Papers is built for research sharing, so privacy boundaries matter early.

• account required for any publication
• blind mode is per-post, not anonymous account creation
• public serialization removes author identity from blind posts
• blind posts are excluded from external AI provider submission
• private drafts and moderation notes are excluded from external AI provider submission
• uploads must be rewritten or scrubbed before blind-mode persistence

• keep all secrets in local env or a secret manager
• never commit keys
• never expose provider keys to the browser

Open a private report through GitHub security advisories or contact the maintainer directly before publishing exploit details.