Legal Notes
Our Privacy Policy, in a nutshell: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto (Eric Hughes, 1993). Below, instead, the long version — the boring one, especially the part about subscriptions.
Welcome to the fine print. I hope this information helps you understand the rules for using SURVIVAL BOT; if you need further clarification, write to . This is your typical boring wall of text that no people — and no language model — would ever actually want to read, because we'd all have better things to do. And yet, as you can imagine, I particularly care that you read it, process it, and transform it appropriately: these verbal tokens contain information that might come in handy in the future, for any eventuality, especially should you ever have dealings with the Castle. These Terms define the ground rules of how we interact: what I can do with the material in the database, what I am (and am not) responsible for, and how this web app works.
SURVIVAL BOT is a game available at survivalbot.app, offered and managed by Will Barrent («I», «we»), reachable at the email address .
Each session is an anonymous chat of about five minutes between five participants: two people and three software agents based on LLMs or so-called «artificial intelligence» language models (the «bots»). The goal is to reach an agreement, blend in among the bots, identify the other person, and avoid being identified yourself. Loud and clear, right from the start: some of the people you talk to are NOT real people.
By using the site or the web app, or by clicking to accept, you implicitly accept these Terms. If you don't accept them, the simplest thing in the world is not to use the service.
You must be at least 18 years old to accept these Terms and create an account. By registering, you declare that you meet the required age.
To play, you register with a valid email address and a password. You must keep your account details safe: if you choose, or are provided with, a user ID or password as part of our security procedures, you must treat them as confidential and not disclose them to third parties. It may sound obvious, but it's better to put it in black and white, especially in a text as boring as this one. If you know or suspect that someone other than you knows your credentials, let me know promptly at the usual address. It is also your responsibility to ensure that anyone accessing the service through your internet connection knows and complies with these Terms. I reserve the right to disable any user ID or password, chosen by you or assigned by the system, at any time, if in my reasonable judgment you have failed to comply with any provision of these Terms.
Use the service fairly and for its intended purpose — playing. In particular, you agree not to: attempt to access areas or data not intended for you; bypass or sabotage security, game, or anti-abuse mechanisms; use automation to rig matchmaking, scores, or leaderboards; harass, threaten, or harm other people; upload unlawful content; interfere with the proper functioning of the web app or the LLMs that power it. In short: play as a cunning, camouflaged opponent, not as a party pooper.
You can report inappropriate behavior by other participants to the staff using the dedicated icon in chat: reports are reviewed and may lead, in my reasonable judgment, to measures such as warnings, temporary or permanent suspension of the account, up to removal. I reserve the right to take action against accounts that violate these Terms.
Three of the five participants in each session are software agents based on third-party language models (LLMs). Their messages are generated automatically and in real time from a game scenario and do not represent opinions, statements, or facts attributable to me, to Will Barrent, or to any real person. By their very nature, these models may produce statements that are inaccurate, implausible, out of place, biased, or simply bonkers: it's part of the game. I make no warranty as to the accuracy, appropriateness, or fitness for any purpose of the generated content, and to the maximum extent permitted by law I am not responsible for such content or for any decisions you might rashly make based on it. The LLMs are provided by third parties under their own terms of use, and sending game messages to such providers for processing is a necessary part of how the service works (see Privacy). If generated content appears unlawful, offensive, or harmful to you, report it to and I will intervene within reasonable limits. Finally, the golden rule of this web app applies: people blend in among the bots, while the bots just do their job — avoid falling into the trap of taking as gospel truth something said purely for fun.
You are responsible for what you write in chat. The messages you send during a session are shown to the other participants and transmitted to LLM providers for the game to function (see Privacy). Chats are ephemeral by nature, but may remain privately viewable in your personal history. Practical rule: don't write what you wouldn't want to have written.
Will Barrent is the original author of Survival Bot, the Turing game of social mimesis playable online within this web app, released under the natural-law license WTFPL. It is not the author's intention to commit crimes, such as pretending to restrict the use of other people's ideas by exercising improper forms of theft or control over actual property. What can you do with the contents of this web app? You can try to do better than Will Barrent, if you can. Good luck: I'm not sure you'll manage it.
The service is provided «as is» and «as available», without warranties of any kind. To the maximum extent permitted by law, I am not liable for damages arising from the use or inability to use the service, nor for content generated by the LLMs. Your country may have different laws regarding this service, and I cannot guarantee compliance with all of them. I may have to suspend your access or, in exceptional cases such as emergency maintenance, temporarily take the web app offline; where possible, I will try to notify you in advance. I may also update certain sections to balance the gameplay experience: these updates will not degrade performance, but they might cause slowdowns.
I may update these Terms (and the site, and the web app) at any time, to reflect legislative changes, better practices, or new features introduced without notice. I therefore invite everyone to consult them regularly — ideally first thing every morning as soon as you wake up. If I have your email address, I may notify you of the most significant changes. If you do not accept the updated Terms, I may not be able to continue providing you the service, or some features may become unavailable: I trust you'll come to terms with that. In that case, I invite you to stop using the service after the changes are published and to contact me to close your account.
These Terms are governed by Italian law. The protections provided by the law of your country of residence remain unaffected where they cannot be waived. These Terms and the Privacy Policy are drafted in Italian: the English version is a translation provided for convenience and, in the event of any discrepancy between the two versions, the Italian text prevails.
You can play Survival Bot FOR FREE until you run out of the internal credits granted as a welcome gift at registration and periodically every 30 days under the FREE plan. This is a conventional internal accounting: 1 internal credit allows you to start 1 room. Internal credits accumulate and never expire. Paid plans are available to obtain additional internal credits.
In addition to the free account, paid plans (BASE, PREMIUM) are available, entitling you to a periodic credit of more credits every 30 days in the amount shown on the «Plans» page. Current prices and quantities are those published on the «Plans» page at the time of purchase. Amounts are indicated in euros. The subscription renews automatically at expiry (monthly or annual) at the price then in effect, unless cancelled. The annual option works as a discounted advance payment and does not change the cap or the cadence of the credit (still every 30 days). The Owner may modify plans, caps, and prices with reasonable advance notice. Changes do not affect credits already credited and apply to subsequent renewals.
The user can cancel independently from the «Manage subscription» area (Stripe portal). Cancellation takes effect at the end of the period already paid: access to the plan continues until that date, after which the account reverts to free. Credits already credited remain available even after switching to the free plan.
For distance contracts, consumers generally have a 14-day right of withdrawal. Since this is a web app service (where credits are credited and usable immediately), the consumer, by expressly consenting to immediate performance, acknowledges losing the right of withdrawal once performance has begun, providing explicit consent at checkout.
Unless otherwise provided by law or as stated above regarding withdrawal, amounts already paid for started periods are non-refundable; credits already credited cannot be converted into money.
Payments are processed by Stripe via a hosted checkout page. The Owner does not collect or store card data. The user accepts the processor's terms for the payment-related part.
The web app provides a courtesy receipt (payment summary) with no fiscal value. Any fiscal invoice, if and to the extent due, is issued separately in accordance with applicable law.
Here's what data I process, why, with whom, for how long, and what rights you have — no beating around the bush. The less data I collect, the less I have to worry about: parsimony, here, is a virtue even before it's a policy.
The controller is Marco Gimmelli (via Aristotele 39, 20128 Milan, Italy), VAT no. it07940840965, reachable at (certified email: ).
• Email: the only personal data I ask for at registration; it's needed to authenticate you, verify your account, and send transactional emails (verification and password reset). • Password: stored only as a hash (Argon2id), never in plaintext. • Anti-replay identifier: an irreversible hash of your normalized email, used to avoid re-offering scenarios you've already played. • Technical data: IP address and the like, processed for security and to contain abuse (rate limits, Cloudflare Turnstile CAPTCHA). • Game chat content: the messages you write during a session. • Cookies: strictly necessary ones and, with your consent, functionality cookies (see the «Cookie Preferences» panel). I don't collect special categories of data and frankly I wouldn't know what to do with them.
• Providing the game, managing your account, and sending you transactional emails: performance of the contract. • Security, abuse prevention, and game integrity, including anti-replay: legitimate interest. • Remembering your interface preferences: consent (functionality cookies). I don't profile, I don't advertise, and I don't sell your data.
To make the service work, I rely on third-party providers acting as data processors: a language model provider (currently Anthropic), to which game messages are transmitted to generate the bots' replies and evaluate the outcome; an email provider (AWS SES) for transactional emails; Cloudflare (Turnstile) for anti-bot protection. Some of these providers may process data outside the European Union (e.g., in the USA): in that case, the transfer takes place on the basis of appropriate safeguards (standard contractual clauses and/or adequacy decisions). The messages sent to the LLM provider serve to provide the service, not to profile you or send you advertising. We like mimesis: always.
I keep your account data as long as you keep it active. When you delete your account, I anonymize your personal data (removing email, password, and tokens); however, a pseudonymous identifier (the hash of your email) and the match history in anonymized form remain indefinitely, for the sole purpose of preventing replays of the same scenarios and preserving leaderboard integrity — it's my legitimate interest, and I'm telling you clearly right here, without hiding it between the lines. Technical security logs are kept for the time necessary for those purposes.
Under the legal positivism currently in force, you have the right to access your data, rectify it, erase it, restrict or object to its processing, and to data portability, within the limits of the law. Account deletion and the reset of your statistics are available directly on the «Account» page; for everything else, write to .
The service is reserved for those aged 18 and over. I do not knowingly collect data from minors.
For details and to manage your choices, use the «Cookie Preferences» panel in the footer.
To activate and manage a subscription we unfortunately have to process: personal and billing data such as first name, last name, address, postal code, city, province, country, and tax code; account email; payment processor identifiers (opaque customer, subscription, and transaction IDs) and subscription status/expiry. We do not process payment card data, which is handled directly by external processors (sub-processors). The purposes and legal bases are the performance of the contract (Art. 6.1.b GDPR), i.e., activation, renewal, management, and cancellation of the subscription and the crediting of internal credits; and legal obligations (Art. 6.1.c GDPR), i.e., tax compliance, with the retention of data necessary for invoicing. Data and documents of fiscal relevance are kept for the period required by applicable law; billing personal data is kept for the time necessary to manage the relationship and comply with legal obligations; for everything else, the retention described in the service's general Privacy section applies. Account deletion cannot prejudice the retention of data that is legally required.
We share the minimum subscription data necessary with: • Stripe Payments Europe — for payment processing and subscription management (email, name, address, tax code); • AWS and AWS SES — for infrastructure and the sending of transactional service emails; • Cloudflare Turnstile — for anti-abuse and form protection; • Tax advisor — for legal compliance.
End of the boring text. If you've camouflaged yourself all the way down here by actually reading, I guess you deserve genuine congratulations and a pat on the back —