Your students' data never leaves your machine
Red Herrings is a desktop app that generates and grades entirely on your own computer. There's no telemetry and no student data leaving the machine, and an air-gapped machine activates by file and never contacts a server. Licensing is the only required server contact; the update check and connected LMS mode are opt-in.
No telemetry · fully offline by default · server-side grading · Ed25519-signed licenses
Local and offline by default
Everything that touches student work happens on the machine in front of you, with no network in the loop.
No student data ever leaves the machine
Generation and grading make no network call. Rosters, submissions, evidence and grades stay on your computer. There's no analytics beacon, no cloud sync and no account to create: nothing is uploaded, because there's nowhere for it to go. One optional, off-by-default setting checks GitHub once a day for a newer version, with a plain request that carries no identifying data.
Offline, or fully air-gapped
An online activation refreshes about once a month and keeps working for two weeks past that with no connection. An air-gapped machine activates once by file and never contacts a server again.
Runs on Windows, macOS and Linux
A desktop app you double-click to launch; it opens in your browser and runs locally. No server to stand up, no data to host, nothing to patch on someone else's infrastructure.
The answer key never reaches the student
When students solve in the browser, the portal is served from your own machine. The answers stay on your side.
Server-side grading, keys held locally
Every answer is graded on your machine and only right-or-wrong comes back. The key is never sent to the student's browser, so there's nothing in the page to read, scrape or share. When you open the portal to a lab network, other computers reach the student portal and nothing else; the library, jobs, answer keys and grading answer only on the instructor's computer.
Answers capped and scoped
Submitted answers are length-capped, and submissions are restricted to the lab's own questions. A student can only answer their own lab, and only within sensible bounds.
Licensing & activation, signed and verifiable
Licensing is the one piece that talks to a server. It's built to be tamper-evident and to keep working when the network isn't there.
Ed25519-signed license keys
Every license is signed with Ed25519, so the app can verify a key is genuine and unaltered without calling home on every launch.
Machine activation with an offline grace
A key activates against a derived machine id. Once activated the app keeps running offline, with a grace period for ordinary network gaps, and deactivation frees the seat to move to a new machine.
Connected mode is opt-in
If you already run a course in an LMS you can connect Red Herrings to it. That's a choice you make, not a default.
LTI 1.3, only when you choose it
Deployed as a hosted tool, Red Herrings connects to Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle or D2L over LTI 1.3, with Deep Linking, roster sync (NRPS) and grade passback (AGS).
The desktop app stays fully offline otherwise
Skip connected mode and nothing changes about the offline guarantees above. See the student portal & LMS page for how connected mode works.
For procurement & security reviewers
Need a security questionnaire completed, a data-flow description, or the details of our activation and grading model? Email sales@redherrings.app and tell us what your review needs.