--- title: Valkey · Victory at HackNC State: Innovating for the... description: A team called Catphish won 'Best Use of Valkey API' at HackNC State 2026 by building a voice identity verification system for telecom fraud prevention. The... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/valkey-victory-at-hacknc-state-innovating-for-the-telecom-industry-with-valkey-ppza39cku twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Valkey · Victory at HackNC State: Innovating for the Telecom Industry with Valkey | daily.dev og:description: A team called Catphish won 'Best Use of Valkey API' at HackNC State 2026 by building a voice identity verification system for telecom fraud prevention. The... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/valkey-victory-at-hacknc-state-innovating-for-the-telecom-industry-with-valkey-ppza39cku og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/pPzA39ckU.png og:image:alt: Valkey · Victory at HackNC State: Innovating for the Telecom Industry with Valkey og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Valkey · Victory at HackNC State: Innovating for the Telecom Industry with Valkey **[Valkey](https://daily.dev/sources/valkey-blog)** · 7 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A team called Catphish won 'Best Use of Valkey API' at HackNC State 2026 by building a voice identity verification system for telecom fraud prevention. The system uses a two-layer approach: voice embedding matching plus dynamic cognitive prompts (like counting or spelling) that are easy for humans but hard for AI text-to-speech systems to answer naturally, distinguishing real speakers from voice clones. Valkey's in-memory key-value store was used to hold voice embeddings, session data, time-limited challenge prompts, API keys, and rate-limiting counters, enabling millisecond-latency lookups without schema design or migrations. The team settled on an ~85% similarity threshold for voice matching and envisioned the system as a B2B redirect-based API similar to Stripe's payment links. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How can I detect AI voice clones during phone-based authentication? Combine voice embedding matching with dynamic cognitive prompts that ask users to perform a small task, such as counting from one to five or spelling a word, rather than reading a fixed phrase. Humans respond naturally to the instruction while many text-to-speech systems read the instruction word-for-word, exposing synthetic voices. A voice similarity threshold around 85 percent balances rejecting attackers against tolerating legitimate variation. _daily.dev surfaces engineering writeups like this for developers building anti-fraud authentication flows._ ### What data should I store in Valkey for a real-time voice authentication system? Store voice embeddings for enrolled users, session data for authentication attempts, time-limited challenge prompts, API keys for tenant authentication, and rate-limiting counters. Valkey's in-memory key-value architecture retrieves this data in milliseconds without requiring schema design or migrations, which matters for pipelines involving audio capture, embedding generation, and verification scoring. _Developers weighing in-memory stores for latency-sensitive auth pipelines can track patterns like this on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Vapi raises $50m Series B led by Peak XV for enterprise voice AI](https://daily.dev/posts/vapi-raises-50m-series-b-led-by-peak-xv-for-enterprise-voice-ai-i1l4dovre) · The Next Web · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [AI voice startup Vapi hits $500M valuation after winning Amazon Ring over 40 rivals](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-voice-startup-vapi-hits-500m-valuation-after-winning-amazon-ring-over-40-rivals-uzhk6oymy) · TechCrunch · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Social Engineering 2.0: The 'Talking to Strangers' Vulnerability](https://daily.dev/posts/social-engineering-2-0-the-talking-to-strangers-vulnerability-beauj6k8t) · SitePoint · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Real-Time Audio Deepfake Tech Is Here](https://daily.dev/posts/real-time-audio-deepfake-tech-is-here-rt49hcqso) · IEEE Spectrum · 11 upvotes · 1 comments --- Tags: [#authentication](https://daily.dev/tags/authentication), [#hackathon](https://daily.dev/tags/hackathon), [#valkey](https://daily.dev/tags/valkey) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/valkey-victory-at-hacknc-state-innovating-for-the-telecom-industry-with-valkey-ppza39cku) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Valkey · Victory at HackNC State: Innovating for the Telecom Industry with Valkey","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/valkey-victory-at-hacknc-state-innovating-for-the-telecom-industry-with-valkey-ppza39cku","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/valkey-victory-at-hacknc-state-innovating-for-the-telecom-industry-with-valkey-ppza39cku"},"datePublished":"2026-08-23T12:22:01.110Z","dateModified":"2026-08-23T12:49:58.464Z","description":"A team called Catphish won 'Best Use of Valkey API' at HackNC State 2026 by building a voice identity verification system for telecom fraud prevention. 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