Firmware Licence Policy

Every ZeroTrace firmware licence is bound to one device at a time. The binding is cryptographic and is established when you first flash a board against your licence. One licence covers one device; if you own several ZeroTrace devices, each needs its own licence.

This policy sets out what you can do with a licence you already hold, how to move it to different hardware, and what we commit to if NetzSec ever stops operating. It applies alongside §8 of our Terms of Service, which governs the licence grant itself.

For the device your licence is currently bound to:

• Reflash it as often as you like. There is no limit on how many times you may flash firmware onto your bound device, and no charge for doing so.
• No approval needed. You do not need to contact us, open a ticket, or explain yourself to reflash your own device.
• No expiry on the binding. Your licence stays bound to that device for as long as you hold the licence. How long we supply updates is a separate question, answered in §8 of the Terms.

Hardware fails. Boards get fried, lost, or replaced. You may move your licence to a new device as often as you need to, for as long as you hold the licence. This comes with your purchase. It is not a favour, not a one-off courtesy, and not something we will ever charge for.

• Unlimited. There is no lifetime cap on rebinds. There is never a "last one".
• Free. We do not charge to rebind a licence, now or in the future.
• No evidence required. We will not ask for photographs, serial numbers, or proof that a board is dead.
• We will do it. Where a request meets the two requirements below, we rebind. That is an obligation we accept, not a discretion we exercise.

A rebind request needs exactly two things:

1. Identification of the licence — your licence or order ID from the account that purchased it. Ghost-mode orders have no account: your ghost licence or your Stripe receipt number is enough, the same identification §11 of the Terms already accepts for warranty and withdrawal claims.
2. A short declaration that the device your licence is currently bound to is dead, lost, sold, or retired, and that you are no longer using the licence on it.

Turnaround. Most rebinds are completed within 48 hours. We commit to completing any valid rebind request within five (5) business days of receiving it. If something on our side means we cannot — illness, travel, holidays — we will tell you before those five days are up and give you a date.

There is no cap on rebinds and no waiting period between them. What we ask is simple: a licence stays with one holder, on one device at a time.

If an account requests more than four rebinds in any twelve-month period, we may get in touch to ask how things are going. That is a conversation, not a refusal. Unlucky hardware is a real thing and a plausible answer is the end of it. Passing that number does not by itself cost you your rebind, your licence, or anything else.

This list is short and it is closed. We will decline a rebind only where:

• The declaration is untrue — the licence is demonstrably still in active use on a device you declared dead, lost, sold, or retired. Running one licence across several devices in parallel is a material breach of §9 of the Terms.
• The licence was refunded or charged back. A licence that has been refunded, or whose payment was reversed, is void and will not be rebound.
• The licence has been terminated for material breach of the Terms.

Nothing else. We will not decline a rebind because you have already had several, because your device is old, because your purchase was a long time ago, or because we would rather sell you a new licence.

Binding a licence to new hardware requires our licence service. That is a dependency on us, and you are entitled to know what happens to it if we are not here.

If we ever permanently discontinue the licence service — because the business winds down, because we are unable to continue, or because the product line is retired — we commit to:

• giving 90 days' notice by email to every active licence holder before the service is discontinued; and
• publishing an offline unlock before the service is shut down, so that licence holders can bind their own hardware without us.

We will not hold licences hostage to a shutdown, and we will not treat the end of the service as an opportunity to sell anything.

Open a support ticket in the ZeroTrace dashboard. That is the route we prefer and the fastest one for you: the ticket is already tied to your account and your licences, so there is less for you to dig out and less for us to match up.

Either way, tell us:

• your licence or order ID;
• the device ID of the new board, if you have it to hand;
• one line confirming that the device the licence is currently bound to is dead, lost, sold, or retired and that the licence is no longer in use on it.

If you cannot use the dashboard — a ghost-mode order has no account to raise a ticket from — email contact@netzsec.com with the same details and your ghost licence or Stripe receipt number. The five-business-day commitment applies to both routes.