Valid8

One-tap verification against fake kidnapping and family-emergency scam calls.

Team Hermes · Reforged '26 (n8n track) · Aryan Singhal, Anshu Gautam, Rohit Bora, Saurav Chakraborty

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The problem

Scammers clone a child's voice from a few seconds of social-media audio and call the parent: "We have your child. Don't hang up. Send money on UPI now."

Their key trick is isolation. While the parent stays on the line, they cannot check on the child, so they panic and pay.

The solution

Valid8 is a Telegram bot powered by n8n. The parent stays on the call and taps Suspicious call. Valid8 then checks on the child in the background:

1. The child instantly gets "Are you safe?" with I'm safe and Help buttons.
2. If the child taps I'm safe, they confirm with a private 4-digit Safe PIN. The bot attempts to delete the PIN message from the chat.
3. If the child does not reply in 30 seconds, Valid8 asks the family's trusted contacts.
4. The parent gets a clear verdict, usually within a minute.
5. Late replies still count. If nobody answers in time, the parent is told UNCONFIRMED, and Valid8 keeps listening. If the child confirms or presses Help while the case remains UNCONFIRMED, the parent receives the corresponding SAFE or HELP message. The current export uses the same message wording for timely and late replies.
6. After the call, the family uploads a recording and Valid8 sends the parent a PDF evidence report for 1930 or Chakshu.

Child's Telegram prompt and PIN request.

Verdict	When	What the parent is told
SAFE	Child sent the correct Safe PIN	Don't pay. High risk of scam
HELP	Child pressed Help	Call 112 now
LOCKED	3 wrong PINs (phone may be with someone else)	Don't pay. Call 112
UNCONFIRMED	No replies within the contact window, or no correct PIN within 45 seconds of I'm safe	Don't pay on the caller's word. Call 112. Replies are still accepted while the case remains UNCONFIRMED

Valid8's SAFE verdict requires the child's own PIN; a trusted contact's reply is reported separately and asks the parent to confirm directly. Valid8 never says "scam confirmed".

One flow covers every scam that claims a loved one is in danger: fake kidnapping, fake arrest, accident or hospital scams, the "new number" scam, and voice-clone calls to elderly parents.

Prototype screenshots

Parent's view: the Suspicious call button, verification messages, and evidence report delivery.

Trusted contacts can report that the child is safe or that they could not make contact. Their reply does not replace the child's PIN.

Design decisions

• No call interception. Intercepting calls in India needs TRAI-compliant telephony and raises privacy concerns. Valid8 never touches the call: the parent's tap is the trigger.
• PIN, not location, is the proof of safety. A phone in a scammer's hands can still share a location. A PIN only the child knows cannot be shared by the phone alone.
• No automatic location tracking. Background tracking is a privacy compromise and needs a native app with always-on permission. A one-tap, opt-in location is planned instead (see the roadmap in Status).
• Telegram first, WhatsApp next. Telegram bots can message anyone who pressed Start. WhatsApp needs a verified business number and approved templates, so it is the planned production channel. The n8n logic stays the same, only the messaging node changes.
• Honest verdicts. If nobody confirms, Valid8 says UNCONFIRMED and points to 112. It does not guess.

Architecture

Parent / Child / Trusted contacts (Telegram app)
        │
Telegram Bot API ──webhook──► Cloudflare Tunnel (HTTPS) ──► n8n (self-hosted, Docker, Azure VPS)
        ▲                                                     │
        └──────────────────── sendMessage ────────────────────┤
                                                              │
                          n8n Data Tables: members, cases     │
                                                              │
Post-call recording (web page) ──► n8n webhook ──► Groq Whisper + LLM ──► Gotenberg (PDF) ──► Telegram

During the call, no audio is processed. Audio is used only after the call, when the family uploads a recording.

n8n workflow 1: Valid8 - Bot Router (during the call)

Telegram Trigger → Kya Aaya? (Switch)
  ├─ Text  → Alarm? ─ true  → Find Parent → Find Child → Ask Child → Open Case
  │                   │        → After Time Interval (30s) → Check Reply → No Reply?
  │                   │        → Tell Parent Asking Contacts → Find Contact → Ask Contact
  │                   │        → Wait Again (30s) → Check Reply Again → Still No Reply?
  │                   │        → Tell Parent Unconfirmed → Close Unconfirmed (status = unconfirmed)
  │                   └ false → Is PIN? ─ true  → Delete a chat message → PIN Sender → PIN Parent
  │                                      │        → Get Case → Case Open? (open or unconfirmed) → PIN Correct?
  │                                      │           ├ true  → Tell Parent Verified → Close Safe
  │                                      │           └ false → Count Wrong PIN → Tell Parent PIN
  │                                      └ false → Menu (shows the Suspicious call button)
  └─ Button → Answer Button (acknowledges the callback)
            + Find Responder → Family Parent → Get Case Btn → Case Open Btn? (open or unconfirmed)
            → Mark Replied → From Contact?
                 ├ true  → Tell Parent Contact → Close Contact
                 └ false → Safe? ─ true  → Ask PIN → Wait PIN (45s) → Get Case PIN → PIN Pending?
                                  │                 → Tell Parent PIN Timeout → Close PIN Timeout (status = unconfirmed)
                                  └ false → Tell Parent Help → Close Help

Full Bot Router canvas. Open the full-size screenshot to inspect node labels.

n8n workflow 2: Valid8 - Evidence (after the call)

Webhook (recording + familyId) → Groq Whisper → AI Extract → Clean Evidence
  → Find Parent → Build Evidence HTML → HTML File → Make PDF (Gotenberg) → Send a document (Telegram)

• Web page: valid8-evidence.html captures microphone audio or uploads an existing recording, then posts multipart audio to the webhook with familyId in the query string. The prototype is served over HTTPS with GitHub Pages for microphone access. Speaker audio can be captured on another device; same-phone recording during a call depends on the phone and browser.
• Extraction: the AI pulls out the amount, UPI IDs, phone numbers, deadline and threats, and flags uncertain details.
• Safety: transcripts and numbers can be misheard, so the report tells the family to verify every number and UPI ID against the recording before filing. Valid8 never files anything by itself.

Record or upload audio, preview it, and send it to the configured Valid8 server.

Report generated from a test recording. Open the example PDF.

Data tables

The screenshot shows table names only. The schemas below document the fields used by the workflows; n8n also manages row metadata.

members

Column	Type	Example
chatId	String	Telegram chat ID
name	String	Saurav
role	String	parent, child or contact
familyId	String	fam1
pin	String	4-digit Safe PIN (child only)

cases

Column	Type	Values
familyId	String	fam1
status	String	open, unconfirmed, safe, help, locked, contact_safe, contact_no
startedAt	String	ISO timestamp
attempts	Number	Wrong PIN count
replied	String	yes / no

Setup

1. Run n8n in Docker with a public HTTPS URL (we use a Cloudflare Tunnel) and set WEBHOOK_URL to it.
2. Create a Telegram bot with @BotFather and add it as a Telegram credential in n8n.
3. Create the members and cases data tables shown above.
4. Import workflows/valid8-bot-router.json, then re-select the credential and both data tables in each node.
5. Publish the workflow. Every family member presses Start on the bot once.
6. Add one row per person to members (same familyId, correct role, and a PIN for the child).
7. Evidence workflow: run Gotenberg (gotenberg/gotenberg:8) on the same Docker network as n8n, add a Groq API key as a Header Auth credential (Authorization: Bearer ...), and import workflows/valid8-evidence.json.
8. In the evidence workflow, re-select the members data table in Find Parent, the Groq Header Auth credential in both Groq Whisper and AI Extract, and the Telegram credential in Send a document, then publish the workflow. The exported PDF endpoint is http://gotenberg:3000/forms/chromium/convert/html; adjust it if your container service has a different name.
9. Serve valid8-evidence.html over HTTPS (for example, GitHub Pages). Set the page's webhook URL to https://<your-n8n-host>/webhook/valid8-evidence and enter the family's familyId. The committed page contains the team's demo endpoint and fam1; replace those defaults for your deployment.
10. Run a test with a consenting family member: start a case, confirm with the child's PIN, and separately upload a test recording to check PDF delivery. An HTTP success in the recorder means the upload was accepted; it does not confirm that the report has been delivered.

Repository contents

File or directory	Purpose
workflows/valid8-bot-router.json	Importable live verification workflow
workflows/valid8-evidence.json	Importable post-call evidence workflow
valid8-evidence.html	Evidence recorder and upload page
index.html	GitHub Pages entry page that redirects the site root to the evidence recorder
docs/screenshots/	Prototype screenshots and sample report preview
valid8-example-evidence.pdf	Example evidence report from a test recording
Valid8-Hermes-ppt.pdf	Team Hermes presentation
LICENSE	MIT license

Status

Prototype features	Roadmap
Suspicious call → child popup	WhatsApp Cloud API channel (same n8n logic)
Safe PIN check, PIN message deletion attempted	One-tap, opt-in location after a correct PIN
Help alert	SMS fallback for trusted contacts
3 wrong PINs → LOCKED	Self-service onboarding with invite links
Trusted contacts after 30 s	Hashed PIN storage
UNCONFIRMED verdict and late replies forwarded to the parent	Listening window that expires after a set time
Button replies ignored while the case has a final status	Atomic counter for PIN attempts
Post-call evidence: recording → transcript → AI extraction → PDF on Telegram

Known limitations

• PINs are stored in plain text in the prototype. Production will store a hash.
• Very fast repeated PIN attempts can race the counter. Production needs an atomic counter.
• In the prototype, UNCONFIRMED keeps listening with no expiry. Production will close the case after a set window.
• A late wrong PIN can change an UNCONFIRMED case back to open. That can affect timeout handling and needs to be tidied.
• Valid8 needs the child and contacts to have joined the bot. Missing member/contact rows or failed sends can stop a branch before an UNCONFIRMED message; setup must include those rows.
• Callbacks and waiting executions are associated with familyId, without a unique case ID. Old buttons and timers can affect a new case. Avoid overlapping checks in the prototype; production needs case-specific callbacks and timer guards.
• A trusted contact's answer closes the case as contact_safe or contact_no, so further child/contact replies are ignored until a new case opens.
• PIN validation relies on the setup convention that only child rows contain PINs; the sender lookup does not explicitly filter by child role. Deleting a PIN message is best effort and does not remove it from n8n execution data.
• The evidence webhook is unauthenticated in the export, trusts the supplied familyId, and allows all origins. Production needs authenticated uploads, family authorization, and an origin allowlist.
• The recorder's 24 MB check applies to uploaded files, not microphone recordings. Upload acceptance does not guarantee transcription, PDF generation, or Telegram delivery.
• A correct PIN confirms the child is safe. It does not by itself prove who the caller is.
• The evidence report depends on speech-to-text, which can mishear UPI IDs and phone numbers. Recordings are sent to a third-party API (Groq) only when the family uploads one.

The feature list reflects the supplied prototype and demo assets. Import and test both workflows against your own credentials and data tables before relying on them.

Emergency numbers (India)

• 112: single emergency number
• 1930 or cybercrime.gov.in: report financial fraud
• Sanchar Saathi (Chakshu): report suspected fraud calls

Built with

n8n · Telegram Bot API · Docker · Cloudflare Tunnel · Groq (Whisper large-v3, gpt-oss-120b) · Gotenberg