Litigation documents are confidential, privileged, or both. Sudex was designed around that from the first line of code: there is no server that receives your documents, because Sudex has no need for one.
Processed locally
Reading, converting, merging, stamping, linking and checking all happen on your computer. Sudex opens files from your own folders and your firm’s network drives with the Windows permissions you already have, and writes its results to a folder you choose.
What is never sent
Nothing about your work leaves your computer. That includes:
- the documents themselves, and any text, pictures or pages from them;
- file names and folder paths;
- matter names, party names and the names of saved jobs;
- document IDs and Bates numbers;
- file fingerprints (hashes) that Sudex calculates to check your originals.
When Sudex converts an email, pictures that the email would load from the internet are not fetched, so opening a message in Sudex never tells its sender that it was read.
Your originals
Sudex only ever reads the files you give it. Every result is a new file — a bundle, a stamped copy, a linked copy, a PDF — and an existing file is never overwritten; if a name is taken, the new file is numbered instead. Before a job starts Sudex records a fingerprint of each original, and afterwards it reads them again to confirm they are exactly as they were.
Checked outputs
Sudex does not assume its own work is right. After it builds a bundle it opens the finished PDF and checks the page count, the page numbers, the bookmarks and every index link. Stamps are read back from each page. Linked Word and Excel files are opened again and every link is followed to its file. Anything that does not match is reported, not hidden.
What Sudex saves on your computer
To pick up where you left off, Sudex keeps small settings files in your Windows profile (in %APPDATA%\Sudex): your saved jobs and matters, templates, and each tool’s defaults. A saved job holds file paths and settings — never copies of the documents. Settings has a button that opens this folder, and you can delete it at any time.
Microsoft Office
To turn Word documents and Excel spreadsheets into PDFs, Sudex uses the desktop Word and Excel already installed on your computer, in the background. Excel runs in a separate process that Sudex can stop if a spreadsheet makes it hang. Word and Excel are given a temporary working copy of each file, never the original, and the copy is deleted afterwards.
When Sudex goes online
The work itself never needs an internet connection. Once subscriptions begin, Sudex will check about once a month that your licence is active. That check is planned to send only what identifies the licence — the account, the licence key, the Sudex version and an anonymous identifier for the computer — and nothing about your work.
Whether Sudex will check for updates automatically, and what that check sends, will be set out here before release.
Reporting a concern
If you think you have found a security problem in Sudex or on this website, please email [email protected]. We will reply, keep you updated, and credit you if you would like.
Sudex does not currently hold any security certification, and this page does not claim one.