Halloween's Ruko

👻 Ruko AI — Stop. Check Before You Tap.

This is a submission for the Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge Week 4: Ghost in the Machine.

What I Built

I built Ruko, a privacy-first AI assistant that helps people identify suspicious SMS and WhatsApp messages before they click malicious links, share credentials, or send money.

Inspired by the idea of invisible threats hiding in everyday digital communication, I designed Ruko around the Halloween theme Ghost in the Machine.

Ruko combines deterministic scam detection with local AI explanations while keeping sensitive information protected. Its Privacy Gate intercepts OTPs, PINs, passwords, and CVVs before AI inference.

The core idea is simple: Stop. Check before you tap.

Code

GitHub: https://github.com/vedant21-ctr/rukoAI

How I Built It

Ruko is built using Python, Streamlit, FastAPI, and Gemma 2B, running locally through Ollama.

Its five-layer architecture consists of:

1. Privacy Gate — intercepts sensitive credentials.
2. PII Sanitizer — protects personal information.
3. Deterministic Rule Engine — calculates immutable risk levels.
4. Local Gemma 2B — explains suspicious signals using abstract boolean features.
5. Safety Validator — checks AI-generated recommendations and provides safe fallbacks.

I used open-weight AI to provide understandable explanations without sending raw user messages to a cloud AI service.

The project currently has 90 passing automated tests according to my latest test report.

Why Does Open Innovation Matter?

Open innovation makes it possible to build AI applications with greater transparency, control, and privacy.

Using Gemma 2B and Ollama allowed me to run inference locally and control exactly what information reaches the model.

Instead of trusting a remote AI service with private conversations, Ruko uses a deterministic security pipeline and gives the local model only abstract signals.

Open-source tools made this architecture possible, affordable, reproducible, and open to further improvement.

My Agent Session

[Add your DevRelay session link here, if available.]

The Spirit of It

Sometimes the biggest threats don't look dangerous.

They arrive as ordinary bank notifications, delivery updates, or job offers. One rushed click can be enough.

With Ruko, I wanted to build something that gives people a moment to pause before making that mistake.

The ghost represents the invisible threats hiding in our digital lives.

Ruko — Stop. Check before you tap. 👻