How it works

Watch it work.

Five walkthroughs, in order: the question paper’s journey out to the desk, the response’s journey back, the proof published every hour, the signing that happens on the device the moment an answer is tapped, and the verdict a candidate can check without asking anyone’s permission. None of it asks you to take our word for it — that is rather the point.

Question journey Response journey Hourly public proof On-device sealing Candidate verdict
Watch the paper travel

Sealed at every hand-over.
Readable only at the last.

Board QP VaultThe paper arrives already encrypted. The readable form never leaves the secure vault of the Board.ON-PREM · secure vault at the Boardencrypting and decrypting vault
Board-Controlled Secure Tunnel — the centre’s own set of capsules, under a signed Download Receipt
Centre-Head DeviceHolds the whole centre’s capsules. Can store, route and count them.kiosk-mode device (tablet / terminal)non-decrypting device
Face-Tap — both devices held face to face for a few seconds. Only then the exam hall’s capsules move, under a dual-signed Transfer Receipt.
CORTEX Relay Cards · edge-face mated
Invigilator DeviceHolds only one exam hall’s capsules. Still cannot open any of them.OFFLINE · kiosk-mode device (tablet / terminal)non-decrypting device
Face-Tap — one capsule, for one candidate’s device. Both devices are held together and the transfer is live-recorded on each.
CORTEX Relay Cards · edge-face mated
Candidate DeviceIdentity is checked against a UIDAI-signed offline Aadhaar credential, with an on-device face match — no call to UIDAI servers at exam time.. The capsule opens here and nowhere else, and only at the signed exam hour.OFFLINE · kiosk-mode device (tablet / terminal)decrypting device

~2.5 million sealed capsules generated inside the vault in 30 minutes — one for each authorised device

A published, hourly proof that the custody chain is unbroken and unaltered up to secure delivery — checkable by anyone, covering every step up to secure delivery at the centres

This is the whole claim in one picture: CORTEX is designed to keep the question paper encrypted through custody and transfer, releasing readable content only inside an authorised candidate terminal after the prescribed checks pass. What moves between the Board’s vault and the candidate’s desk is encrypted capsules, and the set narrows at every hand-over — the centre’s, then the hall’s, then the single capsule for one candidate. Every device in between can store, route and count. None of them can open it. Two more things happen that a leaker cannot see. Inside the vault the “QP” (“Question paper”) itself is transformed — question order, option order and labels are varied per device after the paper setters lose control — so a stolen “Question 73 is B” note is worthless. And time cannot be added quietly: the opening hour is anchored to a signed certificate, with the paper watermarked, visibly and invisibly, the moment it appears.

and back again — the same hands, the other direction
Watch the response travel

Signed as it is written.
Opened only after the chain verifies.

This one starts at the candidate’s desk. Every answer/response is signed by the candidate’s device and hash-linked to the answer/response before it — then sealed into a packet only the Board Evaluation Vault can open.

Candidate DeviceEach answer is signed as it is written and hash-linked to the one before. At submit they become one Final Sealed Response Packet.OFFLINE · kiosk-mode device (tablet / terminal)sealing device
Face-Tap — the sealed packet leaves the desk under a signed Response Collection Receipt
CORTEX Relay Cards · edge-face mated
Invigilator DeviceBuilds the response collection manifest for the hall.OFFLINE · kiosk-mode device (tablet / terminal)non-decrypting device
Face-Tap — both devices held face to face for a few seconds, under a signed Response Transfer Receipt
CORTEX Relay Cards · edge-face mated
Centre-Head DeviceAggregates every sealed packet from the centre.kiosk-mode device (tablet / terminal)non-decrypting device
Board-Controlled Secure Tunnel — the centre’s aggregated packets, under a signed Response Upload Receipt
Board Evaluation VaultVerifies the proof chain first — binding, paper opening, response chain — and only then decrypts. An invalid chain is rejected and recorded.ON-PREM · secure vault at the Boarddecrypting module

Three signed receipts, one journey — collection, transfer, upload — so a packet cannot be lost, swapped or delayed unnoticed

The mirror of the paper’s journey: CORTEX is designed to keep each submitted response encrypted through collection, transfer and upload. It is sealed on the candidate’s own device at submit, and the invigilator, the centre and its systems all carry it without being able to read or alter a single answer. Hidden tampering becomes detectable rather than deniable.

and every hour, in public
Watch the proof go public

Signed. Countersigned.
Published for anyone to check.

Custody is not something you are asked to take on trust. A fingerprint of it is published every hour, while the exam is still ahead of you.

Every hour
Signed by the BoardThe Board seals a fingerprint of the custody record so far — not the paper, only proof of its handling.
Countersigned by an independent witnessA separate party recomputes the fingerprint and signs it too. The Board cannot vouch for itself.
Published to the publicPushed to several independent public channels at once, so no single one can be quietly edited.

Silence is an alarm — if an hourly publication is missed or late, that alone raises a breach alert

Publication is what turns a claim into something you can test. Anyone — a parent, an educator/coach, a journalist — can fetch the published fingerprints and confirm that no capsule leaked up to the moment of secure delivery at the centres. Nobody has to be believed, and nobody has to wait for the result to find out.

and on the desk itself, as it happens
Watch the answer become evidence

A tapped answer is signed
before the finger has left the screen.

Five things happen between the candidate choosing an option and the packet leaving the desk. All five happen on the candidate’s own device — no network, no server, nobody else in the loop.

A
The candidate taps an answerAn option is chosen. Everything that follows is triggered by that one touch.
B
The device signs itA signed response event is created on the spot, by the device itself — not by the centre, and not later.
C
It links to the one beforeEach event is hash-linked to its predecessor, so the answers form a chain that cannot be re-ordered or thinned out.
D
It is encrypted for one readerReadable only by the Board Evaluation Vault, on-prem. Not by the invigilator, the centre, or us.
E
The trail is sealed into one packetAt submit, the whole signed chain becomes a single Final Sealed Response Packet — the red envelope that then travels.

Nothing is silently overwritten — change an answer and a new signed event joins the chain. The earlier one is not deleted, it is superseded, and both remain in the record.

This is what makes the rest of it enforceable. Because the answer was signed on the device at the instant it was given, and each event is chained to the last, there is no later moment at which a response can be quietly edited, dropped, re-ordered or swapped — not in the hall, not at the centre, not in transit, not at the Board. Any such attempt breaks the chain, and a broken chain is visible to the candidate.

and the candidate can check it, themselves
Watch the candidate verify

One QR scan. Three answers.
Green or red.

A candidate does not have to trust the Board, the centre, or us. They scan once on their own mobile and get three verdicts — each checkable against the roots already published in public.

One scan, on the candidate’s own mobile
Sealed until openingThe paper had no readable form until it opened on the authorised terminal — not in the vault, not in transit, not on any device in between.verified
Journal intactThe response journal is unaltered. Every answer event is still hash-linked to the one before it, exactly as it was signed at the desk.verified
Score linkageThe published score derives from that same journal. If it does not, the verdict comes back red on the candidate's own mobile— they do not have to petition anyone to find out..verified

One receipt, and not one answer disclosed — it binds the paper-opening certificate, the response journal root and the scoring linkage proof, while revealing nothing a candidate wrote

And when something genuinely does go wrong, it is contained instead of catastrophic. A leaked photograph or one cheating candidate no longer forces a blanket re-examination: clean chains stand on their own evidence, and only the affected candidates, centres, shifts or terminals are quarantined. Crores of candidates sit high-stakes exams in India every year. Not one of them should have to sit again because of somebody else’s compromised hall.

Want to see it against your own exam?

We walk examination boards, universities and recruitment bodies through this with their own paper flow on the table. Technical briefings under NDA.

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