable license to host, cache, store, preserve, reproduce, copy, convert, adapt, modify, translate, format, excerpt, summarize, annotate, analyze, classify, test, validate, reject, compare, combine with other material, create derivative works from, publish, publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, distribute, make available, and otherwise use your Submission, in whole or in part, in any media or technology now known or later developed.

This license permits use of the Submission for operating, securing, maintaining, and administering the Site; evaluating, testing, and documenting theories; developing or improving research methods, databases, classifiers, tools, and software; preparing research reports, findings, articles, visualizations, or database entries; comparing, discussing, responding to, preserving, attributing, promoting, and making research available; and monetizing or supporting the Site, including through advertising, sponsorships, donations, or other revenue sources.

The license applies whether the Submission is published alone, edited, summarized, paraphrased, combined with other material, or used only internally. We may sublicense or disclose it to contractors, collaborators, and service providers where reasonably necessary. To the extent permitted by law, you waive and agree not to assert moral rights, rights of integrity, or similar rights that would prevent our exercise of this license. If you provide a name, pseudonym, username, or handle, you grant us permission to use it in connection with attribution, discussion, publication, and promotion. This license survives removal of the Submission, discontinuation of the Site, termination of your access, and termination of these Terms.

7.4 Automated and Third-Party Processing

Submissions may be automatically compared with existing databases; classified or summarized by software; processed by artificial-intelligence or machine-learning systems; reviewed by human researchers; transmitted to cloud or infrastructure providers; stored in logs or backups; and tested using automated cryptanalytic software. Automated outputs may be inaccurate. A response generated by the Site does not constitute acceptance, validation, rejection, publication, or official verification of a theory. Do not make a Submission if you object to this processing.

7.5 Your Representations and Warranties

For every Submission, you represent and warrant that you have the legal right and authority to make the Submission and grant this license; the material is original or lawfully submitted; the Submission and our permitted use will not infringe, misappropriate, or violate third-party rights; it contains no classified information, controlled unclassified information, export-controlled technical data, unlawfully obtained material, trade secrets, credentials, private keys, or information subject to a nondisclosure or confidentiality obligation; it is not defamatory, fraudulent, knowingly false, deceptive, threatening, harassing, obscene, unlawful, malware, destructive code, unauthorized access instructions, or harmful functionality; any third-party personal information was lawfully obtained and submitted; accompanying factual representations are accurate and not materially misleading to your knowledge; and no agreement, duty, or obligation prevents you from granting these rights.

7.6 No Confidential or Fiduciary Relationship

Submissions are unsolicited and are not confidential. Do not submit trade secrets; confidential business information; classified or restricted government information; privileged communications; unpublished material you are obligated to protect; personally sensitive information; or anything you expect us to keep confidential. A Submission does not create an attorney-client, fiduciary, joint venture, partnership, agency, employment, research-participant, escrow, or confidential relationship. If you believe information has commercial value, must remain confidential, or should be subject to compensation or a nondisclosure agreement, do not submit it through the Site. A different arrangement must be in a separate written agreement signed by Colin Patrick.

7.7 Editorial Control and No Obligation to Act

We have sole editorial and operational discretion concerning Submissions. We may, but are not required to, receive, retain, review, test, respond to, provide a status update for, publish, attribute, correct, preserve, remove, restore, or otherwise act on a Submission. We may edit, summarize, paraphrase, categorize, combine, reject, delete, or decline to publish without notice. You are responsible for retaining your own copy; we are not a backup, archive, escrow service, or proof-of-priority service.

7.8 Attribution

If you provide a name or handle and we determine in good faith that your Submission materially contributed to a published result, database entry, or acknowledged breakthrough, we will use reasonable efforts to provide appropriate editorial attribution. Attribution is subject to reasonable editorial judgment and does not guarantee wording, prominence, permanence, search visibility, placement, damages, compensation, ownership, revenue sharing, or control of Site content.

7.9 No Compensation, Prize, or Ownership Interest

Making a Submission does not entitle you to payment, a bounty, prize money, advertising, donation, sponsorship, or licensing revenue, a finder’s fee, royalties, ownership of the Site or its research, equity, joint authorship, control over publication, ownership of independently produced results, a share of proceeds from any sale or verification of a solution, or compensation from KryptosBot or any third party. This applies even if your Submission contributes to, resembles, or constitutes a correct or commercially valuable solution. No compensation or revenue-sharing obligation exists without a separate written agreement signed by Colin Patrick.

7.10 Submission Status Links

A private submission-status link or token is a bearer credential. Anyone possessing it may be able to view the associated status information. You are responsible for protecting it. We do not guarantee that it will remain secret, available, recoverable, or functional. A private status link is not an account, confidential repository, timestamping service, proof of authorship, or guarantee of anonymity.

7.11 Submission Release

To the maximum extent permitted by law, you release KryptosBot and the Indemnified Parties defined below from claims arising from our exercise of the submission license; publication, editing, summarization, attribution, rejection, or removal of a Submission; loss or corruption; failure to review, test, respond to, or preserve it; similarities with independently received or developed material; or monetization on a page containing or discussing it. This release does not apply to liability that cannot lawfully be released.

8. Intellectual Property and Open-Source Software

8.1 KryptosBot Content

As between you and KryptosBot, Colin Patrick owns or controls the Site’s original copyrightable and proprietary elements, including original written content, graphics and visualizations, page design and layout, software and code, database structure, compilations, selection, coordination, arrangement of materials, research reports, and the KryptosBot name, branding, and logos. All rights not expressly granted are reserved.

8.2 Matters Not Claimed by KryptosBot

Nothing in these Terms claims ownership of Kryptos or other artwork created by Jim Sanborn; third-party photographs, documents, quotations, publications, logos, or trademarks; public-domain material; facts or historical events; abstract ideas; mathematical methods; cryptographic systems or techniques as such; algorithms as such; unprotectable discoveries; third-party submissions except for the license granted here; or material governed by a separate open-source license.

8.3 Open-Source Code

Code made available through GitHub or another repository is governed by the license accompanying that code. If these Terms conflict with the applicable repository license concerning use of that code, the repository license controls for the code itself. These Terms continue to govern your use of the Site, Site services, non-code content, and Submissions.

9. Third-Party Materials and Kryptos-Related Content

The Site may reproduce or display limited third-party materials, including photographs, scans, archival excerpts, quotations, artwork details, trademarks, correspondence, publications, and historical documents, for criticism, commentary, scholarship, research, education, historical analysis, identification, reporting, or discussion of Kryptos and cryptanalysis.

Rights in third-party materials remain with their respective owners. KryptosBot does not claim ownership merely by displaying, describing, indexing, annotating, or discussing such material. Inclusion does not mean the rights holder endorses KryptosBot; KryptosBot has received a blanket license; every reuse is lawful; the material is public domain; or you have permission to reuse it. You are solely responsible for determining whether your own use is lawful. The Site does not claim to possess and does not knowingly intend to disclose the official sealed K4 solution or unlawfully obtained nonpublic confidential information.

10. Copyright Complaints

We respect intellectual-property rights and will review sufficiently detailed copyright complaints. A copyright owner or authorized agent may send a written notice to contact@kryptosbot.com.

A notice should include: a physical or electronic signature of the owner or authorized agent; identification of the copyrighted work; identification and location of the claimed infringing material, including the Site URL where possible; the complainant’s name, mailing address, telephone number, and email address; a good-faith statement that the use is not authorized; and a statement under penalty of perjury that the information is accurate and the complainant is authorized.

We may request information, forward notices, remove, disable, restore, preserve records, or take other action we consider appropriate. We may restrict or terminate access by repeat infringers. A knowingly false or materially misleading copyright notice or counter-notice may result in legal liability. Our actions do not constitute an admission concerning ownership, infringement, fair use, liability, or any statutory safe harbor.

11. Third-Party Services and Links

The Site may use, integrate with, or link to third-party services, including GitHub; cloud-hosting and content-delivery providers; artificial-intelligence, analytics, advertising, payment, donation, and infrastructure providers; archival institutions; museums; repositories; publications; and external research tools.

Third-party services are controlled by their respective operators and may be governed by separate terms and privacy policies. We do not control and are not responsible for their content, availability, accuracy, security, privacy practices, data processing, conduct, policies, or continued operation. A link, reference, integration, or technical dependency does not constitute endorsement. You use third-party services at your own risk.

12. Privacy, Technical Logs, and Security

Use of the Site may generate routine technical records, including Internet Protocol addresses, user-agent information, browser and operating-system information, timestamps, requested and referring URLs, HTTP status codes, request volume, security-event information, cookies or similar identifiers where implemented, and submission-related technical metadata. A Submission may include submitted text, a status token, timestamps, processing results, classifications, and operational metadata.

We may process this information to operate the Site, deliver requested functions, prevent abuse, detect security threats, troubleshoot, maintain logs, measure traffic, improve performance, enforce these Terms, comply with law, and establish, exercise, or defend legal rights. Any posted Privacy Policy is incorporated into these Terms for personal-information practices; where it directly conflicts with these Terms, the Privacy Policy controls for that issue.

The Site may be hosted or processed by service providers in the United States or other jurisdictions. No Internet transmission or storage system is completely secure. We do not guarantee that communications, Submissions, logs, or status links will be confidential, anonymous, uninterrupted, or immune from unauthorized access. Do not submit sensitive personal information unless it is strictly necessary and you have a lawful basis to do so.

13. Site Changes, Availability, and Termination

We may at any time and without liability add, remove, modify, suspend, restrict, rate-limit, or discontinue Site features or content; change software or infrastructure; block an address, device, network, request pattern, or user; suspend submissions; invalidate status links; change availability or access requirements; correct or withdraw research findings; or discontinue the Site entirely.

We do not guarantee uptime, retention, response time, storage, functionality, or continued availability. We may suspend or terminate your access if we believe that you violated these Terms; created legal, security, operational, or reputational risk; interfered with the Site; submitted prohibited material; or used the Site in an abusive, unlawful, deceptive, or disruptive manner.

Termination does not affect rights or obligations that arose before termination. Sections concerning Submissions, intellectual property, disclaimers, limitation of liability, releases, indemnification, governing law, and miscellaneous provisions survive termination.

14. Disclaimer of Warranties

No oral or written statement creates a warranty unless expressly included in a separate written agreement signed by Colin Patrick. Some jurisdictions do not permit exclusion of certain warranties; in those jurisdictions, exclusions apply only to the maximum extent permitted by law.

15. Limitation of Liability

This includes loss of profits or revenue, data, a Submission, business or opportunity, goodwill or reputation, expected credit or recognition, prize or licensing opportunities, reliance on inaccurate research, unauthorized access, security incidents, service interruptions, third-party conduct, copyright or attribution disputes, use of Site code, inability to access the Site, or a theory’s rejection, publication, nonpublication, or alleged loss of value. These limitations apply regardless of legal theory and even if an Indemnified Party was advised that damages were possible.

The limitations apply collectively to all claims, will not be enlarged by multiple incidents, theories, parties, or forms of relief, and apply even if a limited remedy fails of its essential purpose. Nothing excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited.

16. Defense and Indemnification

16.1 Indemnified Parties

“Indemnified Parties” means Colin Patrick; KryptosBot; their current and former contributors, collaborators, volunteers, contractors, licensors, and service providers; hosting, cloud-computing, content-delivery, security, analytics, artificial-intelligence, and infrastructure providers acting in connection with the Site; their successors and assigns; and their agents, representatives, officers, directors, employees, and personnel, where applicable.

16.2 Your Duty to Defend, Indemnify, and Hold Harmless

This includes reasonable attorneys’ fees, expert-witness fees, court and filing costs, investigation, evidence-preservation, forensic, takedown, response, remediation, public-relations, crisis-response, settlement, and enforcement costs. It covers matters arising out of your access to, use of, misuse of, or attempted use of the Site; your Submission or our exercise of its license; alleged infringement or other third-party-right violations; your breach of these Terms or a representation or obligation; violation of law; prohibited submissions; malware, security incidents, unauthorized access, excessive automation, disruption, or damage caused or facilitated by you; disputes with third parties; your negligent, reckless, intentional, fraudulent, or unlawful conduct; your use or representation of Site materials; and claims for payment, credit, ownership, confidentiality, or revenue sharing based on a Submission or Site use.

16.3 Control of the Defense

Your duty to defend begins when an Indemnified Party tenders a covered claim or matter to you. At our election, we may require you to conduct the defense using counsel reasonably acceptable to us or assume exclusive control using counsel of our choice. If we assume control, you remain responsible for covered costs and amounts. You must cooperate and preserve and produce relevant evidence, documents, communications, credentials, and information. You may not admit liability, compromise, or settle without our prior written consent. We may refuse settlements that require an admission, impose a nonmonetary obligation, lack a complete release, or are materially adverse. You must reimburse covered costs promptly upon written demand.

16.4 Limited Exception

This section does not require indemnification to the extent a final, non-appealable judgment determines that particular liability resulted solely from an Indemnified Party’s gross negligence or willful misconduct and applicable law prohibits indemnification for that conduct. Your obligations otherwise remain in effect to the maximum extent permitted by law.

16.5 Survival and Beneficiaries

Your defense and indemnification obligations survive termination of these Terms and discontinuation of the Site. Each Indemnified Party is an intended third-party beneficiary of this section and may enforce it directly.

17. Governing Law and Exclusive Venue

These Terms and any dispute arising out of or relating to the Site, a Submission, or these Terms are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, without regard to conflict-of-law principles, except where controlling federal law applies.

Subject to any non-waivable legal requirement, any action or proceeding must be brought exclusively in the state courts of competent jurisdiction located in Jefferson County, Kentucky, or the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky, Louisville Division. You irrevocably consent to personal jurisdiction and waive, to the maximum extent permitted by law, objections based on venue, inconvenient forum, or lack of personal jurisdiction.

KryptosBot may seek temporary, emergency, or preliminary injunctive relief in any court with jurisdiction where reasonably necessary to prevent unauthorized access, infringement, misuse of the Site, destruction of evidence, or immediate irreparable harm, pending resolution in the designated forum.

18. Changes to These Terms

We may revise these Terms by posting an updated version on the Site and changing the “Last Updated” date. Unless otherwise stated, revised Terms apply prospectively beginning on the posted effective date. Your continued use after that effective date constitutes acceptance; we may require affirmative reacceptance for particular functions.

For a Submission made through an affirmative acceptance mechanism, the version accepted when the Submission was made will govern the license granted for that Submission, together with any later terms you affirmatively accept. No revision will revoke rights already validly granted to KryptosBot under an earlier version unless we expressly agree in writing.

19. Miscellaneous

Entire Agreement

These Terms, together with any Privacy Policy, submission notice, or additional terms expressly incorporated by reference, constitute the entire agreement between you and KryptosBot concerning the Site. They supersede prior or contemporaneous communications concerning the same subject, except for a separate written agreement signed by Colin Patrick.

Severability and Reformation

If any provision is found invalid, unlawful, or unenforceable, it will be enforced to the maximum extent permitted and modified only to the minimum extent necessary to make it enforceable. The remaining provisions remain in full force.

No Waiver

Failure or delay in enforcing a provision is not a waiver. A waiver is effective only if in writing and signed by Colin Patrick.

Assignment

You may not assign or transfer these Terms or any rights under them without our prior written consent. We may assign or transfer these Terms in connection with a transfer, sale, reorganization, succession, or continued operation of the Site.

No Agency or Partnership

These Terms do not create a partnership, joint venture, agency, franchise, employment, fiduciary, or similar relationship.

Force Majeure

We are not responsible for delay, interruption, loss, or failure caused by circumstances beyond our reasonable control, including Internet failures, hosting failures, utility failures, cyberattacks, natural disasters, government action, labor disputes, equipment failure, or third-party service disruption.

No Third-Party Beneficiaries

Except for the Indemnified Parties expressly identified in Section 16, these Terms do not create rights in third-party beneficiaries.

Interpretation

Headings are provided for convenience and do not limit interpretation. “Including” means “including without limitation.” Words in the singular include the plural and vice versa where appropriate.

Electronic Communications

You consent to receive legally relevant communications electronically through the Site, an email address you provide, a status page, or a posted Site notice where permitted by law.

20. Contact

Questions concerning these Terms, legal notices, or Site operations may be sent to:

Copyright complaints should comply with Section 10.