What privacy this gives, and what it does not
Privacy has several layers, and a product that covers one should not claim the others. This page says which layer each part of this build covers.
Three different protections
| Protection | Means | In this build |
|---|---|---|
| Minimisation | Sensitive details are removed before the request is sent. | Yes: masking in your browser, shown before sending. |
| Encryption in transit | Nobody between you and the provider can read the request on the wire. | Yes: HTTPS to this site and from it to the provider. |
| Confidentiality in use | Even the machine running the model cannot read the request while it computes. | No. Needs trusted execution environments or similar; planned. |
Encrypted in transit is not private in use
HTTPS ends at the provider's server. To run a model, the provider decrypts the request and reads it in memory. Anyone who says "your prompts are encrypted" while the model runs on ordinary servers is describing transport, not processing. With Opaq today the provider reads the masked text; that is why masking matters, and why confidential compute is the next layer rather than a claim.
A blockchain is not privacy
Putting something on Robinhood Chain makes it public, permanent and verifiable, the opposite of private. A system does not become confidential or verified because it touches a chain. Opaq uses the chain only for what it is good at: a public, tamper-evident timestamp for a hash that reveals nothing without the salt and texts you hold.
What a receipt proves
- Proves: these exact texts, this model id and this author existed together no later than the anchoring block.
- Does not prove: which model really ran, that the answer is correct, that the provider deleted the request, or that the original request was never seen by anyone else.
- Does not hide: the fact that your address recorded a receipt at that time.
What stays your responsibility
- Reading the masked text before sending. Detectors miss what they have no rule for.
- Keeping receipt files and salts somewhere safe, and sharing them only with people who should see the masked texts.
- Your device and browser. Masking cannot protect a machine that is already compromised.