(a) Licensing and trial:
When you start
a trial or activate a license, The Nook sends your Mac's
hardware UUID and device name to our licensing server
(freno.me). The UUID enforces the 14-day trial and the 3-device
activation limit and stops a trial being reset by reinstalling
the app; the device name is stored with the activation so the
Mac can be identified in your license records. While you are on
the trial, this is sent at each launch. Once you are licensed,
each launch re-checks only that your key has not been revoked.
Deactivating a Mac sends the license key and that Mac's
UUID. If you add an email during the trial, that request
carries the email and the UUID, and it is sent once. The trial
and status checks fail open: with no connection, an unexpired
trial or a stored license keeps working, because license
verification itself is offline. Activating a new license needs
a connection once.
(b) Crash and error reporting:
Crash
reports, error events, hang reports, session pings, and
performance traces are sent to Sentry, our crash-reporting
processor, and this is on for every launch in this version —
there is no setting that turns it off. Each report carries the
app version, the macOS version, the Mac model and what the app
was doing when it failed, and Sentry also receives your IP
address. Reports never include your prompts, your code or your
session content.
(c) Phone connection:
The phone
connection ships off and is yours to enable. With the default
relay path, turning it on registers your Mac with our relay
(nook-relay.freno.me) using a random install ID, and a licensed
Mac presents its license key once at registration. Everything
your Mac and your phone then exchange — session updates,
approvals, replies — is encrypted end-to-end: the relay routes
it and cannot read it. On the relay path, the relay can see
which devices are connected — their IDs, names and platforms —
when, and how much traffic they exchange.
You can also pair over your LAN or tailnet instead; those paths
carry the same sealed traffic and do not use the relay.
(d) Weather:
If you add the Weather
module, your Mac asks our relay for forecasts using coordinates
rounded to a 0.1° grid — about 11 km — and the rounding happens
on your Mac before anything is sent. The Weather module
registers with the relay for this even if you never turn on the
phone connection, and on a licensed Mac that registration
presents the license key, exactly as the phone connection's
does. "My Location" asks macOS for your
approximate position, and naming or searching for a place uses
Apple's Maps service, so Apple sees those lookups. Neither
feature sends us your precise location.
(e) The Network panel:
While the
Network panel's connection section is on screen, The Nook
asks a third-party IP-lookup service (get.geojs.io, with
ipwho.is as backup) what your public IP address and provider
are — that is how the panel can show them to you. Those services
necessarily see your IP address. The speed-test button measures
against Cloudflare's public speed endpoint and uploads only
zeros, never your data.
(f) Update checks:
Automatic update
checks ship off. If you turn them on, or press "Check for
Updates", The Nook fetches the update feed from freno.me
and the request carries your app version. Like every request on
this page, it also arrives from your IP address.
(g) Changelog:
Opening Settings ›
Changelog fetches the release notes from freno.me.
(h) Bug reports:
only what you choose
to send. If you write a bug report, you decide what it says.
Bug reports also include a machine snapshot — macOS version, Mac
model, CPU, memory, free disk, locale, and your displays'
names and resolutions — so the problem can be reproduced. The
optional contact email is used only to reply to you.
(i) Your email and payment:
The email
you give at checkout delivers your license key and looks up your
order. An email you add during the trial is used for one
reminder before the trial ends. Payments are processed by
Stripe; we never see or store your card details.
(j) What does not leave your Mac:
The
hook and the bridge that connect your agents to The Nook are
not a cloud service: the hook dials the bridge on your Mac, and
the bridge only listens. Two paths carry agent data across the
network, and both are switched on by you: if you add a remote
machine, the hook on that machine dials this Mac over SSH or
your tailnet; and if you use the phone connection, the session
updates, approvals and replies described in (c) travel through
the relay, sealed end to end. The privileged helper that
controls fans and charging has no networking code at all.
The iPhone companion.
The iPhone and
Apple Watch app is in TestFlight beta. It runs the same Sentry
reporting: the app version, iOS version, iPhone model, session
pings and your IP address, with the same no-off-switch. Those
reports never include your prompts, code or session content.
Its other network traffic is the phone connection in (c) — the
relay, or a direct LAN/tailnet link — plus, if you allow
notifications, the push token it gives the relay so Apple can
deliver them.