Why Analog First — The Advantage Behind Watcher
We do digital—of course. But our edge starts before the bit: in the analog ecosystem where signals are born. By capturing calibrated voltage–current pairs, timing, and physical context, PAXV turns raw phenomena into ground-truth digital evidence that IPS/AV/SIEM stacks simply never observe.
The Analog Domain’s Role in the Watcher Product Line
IC • ACS • Acquisition • Storage • Q-VaultWhere the signal becomes truth
Digital systems begin after conversion. PAXV begins before conversion: sensor physics, front-end topology, shielding, bias control, impedance, pre-conditioning, anti-sniff countermeasures, and disciplined timebases. That foundation feeds every Watcher device:
- Intelligence Collector (IC): covert inline capture with calibrated analog taps and nanosecond timestamps.
- Advanced Comms Switch (ACS): resilient paths for moving verified signal products without leaking metadata.
- Acquisition Server: precision ADC chains, dithering strategies, and programmable pre-processing.
- Storage Server: high-integrity archives of physically faithful signals and derived edges.
- Q-Vault: tamper-resistant mini IC that preserves provenance at the point of capture.
We capture the full waveform context, then derive deterministic edges with provenance.
From Waveform to Action
Analog → ADC → Edges → Logic → Decision1) Physical Capture
Voltage–current pairs, sensor biasing, anti-alias filters, EMI/RFI hygiene, and environmental metadata.
2) Pre-Defense at the ADC
Anti-sniff techniques, quantization strategy, dither control, and synchronized clocks suppress spoofed artifacts at conversion.
3) Deterministic Edges
Clean thresholding produces edges that FPGAs can trust—sub-microsecond pipelines trigger without false positives.
4) Digital Enrichment
After trustworthy edges exist, we compress, route, correlate, and encrypt—then hand to ACS and Storage.
5) Provenance & Audit
Q-Vault seals capture chains; Storage Server maintains tamper-evident histories for forensics.
6) Closed-Loop Action
Verified events drive machine control, comms policy, or alerts—noisy guesses never touch actuators.
What We Do That Digital-Only Stacks Don’t
Addressing IPS/AV/SIEM comparisonsSignal Truth vs. Log Guesswork
- Observe the cause, not just the effect: physical transients, coupling paths, timing skew, side-channels.
- Pre-digital verification: reject injected artifacts before they become “data.”
- Deterministic triggers: edges derived from calibrated physics—not heuristic scoring alone.
- Provenance trail: hardware-anchored timestamps and chain-of-custody from sensor to archive.
Digital Expertise—After Analog Integrity
Yes, we do digital. We store, route, encrypt, and analyze like the best of them—after we’ve built trusted signals.
IPS, AV, and SIEM operate on logs, processes, packets, and signatures. We feed those systems with validated signal events they otherwise can’t see—shrinking false positives and catching physics-level attacks that never surface in software.
Myths vs Facts
Straight talk for skepticsMyth
- “Digital systems already do what you do.”
- “Everything that matters is in software logs.”
- “Analog front-ends are commodity.”
Fact
- Digital starts after conversion. If conversion is compromised, every downstream inference is compromised.
- Logs are effects, not causes. Physical events often leave no software trace.
- Front-end design is the security root. Biasing, impedance, shielding, and time discipline determine truthfulness.
Corrupted analog → convincing digital lies. Our job is to make that corruption physically hard—and cryptographically obvious.
Where Analog Wins — Illustrative Scenarios
Industry & security contextsCovert Injection Attempt
Attacker couples a waveform onto a sensor lead. Our anti-sniff and timing discipline mark it as non-causal at conversion—rejected before it becomes a packet.
Side-Channel Anomaly
Power/EM signatures deviate without any software event. We flag the physical anomaly and gate downstream logic until a verified edge appears.
Safety-Critical Trigger
Sub-µs edges from the Acquisition Server drive FPGA interlocks; human-time alerts go to operations via ACS with provenance intact.
The Analog Ecosystem We Engineer
What makes PAXV differentDesign Elements
- Sensor physics, coupling paths, ground strategy, and return currents
- Front-end impedance, bias networks, and protection stacks
- Anti-alias & pre-whitening, programmable gain, linearity budgets
- Clock discipline, phase noise control, multi-ADC synchronization
- Anti-sniff injection detection and pre-conversion rejection
Outputs You Can Trust
| Capability | Digital-Only Stack | PAXV Analog→Digital |
|---|---|---|
| Event Provenance | Best-effort log time | Hardware-anchored, calibrated timestamps |
| Artifact Rejection | Heuristics post-facto | Pre-conversion anti-sniff & timing coherence |
| False Positives | Suppression after alerts | Prevented by physical validation |
| Actuation Safety | Software policy gates | Deterministic edges to FPGA interlocks |
| Forensics | Derived logs | Raw waveform + edge lineage in Storage Server |
Analog Domain — FAQ
Open discussion pointsDo you still store digital signals?
Yes. We acquire, compress, encrypt, and correlate digitally. Our difference is that the digital we store is already verified by analog truth.
How is this not “just another IDS/IPS”?
IDS/IPS looks at traffic and logs. We inspect the cause—the physical event—before it becomes traffic or a log entry.
Where does this fit in existing stacks?
Upstream of sensors and at the conversion boundary. Our outputs feed your SIEM/EDR with fewer false positives and new, high-fidelity signals.