Terms of Service

1. Identification of the Trader

2. Operator

This Platform is operated by Terminal43 SRL, a company registered in Bucharest, Romania ("we", "us", "the Operator"). Contact: contact@terminal43.ro.

3. Acceptance

By creating an account on Terminal 43 System, you agree to these Terms of Service and our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the Platform.

4. Service & License

Terminal 43 System is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) educational platform. When you purchase a subscription or enroll in a course, you are purchasing access to the service, not the course content itself. Specifically:

• You receive a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to access and use the courses, lessons, challenges, and related materials solely through the Platform for your personal educational purposes.
• No ownership of any course content, challenge materials, or platform resources is transferred to you.
• Access to course content is provided only within the Platform. You may not download, copy, screenshot for redistribution, record, or otherwise extract course materials for use outside the Platform.
• Your access to a course depends on having an active subscription or valid enrollment. If your subscription expires or is terminated, your access to paid course content ends accordingly.
• We reserve the right to update, modify, or remove course content at any time to improve quality or accuracy.

4.1 Nature of the Offerings: Provision of Digital Services

All paid offerings on the Platform (including but not limited to courses, course modules, lessons, challenges, tasks, labs, learning paths, SSH and packet-capture environments, certificates, hint packs, and subscriptions of any kind) are supplied to You as digital services. They are not goods, not tangible products, and not downloadable digital content delivered on a tangible medium.

Consumption of any paid offering requires the active, continuous use of computational resources operated by Terminal43, including but not limited to sandboxed Docker containers, ephemeral SSH environments, packet-capture replay infrastructure, watcher scripts, automated grading systems, virtual terminals, real-time validators, scoring engines, and other server-side processing. Without such computational resources, the offerings cannot be consumed, executed, validated, or completed. The supply therefore falls within the scope of Directive (EU) 2019/770 on certain aspects concerning contracts for the supply of digital content and digital services, and Romanian Law no. 296/2004 (Codul consumului), as the supply of digital services.

Commencement of performance and waiver of the 14-day right of withdrawal. By purchasing, subscribing to, redeeming, or otherwise activating any paid offering, You expressly request and consent to Terminal43 commencing the provision of the service immediately upon successful payment and account access. You acknowledge that, in accordance with Article 16(m) of Directive 2011/83/EU on consumer rights (transposed into Romanian law as OUG no. 34/2014, art. 16 lit. (m)), the statutory 14-day right of withdrawal is irrevocably waived once the service has begun to be performed with Your prior express consent. Performance is deemed to have begun upon the earliest of: (i) the first launch of a challenge container or SSH/packet environment; (ii) the first submission of a flag, file, or answer for automated evaluation by a watcher; (iii) the first access to a paid course, lesson, or learning-path stage; (iv) the first redemption of any hint or benefit included in the offering; or (v) any other interaction that consumes Terminal43 computational resources associated with the offering. Until performance has begun, You retain the statutory withdrawal right and may exercise it by written notice to contact@terminal43.ro.

Pro-rata fee on termination after performance has begun. Where Romanian or Union law nonetheless grants You a right to terminate a partly-performed service contract, You shall pay Terminal43 an amount that is in proportion to what has already been provided to You up to the point at which You inform Us of the termination, calculated on the basis of the total contract price agreed.

Consumer rights for non-conforming services preserved. Nothing in this section limits Your statutory rights in case Terminal43 fails to provide a service that conforms to the agreed terms, including the right to seek remedy under Directive (EU) 2019/770 and Romanian implementing law.

5. Account Responsibilities

• You must provide accurate information when registering.
• You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your password.
• You must be at least 16 years of age to create an account.
• One account per person. Sharing accounts is prohibited.
• You must notify us immediately of any unauthorized use of your account.

6. Acceptable Use

You agree to use the Platform only for lawful educational purposes. You must NOT:

• Attempt to access or modify other users' accounts, data, or containers.
• Use challenge containers to attack systems outside the Platform.
• Share challenge solutions publicly in a way that undermines the learning experience.
• Attempt to bypass platform security, rate limits, or container isolation.
• Use automated tools to scrape content or submit answers.
• Upload malicious content or exploit platform vulnerabilities.
• Harass, impersonate, or abuse other users.

7. Challenge Containers

• Containers are provided for educational purposes only.
• Containers are temporary and expire automatically.
• You must not use containers for cryptocurrency mining, spam, DoS attacks, or any illegal activity.
• We may terminate containers at any time without notice.

8. Intellectual Property

8.1 Definition of Knowledge Content

For the purposes of these Terms, "Knowledge Content" means any educational, training, or skill-development material made available through, hosted on, or generated by the Platform, including without limitation: courses, modules, lessons, challenges, tasks, labs, exercises, learning paths, scenarios, simulations, datasets, packet captures, writeups, hints, model solutions, sample code, evaluation rubrics, grading criteria, watcher scripts, badges, achievements, certificates, leaderboard configurations, and any other text, code, audio, video, image, or interactive material intended to convey, test, or assess knowledge or skill.

8.2 Platform Knowledge Content

All Knowledge Content created, authored, designed, developed, commissioned, or licensed by Terminal43 ("Platform Knowledge Content"), together with the Platform software, infrastructure code, sandbox and spawner code, watcher framework, design system, logos, trademarks, trade names, and visual identity, is the exclusive intellectual property of Terminal43 SRL or its licensors and is protected by Romanian, Union, and international copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws.

Subject to Your continuing compliance with these Terms and payment of applicable fees, Terminal43 grants You a limited, worldwide, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, revocable license to access and use the Platform Knowledge Content solely for Your own personal, non-commercial learning, while Your account is active. No other right or license is granted, whether by implication, estoppel, or otherwise. You may not reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, transmit, modify, translate, adapt, create derivative works of, reverse-engineer, decompile, extract by automated means, or commercially exploit any Platform Knowledge Content without prior written permission.

8.3 User-Generated Content

Any content that You as an individual user create and upload to the Platform (including flag answers, code, writeups, comments, forum posts, profile bio, avatar, and similar contributions, collectively "User-Generated Content") remains Your property. You retain all intellectual property rights in Your User-Generated Content.

You grant Terminal43 a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, sublicensable license to host, store, reproduce, transmit, display, adapt for technical purposes, and serve Your User-Generated Content solely to the extent necessary to operate the Platform, deliver the service to You and to other authorised users, generate anonymised and aggregated statistics, and comply with legal obligations. This license terminates when You delete the User-Generated Content or close Your account, except for anonymised aggregations that no longer identify You and for copies retained for legitimate backup-cycle expiration (maximum 90 days) or where retention is required by law.

You warrant that You own or have the necessary rights to grant the license above and that Your User-Generated Content does not infringe any third party rights or violate any law.

8.4 Organization Knowledge Content

Where an Organization (such as a school, university, employer, training provider, or community) uses the Platform to upload, sync, import, author, or otherwise make available its own Knowledge Content for the benefit of its members ("Organization Knowledge Content"), the following applies:

• The Organization retains all intellectual property rights in its Organization Knowledge Content. Nothing in these Terms transfers, assigns, or licenses any ownership of Organization Knowledge Content to Terminal43.
• The Organization grants Terminal43 a limited, worldwide, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, revocable license, exercisable solely for the purpose of operating the Platform, to host, store, reproduce, transmit, display, evaluate, grade, and serve the Organization Knowledge Content to the members and authorised users of that Organization (and to no other users), for the duration of the Organization account or until the Organization removes the content.
• Terminal43 shall not use Organization Knowledge Content to train machine-learning models, to market to other organizations, to repurpose for Platform Knowledge Content, or to display, license, or otherwise make available outside the scope of the Organization own members, except with the Organization prior written consent.
• The license terminates automatically upon (i) the closure or non-renewal of the Organization account, (ii) the Organization removal of the Organization Knowledge Content, or (iii) the Organization written request for return or deletion. Terminal43 will, within 30 days of such termination, permanently delete or, at the Organization written request, return all copies of the Organization Knowledge Content in its possession or control, except where retention is required by law or for legitimate backup-cycle expiration (maximum 90 days).
• The Organization warrants that it owns or has the necessary rights and licenses to upload the Organization Knowledge Content and to grant the license above, and that doing so does not infringe any third party intellectual property, privacy, or other rights. The Organization shall indemnify and hold harmless Terminal43 from any third-party claim arising from the Organization Knowledge Content.
• Member access to Organization Knowledge Content is incidental to the member use of the Organization services and does not grant the member any ownership or rights beyond authorised use during membership.

8.5 Trademarks and Brand Assets

"Terminal 43", "Terminal 43 System", the Terminal43 logo, and related word marks, logos, and slogans are trademarks of Terminal43 SRL. You may not use any Terminal43 trademark without prior written permission, except for nominative fair use in factual references to the service.

8.6 Notice of Alleged Infringement

If You believe that any content on the Platform infringes Your intellectual property rights, please send a written notice to contact@terminal43.ro containing: (a) Your contact information, (b) identification of the work claimed to be infringed, (c) identification of the allegedly infringing material with sufficient detail to locate it, (d) a statement of good-faith belief that the use is unauthorised, (e) a statement under penalty of perjury that the information is accurate and that You are the rightsholder or authorised to act on the rightsholder behalf, and (f) Your physical or electronic signature.

9. Account Termination

• You may delete your account at any time from Privacy Settings.
• We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these terms.
• Upon termination, your data is handled according to our Privacy Policy.

10. Limitation of Liability

The Platform is provided "as is" without warranties of any kind. We are not liable for:

• Loss of data, progress, or points due to technical issues.
• Container downtime or unavailability.
• Actions taken by other users on the Platform.
• Any indirect, incidental, or consequential damages.

11. Dispute Resolution

In the event of a dispute, we encourage you to contact us first at contact@terminal43.ro to seek an amicable resolution. If no resolution is reached within 30 days, the dispute shall be submitted to mediation before litigation.

12. Illegal Content & DSA Notices

In accordance with Article 16 of the EU Digital Services Act (Regulation (EU) 2022/2065), any person may notify us of content available through the Service that they consider illegal. Notices should be sent to contact@terminal43.ro with the subject "DSA notice" and should include:

• a sufficiently substantiated explanation of why the content is alleged to be illegal;
• the exact URL or location of the content on the Service;
• the notifier's name and contact details (not required where the notice concerns content covered by Articles 3 to 7 of Directive 2011/93/EU on combating sexual abuse and exploitation of children);
• a good-faith statement of belief that the information and allegations are accurate and complete.

We acknowledge receipt of substantiated notices without undue delay and act in a timely, diligent, non-arbitrary and objective manner. The same address may be used for copyright complaints; please include sufficient evidence of ownership and identification of the allegedly infringing material.

13. Complaints, ANPC & Dispute Resolution

1. Contact us first. Send complaints to contact@terminal43.ro. We reply within 7 business days and aim to resolve within 30 days.
2. If unresolved, contact ANPC, Autoritatea Națională pentru Protecția Consumatorilor.
3. Alternative Dispute Resolution (SAL). Free, non-judicial resolution via an authorised entity.
4. Online Dispute Resolution (ODR). The European Commission ODR platform is available for cross-border consumers.

14. Governing Law & Jurisdiction

These Terms are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of Romania. Any disputes arising from or in connection with these Terms shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the competent courts of Bucharest, Romania, without prejudice to any mandatory consumer protection provisions of your country of residence that may apply under EU law.

15. Changes to These Terms

We may update these terms at any time. Material changes will be communicated via platform notification. Continued use after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated terms.

16. Contact

Questions about these terms: contact@terminal43.ro