OPERATING_GUIDE.html

<title>Akhanda Operating Guide</title>
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<div class="wrap">

<header class="mast">
  <div class="spine">
    <p class="eyebrow">Akhanda · SIH26149 · Syntax Squad</p>
    <h1>How to run the whole thing</h1>
    <p class="lede">Written in plain words. What sits where, what each file is, what you press,
      what the second laptop is actually for, and why any of it matters. No prior knowledge
      assumed.</p>
  </div>
</header>

<div class="spine">

<!-- ══════════════ 1. THE MAP ══════════════ -->
<section>
  <p class="eyebrow">Part 1 · The map</p>
  <h2>Two laptops, and what lives on each</h2>

  <p>Everything below rests on one idea: <strong>the two laptops must not be able to stand in for
    each other.</strong> If one person could produce both signatures, the second signature would
    prove nothing at all.</p>

  <div class="two">
    <div class="machine">
      <h3>Laptop A, the worker</h3>
      <p>This machine. It does the actual work.</p>
      <ul>
        <li>The tool itself, at <span class="m">D:\akhanda SIH\akhanda\</span></li>
        <li>Your signing key</li>
        <li>The record file it produces</li>
        <li>The screen you show people</li>
      </ul>
    </div>
    <div class="machine b">
      <h3>Laptop B, the witness (the LOQ)</h3>
      <p>Holds one key and answers questions. Nothing else.</p>
      <ul>
        <li>One small program, <span class="m">node.py</span></li>
        <li>Its own separate signing key</li>
        <li>Its own separate copy of what it signed</li>
        <li><strong>No case files. None.</strong></li>
      </ul>
    </div>
  </div>

  <div class="note stop">
    <h3>The most common misunderstanding</h3>
    <p><strong>The screen never downloads files from laptop B, because laptop B has no files to
      give.</strong> That is deliberate. If the witness also stored evidence, anyone who broke into
      it would get the evidence <em>and</em> the key that vouches for it. It holds the key and
      nothing worth stealing alongside it.</p>
  </div>
</section>

<!-- ══════════════ 2. WHEN AADYA SENDS THE FRONTEND ══════════════ -->
<section>
  <p class="eyebrow">Part 2 · When the frontend arrives</p>
  <h2>What to send me, and what I will do with it</h2>

  <div class="step">
    <div class="num">1</div>
    <div>
      <h3>Put her folder somewhere I can read</h3>
      <p>Anywhere on the D drive is fine. If she sends a zip, unzip it first. Then tell me the
        folder name. That is all I need to start.</p>
    </div>
  </div>

  <div class="step">
    <div class="num">2</div>
    <div>
      <h3>I check whether it runs at all</h3>
      <p>Some frontends need a build step and some do not. I will find out which, run it, and tell
        you plainly whether it works before we spend time on anything else.</p>
    </div>
  </div>

  <div class="step">
    <div class="num">3</div>
    <div>
      <h3>I connect it to the real data</h3>
      <p>Her pages will be showing invented sample data. I replace that with the real record your
        tool produced, so what a judge sees on screen is the actual output and not a mock-up.</p>
    </div>
  </div>

  <div class="step">
    <div class="num">4</div>
    <div>
      <h3>I tell you what is missing, honestly</h3>
      <p>If something she built cannot be connected because the tool does not produce that
        information, I will say so rather than invent a number to fill the gap.</p>
    </div>
  </div>

  <div class="note seal">
    <h3>What I will ask you for</h3>
    <p><strong>Almost certainly nothing.</strong> No accounts to create, no keys to buy, no server
      to rent. The tool writes files, the page reads files. If her version genuinely needs
      something extra, I will name it and explain why before you spend anything.</p>
    <p>The one question I may ask: whether to keep your current screen as the safe fallback. My
      answer in advance is <strong>yes, keep it</strong>, a demo with no working screen is a lost
      demo, and having two is free.</p>
  </div>
</section>

<hr class="rule">

<!-- ══════════════ 3. RUNNING IT ══════════════ -->
<section>
  <p class="eyebrow">Part 3 · Running the prototype</p>
  <h2>The whole sequence, in order</h2>

  <p>Do these in order. Each one depends on the one before it.</p>

  <div class="step">
    <div class="num">1</div>
    <div>
      <h3>Put both laptops on the same hotspot</h3>
      <p>Use <strong>your phone's hotspot, or this laptop's own hotspot</strong>. Do not use campus
        wi-fi. Many campus networks deliberately stop two laptops from talking to each other, even
        though both have internet, and you will not discover this until the moment you need it.</p>
    </div>
  </div>

  <div class="step">
    <div class="num">2</div>
    <div>
      <h3>Start the witness on laptop B, and leave the window open</h3>
<pre>python node.py</pre>
      <p>You should see <span class="m">Application startup complete</span>. That window must stay
        open for the whole demo. Closing it stops the witness.</p>
      <p><strong>Closing it does not break anything quietly</strong>, the tool will refuse to run
        and will record the refusal. That is correct behaviour, but not what you want on stage.</p>
    </div>
  </div>

  <div class="step">
    <div class="num">3</div>
    <div>
      <h3>Check laptop A can reach it</h3>
<pre>curl http://192.168.137.132:8000/witness/pubkey</pre>
      <p>You want a short line of text back containing a <span class="m">key_id</span>. Nothing
        back means either the window in step 2 is closed, or laptop B's firewall is blocking it.</p>
    </div>
  </div>

  <div class="step">
    <div class="num">4</div>
    <div>
      <h3>Do the actual work on laptop A</h3>
<pre>cd "D:\akhanda SIH\akhanda"
python scripts/demo_bundle.py --witness http://192.168.137.132:8000</pre>
      <p>About five seconds. This is the step that <strong>creates the files</strong>. It wipes some
        files, recovers some files, deliberately tries one job with the witness switched off so you
        can show it refusing, and writes the certificate.</p>
    </div>
  </div>

  <div class="step">
    <div class="num">5</div>
    <div>
      <h3>Open the screen</h3>
<pre>cd "D:\akhanda SIH\console-app"
python -m http.server 8080</pre>
      <p>Then open <span class="m">http://localhost:8080</span> in a browser. Click
        <strong>Open chain.json</strong> and choose the file the last step made. Put laptop B's
        address in the witness box and press <strong>Connect</strong>.</p>
    </div>
  </div>
</section>

<!-- ══════════════ 4. THE FILES ══════════════ -->
<section>
  <p class="eyebrow">Part 4 · The files</p>
  <h2>What each file is, in plain words</h2>

  <p>Everything the tool makes lands in one folder:
    <span class="m">D:\akhanda SIH\akhanda\demo_bundle\</span></p>

  <div class="tw">
    <table>
      <thead><tr><th>File</th><th>What it actually is</th><th>Used for</th></tr></thead>
      <tbody>
        <tr><td class="m"><strong>chain.json</strong></td>
            <td>The record book. Every action, in order, each one locked to the one before it. <strong>This is the file you open on the screen.</strong></td>
            <td>The main demo</td></tr>
        <tr><td class="m">chain_tampered.json</td>
            <td>A copy with one entry deliberately altered, to prove the tool catches it.</td>
            <td>The tamper demo</td></tr>
        <tr><td class="m">certificate.json<br>certificate.txt</td>
            <td>The court document. Every line marked with the exact law or standard it answers.</td>
            <td>Show a judge</td></tr>
        <tr><td class="m">byte_identical_proof.json</td>
            <td>For each recovered file, the fingerprint before and after. Identical means the file came back perfectly.</td>
            <td>Proving recovery works</td></tr>
        <tr><td class="m">recover_result.json</td>
            <td>Every file found, and honestly whether any came back incomplete.</td>
            <td>Detail if asked</td></tr>
        <tr><td class="m">erase_result.json</td>
            <td>What was wiped, and whether the wipe was checked afterwards.</td>
            <td>Detail if asked</td></tr>
        <tr><td class="m">MANIFEST.json</td>
            <td>Which steps ran and which failed. A failed step is written down, never hidden.</td>
            <td>Honesty record</td></tr>
        <tr><td class="m">recovered\</td>
            <td>The actual recovered files. You can open them.</td>
            <td>Show they really opened</td></tr>
      </tbody>
    </table>
  </div>

  <div class="note stop">
    <h3>One folder you must never share</h3>
    <p><span class="m">demo_bundle\_akhanda_home\</span> contains <strong>your private signing
      key</strong>. Never put it on a USB you hand someone, never email it, never upload it. Anyone
      holding that key can sign records as you.</p>
  </div>

  <h3>What gets uploaded, and what never does</h3>
  <div class="tw">
    <table>
      <thead><tr><th>Thing</th><th>Goes online?</th><th>Why</th></tr></thead>
      <tbody>
        <tr><td>The screen (the web page)</td><td><span class="tag t-ok">yes, safe</span></td><td>It only reads and checks. It holds no key.</td></tr>
        <tr><td>The record and the certificate</td><td><span class="tag t-ok">safe to show</span></td><td>They are meant to be shown. They contain fingerprints, never keys.</td></tr>
        <tr><td>The tool that wipes disks</td><td><span class="tag t-st">never</span></td><td>A disk wiper reachable from the internet is a weapon.</td></tr>
        <tr><td>The witness program</td><td><span class="tag t-st">never</span></td><td>It holds a signing key. It stays on your own small network.</td></tr>
        <tr><td>Your private key</td><td><span class="tag t-st">never</span></td><td>It is the one secret in the whole system.</td></tr>
      </tbody>
    </table>
  </div>
</section>

<hr class="rule">

<!-- ══════════════ 5. WHY ══════════════ -->
<section>
  <p class="eyebrow">Part 5 · Why it is built this way</p>
  <h2>The reasoning, so you can defend it</h2>

  <figure>
    <div class="figbox">
      <svg viewBox="0 0 720 210" role="img" aria-label="Loose certificates each signed alone survive the deletion of one without any sign, while records joined in a chain break and point at the exact missing record.">
        <defs>
          <marker id="ar" viewBox="0 0 10 10" refX="9" refY="5" markerWidth="7" markerHeight="7" orient="auto-start-reverse">
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            <polygon points="0,0 10,5 0,10" fill="#A3322A"/></marker>
        </defs>
        <text x="0" y="13" font-size="11.5" font-weight="600" fill="currentColor">EVERY OTHER TOOL, each page signed on its own</text>
        <g font-size="11" fill="currentColor">
          <rect x="0" y="26" width="104" height="38" rx="2" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="1.1"/>
          <text x="52" y="49" text-anchor="middle">Job 1</text>
          <rect x="124" y="26" width="104" height="38" rx="2" fill="none" stroke="#A3322A" stroke-width="1.1" stroke-dasharray="4 3"/>
          <text x="176" y="43" text-anchor="middle" fill="#A3322A">Job 2</text>
          <text x="176" y="57" text-anchor="middle" font-size="9.5" fill="#A3322A">removed</text>
          <rect x="248" y="26" width="104" height="38" rx="2" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="1.1"/>
          <text x="300" y="49" text-anchor="middle">Job 3</text>
          <rect x="372" y="26" width="104" height="38" rx="2" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="1.1"/>
          <text x="424" y="49" text-anchor="middle">Job 4</text>
        </g>
        <text x="498" y="42" font-size="11.5" font-weight="600" fill="#A3322A">Nothing looks wrong</text>
        <text x="498" y="57" font-size="10.5" fill="#A3322A">the gap is invisible</text>

        <line x1="0" y1="88" x2="720" y2="88" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width=".7" opacity=".28"/>

        <text x="0" y="116" font-size="11.5" font-weight="600" fill="#27409E">AKHANDA, each record locked to the one before</text>
        <g font-size="11" fill="currentColor">
          <rect x="0" y="130" width="104" height="44" rx="2" fill="none" stroke="#27409E" stroke-width="1.3"/>
          <text x="52" y="150" text-anchor="middle">Job 1</text>
          <text x="52" y="165" text-anchor="middle" font-size="9" opacity=".7">start</text>
          <rect x="124" y="130" width="104" height="44" rx="2" fill="none" stroke="#A3322A" stroke-width="1.3" stroke-dasharray="4 3"/>
          <text x="176" y="150" text-anchor="middle" fill="#A3322A">Job 2</text>
          <text x="176" y="165" text-anchor="middle" font-size="9" fill="#A3322A">removed</text>
          <rect x="248" y="130" width="104" height="44" rx="2" fill="none" stroke="#27409E" stroke-width="1.3"/>
          <text x="300" y="150" text-anchor="middle">Job 3</text>
          <text x="300" y="165" text-anchor="middle" font-size="9" fill="#A3322A">link broken</text>
          <rect x="372" y="130" width="104" height="44" rx="2" fill="none" stroke="#27409E" stroke-width="1.3"/>
          <text x="424" y="150" text-anchor="middle">Job 4</text>
          <text x="424" y="165" text-anchor="middle" font-size="9" opacity=".7">follows Job 3</text>
        </g>
        <line x1="104" y1="152" x2="122" y2="152" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="1.1" marker-end="url(#ar)"/>
        <line x1="228" y1="152" x2="246" y2="152" stroke="#A3322A" stroke-width="1.1" marker-end="url(#ax)" stroke-dasharray="3 2"/>
        <line x1="352" y1="152" x2="370" y2="152" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="1.1" marker-end="url(#ar)"/>
        <text x="498" y="146" font-size="11.5" font-weight="600" fill="#A3322A">It fails, and says</text>
        <text x="498" y="161" font-size="11.5" font-weight="600" fill="#A3322A">exactly which record</text>
        <text x="498" y="177" font-size="10" fill="currentColor" opacity=".7">37 thousandths of a second</text>
      </svg>
    </div>
    <figcaption>The single idea the whole project rests on. Everything else exists to support it.</figcaption>
  </figure>

  <div class="two">
    <div class="card">
      <h3>Why a second laptop</h3>
      <p>A signature only means something if the person it accuses could not have forged it. Put
        both keys on one machine and the operator can sign as both. Put the second key on a machine
        they cannot log into, and the second signature becomes real evidence.</p>
    </div>
    <div class="card">
      <h3>Why it refuses instead of carrying on</h3>
      <p>If a missing witness simply meant a weaker record, anyone could unplug it and quietly do
        unwatched work. Because the tool <em>stops</em> and <em>writes down that it stopped</em>,
        unplugging the witness becomes a way to leave a mark, not a way to avoid one.</p>
    </div>
    <div class="card">
      <h3>Why the check happens first</h3>
      <p>Wiping cannot be undone. Checking the witness afterwards would be asking permission for
        something already done. The check happens before a single byte is destroyed.</p>
    </div>
    <div class="card">
      <h3>Why the browser does the checking</h3>
      <p>If our own program says "this is valid", you are trusting us. When the page recalculates
        it in front of you, on your own machine, you are trusting arithmetic. A doubter can open
        the browser tools and watch it happen.</p>
    </div>
  </div>
</section>

<!-- ══════════════ 6. THE PROBLEM STATEMENT ══════════════ -->
<section>
  <p class="eyebrow">Part 6 · Against the problem statement</p>
  <h2>How this answers SIH26149</h2>

  <p>The statement asks for an <em>integrated secure data erasure and advanced file recovery tool
    for digital forensics and data sanitization</em>. Taking each word seriously:</p>

  <div class="tw">
    <table>
      <thead><tr><th>What is asked</th><th>What we do</th><th>State</th></tr></thead>
      <tbody>
        <tr><td><strong>Secure data erasure</strong></td><td>Wipes whole disks and individual files, checks the wipe afterwards, and records the honest grade achieved</td><td><span class="tag t-ok">built</span></td></tr>
        <tr><td><strong>Advanced file recovery</strong></td><td>Recovers deleted files, including files broken into pieces, and returns them byte for byte or not at all</td><td><span class="tag t-ok">built</span></td></tr>
        <tr><td><strong>Integrated</strong></td><td>Both live in one record book. This is the part nobody else does, elsewhere wiping and recovery are separate products with separate logs</td><td><span class="tag t-ok">built</span></td></tr>
        <tr><td><strong>For digital forensics</strong></td><td>Produces the two-person certificate Indian courts have required since July 2024</td><td><span class="tag t-ok">built</span></td></tr>
        <tr><td><strong>Data sanitization</strong></td><td>Follows the international NIST standard and states which grade was truly reached</td><td><span class="tag t-ok">built</span></td></tr>
        <tr><td>Tamper-evident reporting</td><td>Remove a record and verification fails, naming the exact one</td><td><span class="tag t-ok">proven</span></td></tr>
        <tr><td>Highest wipe grade on solid state drives</td><td>The code is written and tested, but needs lab hardware we could not borrow</td><td><span class="tag t-wn">not tested</span></td></tr>
      </tbody>
    </table>
  </div>

  <div class="note ok">
    <h3>The sentence that wins the room</h3>
    <p>"Every tool in this space signs each certificate on its own. That proves one page was not
      edited. It does not prove the file is complete. <strong>We are the only ones who can show
      you which record is missing.</strong>"</p>
  </div>
</section>

<hr class="rule">

<!-- ══════════════ 7. SCALE AND FUTURE ══════════════ -->
<section>
  <p class="eyebrow">Part 7 · Growth</p>
  <h2>Where it goes from here</h2>

  <h3>How it grows without getting expensive</h3>
  <ul class="clean">
    <li><strong>One witness serves a whole laboratory.</strong> Twenty workstations can all send
      their records to the same second machine. The cost does not rise for each new user, which is
      exactly how the tools we compete with make their money.</li>
    <li><strong>The record stays fast as it grows.</strong> Tested on five hundred records, a
      tampered one is found in thirty-seven thousandths of a second. Case files can build up for
      years.</li>
    <li><strong>Nothing to install centrally.</strong> No server room, no database, no yearly
      renewal. A laboratory that adopts it is not signing up to a dependency.</li>
  </ul>

  <h3>The upgrades that would matter most</h3>
  <div class="tw">
    <table>
      <thead><tr><th>Upgrade</th><th>What it would change</th><th>Effort</th></tr></thead>
      <tbody>
        <tr><td><strong>The presence device</strong></td><td>Lifts us from the second highest trust level to the highest, by proving a human was physically present, not just a running program</td><td>designed already</td></tr>
        <tr><td><strong>Government certification</strong></td><td>STQC approval is what lets a real laboratory buy it. This is the single biggest gap between a prototype and a product</td><td>months, and money</td></tr>
        <tr><td><strong>One real laboratory pilot</strong></td><td>Turns "it works on our laptops" into "it works on their evidence". Worth more than any feature</td><td>a relationship, not code</td></tr>
        <tr><td><strong>Outside time-stamping</strong></td><td>Today the clock is your own computer's. An independent time source closes the last gap a lawyer could pick at</td><td>partly built</td></tr>
        <tr><td><strong>Highest-grade wiping on solid state drives</strong></td><td>Written and tested, but unproven until we borrow real drives</td><td>needs hardware only</td></tr>
      </tbody>
    </table>
  </div>

  <div class="note warn">
    <h3>The honest limit, and why saying it is a strength</h3>
    <p>The record proves nothing was <strong>changed</strong>. It cannot prove nothing was
      <strong>hidden</strong> before it was ever written down. No ledger in the world can. Recording
      refusals narrows the gap; nothing closes it.</p>
    <p>Say this before a judge asks. A team that names its own limit is believed on everything
      else. A team caught hiding one is believed on nothing.</p>
  </div>
</section>

<!-- ══════════════ 8. CHECKLIST ══════════════ -->
<section>
  <p class="eyebrow">Part 8 · Before you present</p>
  <h2>The list to run through</h2>
  <div class="tw">
    <table>
      <thead><tr><th>Check</th><th>How you know it is fine</th></tr></thead>
      <tbody>
        <tr><td>Both laptops on your own hotspot</td><td>Not campus wi-fi. Not negotiable.</td></tr>
        <tr><td>Witness running on laptop B</td><td>The window says startup complete, and stays open</td></tr>
        <tr><td>Laptop A can reach it</td><td>The curl command returns a key id</td></tr>
        <tr><td>Fresh records made <em>with</em> the witness</td><td>The screen shows a co-signer on the first row</td></tr>
        <tr><td>The screen loads and turns green</td><td>Integrity reads verified</td></tr>
        <tr><td>Connect shows the match line</td><td>The live key equals the one that signed the record</td></tr>
        <tr><td>You have rehearsed tamper and restore</td><td>Once, out loud, before the day</td></tr>
        <tr><td>One power strip</td><td>The venue gives one socket per team</td></tr>
      </tbody>
    </table>
  </div>

  <div class="note seal">
    <h3>Move the witness off the USB stick</h3>
    <p>You ran <span class="m">node.py</span> from the USB drive. If that stick is unplugged, or is
      needed for something else, the witness stops. <strong>Copy the folder onto laptop B's own
      hard drive and run it from there</strong> before the day.</p>
  </div>
</section>

<footer>
  <p><strong>Akhanda</strong> · अखण्ड, "unbroken" · Syntax Squad · GITAM (Deemed to be University),
    Hyderabad · Smart India Hackathon 2026, problem statement SIH26149, sponsored by NTRO.</p>
  <p>Every figure here was measured on the machines described, on 3 September 2026.</p>
</footer>

</div>
</div>