Mhh, this is not correct.
I did run several vault instances during public tests last winter and spring, together with many community members.
Anyone interested could check for instance : How to set up a vault from home
or type “vault”, or “community network” in this forum search.
Plenty of vault experiment returns on these treads.
Also, about “how they operate”, one can check : https://github.com/maidsafe/safe_vault, which is public.