Your space, your say

A small list.
A clear promise.

The waitlist exists to send the updates you ask for.

What we keep

Your email address as entered, chosen topics, consent time and source, last subscription update time, and whether your place is pending or confirmed. We also keep a random internal ID and the signup and confirmation-link times needed to run the list. Once confirmed, the consent time records that confirmation. Changing topics preserves that consent time and the original signup source. We do not ask for your name, make a profile or sell your details.

How long it stays

Signups awaiting a confirmation send have no automatic expiry; you can ask us to erase or permanently suppress them at any time. Once the confirmation is sent, its link works once for 48 hours, and an unconfirmed signup is deleted after 7 days. A replacement you request after expiry starts these clocks when it is sent. Neither clock runs while the confirmation is queued. Confirmed subscriptions stay until you leave or the list closes. We retain a keyed fingerprint of unsubscribed or hard-bounced addresses indefinitely so they cannot be added again; the readable email and subscription are deleted. A spam complaint is treated the same way.

To run the service, we keep hashed confirmation tokens until used or expired, keyed network-limit hashes that expire within an hour, keyed mailbox-limit hashes that expire within 24 hours, and keyed confirmation cooldowns that expire after 48 hours. These protection keys group mailbox aliases for rate limiting only; they do not change your delivery address. We do not store readable IP addresses or challenge tokens. Expired records are removed by scheduled cleanup.

Minimal delivery records contain an internal subscriber ID, campaign, time, status, attempts and provider receipt or error code, without a copy of the message body. They stay while you subscribe so a campaign cannot be sent twice, and are deleted with the subscription. Aggregate signup counters expire after an hour and quota counters after 62 days. Campaign text contains no subscriber details.

Your choices

Every email includes preferences and unsubscribe links. Unsubscribing stops every topic permanently for that address. Changing topics keeps your place on the list. You can request access or deletion by writing to hello@blackboxes.net. After verifying your request, we can erase your subscription and delivery records. Erasure alone allows you to join again with fresh consent. If you ask never to receive mail again, we also keep the permanent keyed fingerprint. An existing unsubscribe, hard-bounce or complaint fingerprint is never removed by erasure.

Who handles the data

Blackboxes runs this list. Cloudflare hosts the site, stores subscriptions in D1 and delivers email through Email Service. Data may be processed where Cloudflare operates. Delivery providers receive the address and message to deliver it, and may keep their own operational records under their policies. This site stores no email open or click tracking data.

Security checks

Cloudflare Turnstile protects the signup form against automated requests. When the check loads, Cloudflare processes browser and network information under its privacy policy. We send the challenge result to Cloudflare for verification, without the email address. Our application logs only fixed failure categories, without addresses, tokens or request URLs. A message already accepted for delivery cannot be recalled, and deletion here does not delete a provider's own operational records.

Your browser

There is no analytics or advertising on this site. Your chosen surface is stored on your device and in the bb_theme preference cookie for up to one year, shared across Blackboxes sites. A stored accent choice, if present, stays on this site. Clearing browser storage removes these preferences.

Phone control loads ob.Pal only when you choose it. It uses ob.Pal’s connection service and a peer connection to carry your control input. The waitlist never receives that input. See ob.Pal’s privacy information.

Published 28 September 2026.