Conversion You Can Trust — Where Attacks Die and Evidence Begins
Quantum-electrical events preserved • Artifacts rejected
Watcher’s reliability isn’t an accident—it’s engineered at the conversion boundary. By controlling quantization strategy, clock discipline, front-end topology, and anti-sniff defenses at the ADC, PAXV prevents spoofed “truth” from ever becoming data, while preserving physically faithful events with hardware-anchored provenance.
What the ADC Enables Across the Watcher Line
IC • ACS • Acquisition • Storage • Q-VaultThe conversion boundary is the trust boundary
- Intelligence Collector (IC): calibrated taps and inline timebases deliver nanosecond-accurate captures.
- Acquisition Server: programmable gain/dither, multi-ADC sync, and deterministic thresholding.
- Advanced Comms Switch (ACS): routes verified signal artifacts with minimal metadata leakage.
- Storage Server: retains raw frames plus derived edges with chain-of-custody.
- Q-Vault: seals provenance at capture; tamper-evident signature over quantized outputs.
We control noise, bias, and thresholds so quantization produces trustworthy steps—and edges with provenance.
ADC Architecture — Built for Integrity and Speed
Front-end → Conversion → Post-quantizationFront-End Discipline
- Impedance-matched inputs, protection stacks, EMI/RFI hygiene
- Programmable gain, anti-aliasing, linearity budgets
- Bias control & sensor excitation with drift monitoring
Conversion Strategy
- Bit-depth vs bandwidth tradecraft per mission
- Dither strategy to linearize quantization; noise shaping where appropriate
- Threshold design to drive deterministic digital edges
Post-Quantization Hygiene
- Immediate provenance tagging (timebase, channel, gain state)
- Edge derivation for FPGA pipelines (sub-µs path)
- Compression & crypto for transport via ACS
Anti-Sniff at the Converter — Stopping Artifacts at the Source
Spoof rejection before “data” existsCountermeasures
- Timing coherence tests: reject samples that fail phase/PLL discipline.
- Bias & baseline attestation: detect unnatural DC shifts & step anomalies.
- Cross-channel parity: correlated sensors must agree within tolerances.
- Out-of-band canary tones: verify signal path identity; flag injected paths.
- Dynamic threshold auditing: confirm transitions align with analog slope physics.
Result: Spoofed energy is tagged or dropped at conversion, not after a SOC alert.
Only edges consistent with physical slope and clock coherence produce valid transitions.
Clock Discipline & Synchronization
If time is wrong, everything is wrongLow-Phase-Noise References
Deterministic jitter budgets per chain; coherent multi-ADC sampling for cross-sensor truth.
Nanosecond-Class Timestamps
Hardware-anchored time tags at capture; no retroactive “log time” ambiguity.
Trustable Edges
Edges are emitted only when timing, slope, and amplitude agree—FPGA pipelines act with confidence.
From Analog → Quantized Steps → Deterministic Edges → Logic
Sub-µs hardware path1) Pre-condition & Capture
Anti-alias filters, gain plan, bias control, and EMI/RFI hygiene deliver clean inputs to the ADC.
2) Quantize with Intent
Dither/noise shaping as needed; thresholds designed to create edges that reflect physical reality.
3) Emit Edges
Edges with provenance (timebase, channel, gain state) feed FPGAs for sub-µs decisions and interlocks.
4) Secure & Route
ACS moves verified artifacts with minimal metadata exposure; Storage preserves raw + edges.
5) Correlate & Act
Cross-channel agreement and time coherence drive machine control or mission alerts without false trips.
6) Audit & Prove
Q-Vault attests to chain-of-custody; forensics access both waveform and derived decisions.
Myths vs Facts — “Digital Already Does This”
Why conversion integrity mattersMyth
- “IDS/IPS/AV will catch it later anyway.”
- “It’s just bits—doesn’t matter where they came from.”
- “ADC front-ends are commodity and interchangeable.”
Fact
- Later is too late. Once spoofed energy is digitized, it looks authentic to software analytics.
- Provenance is physical. Time, slope, and coherence at conversion determine truthfulness.
- Front-ends define reality. Bias, impedance, and clock discipline decide whether bits mean anything.
Compromised conversion ⇒ convincing digital lies. PAXV prevents that at the ADC.
Where Anti-Sniff Wins — Illustrative Scenarios
Defense, critical industry, covert environmentsInjected Spur During Capture
Adversary couples a carrier into the harness. Clock-coherence & slope tests fail; spur is tagged and dropped pre-packet.
Drifted Bias Attack
Long-tail DC shift attempts to walk thresholds. Baseline attestation flags the drift and freezes edge emission.
Cross-Sensor Mismatch
One channel reports an event; correlated channels disagree within window → event quarantined for review.
Engineering Checklist — PAXV ADC Implementation
Build it right the first timeDesign Inputs
- Target bandwidth & SNR, noise figure, linearity budgets
- Front-end impedance, protection, and anti-alias topology
- Clock source phase noise & jitter budget
- Dither/noise shaping selection and levels
- Cross-channel sync (trigger, PPS, PTP/White-Rabbit class where applicable)
Validation Gates
| Gate | Method | Pass Criteria |
|---|---|---|
| Threshold Audit | Slope/phase match | Edges only on physical rise/fall windows |
| Bias Attestation | Baseline monitors | No uncaused DC walk outside band |
| Coherence | PLL/phase checks | Channels within tolerance |
| Anti-Sniff | Canary + OOB tests | No rogue path activation |
| Provenance | HW time tags | Nanosecond-class stamps present |
ADC — Quantization & Anti-Sniff • FAQ
Open discussion pointsDo you still store digital data?
Yes—after it’s validated at conversion. We store raw frames, edges, and provenance so downstream analytics are trustworthy.
How is this different from “filtering noise”?
We’re not just filtering—we’re attesting to physical coherence and rejecting injected energy before it becomes “true” data.
Can this coexist with IDS/IPS/SIEM?
Yes. We upstream them with verified events, reducing false positives and surfacing attacks that never show up in logs.