Technology Desk: If the question paper of an examination is kept in a sealed envelope, then it is generally believed that it is not possible to see it without opening the seal. But such a case of paper leak came to light in Durg district of Chhattisgarh, in which there is an allegation of extracting the information of the question paper without opening the seal. For this work, a very small endoscopic camera used in medical examination was used.
The matter is related to Yogesh Sonkesaria, Assistant Professor of Bharti Agriculture College. According to the police, the accused took the sealed question paper of Entomology subject of B.Sc Agriculture second year to home and recorded it from inside with the help of a camera. After this the questions were handwritten and forwarded.
What is endoscopic camera?
Endoscopic camera is a small and thin camera device. It is made in such a way that the camera can be reached to such places where a normal camera cannot reach. It consists of a very thin cable or tube. There is a small camera installed in front of it i.e. at the tip. There is also an LED light with it, which illuminates the dark place.
In the medical field, doctors use similar technology to see parts inside the body. For example, an endoscopic camera is useful when examining the stomach, throat or other internal parts of the body. Its specialty is its small size. The camera mounted end can reach even very small spaces and can show live video of that space on the screen.
How was the camera used in the paper leak?
According to police investigation, a sealed question paper of Entomology had reached the accused professor. It is alleged that instead of opening the envelope, he made a very small hole in it. After this, the thin cable of the endoscopic camera was passed inside through the same short path. The LED light attached to the camera illuminated the inside of the envelope and the question paper kept inside could be seen through the camera. That is, the envelope appeared completely closed from outside, but an attempt was made to see the question paper inside it with the help of a camera.
Questions appeared on the camera screen
According to the information revealed in the investigation, after watching the live footage from the camera, the accused wrote about 15 questions of the question paper by hand on a separate paper. This is said to be the most important part of this case. Instead of taking out the question paper or opening the entire envelope, the method of viewing the contents through the camera was adopted. After this, it is alleged that the prepared questions were sold to a student for Rs 11,000. Later this information reached other people through WhatsApp.
Medical device became source of paper leak
The basic function of endoscopic camera is medical examination. The purpose of its design is to show the inside view of such places, where it is difficult to carry the camera in a normal way. Three things proved to be special in this case—small camera, thin cable and LED light.
The small camera can record or show live what's inside. The thin cable can be routed into confined spaces and the LED light illuminates the scene inside the dark. By allegedly misusing this technical capability, information about the sealed question paper was obtained.
Now question papers will be sent digitally
After this incident, the university has decided to make changes in the security arrangements of question papers. Now preparations are being made to adopt OTP based digital encrypted delivery system for sending question papers. In this system, the digital delivery of the question paper and the process of opening it will be controlled at the security level, so that only authorized persons can access the question paper at the scheduled time.