Offline & Air-Gapped Systems
Software that works with no internet, and talks to your hardware.
Some environments have no connectivity — by regulation or by physics — and every off-the-shelf product assumes a cloud. I build systems that run on a disconnected machine, speak to the equipment you already own, and keep working when the link drops.
Starting point
An environment survey and integration map for a fixed fee — which devices, which protocols, what is feasible and what is not. Useful to you even if you never commission the build.
Who it is for
- Plants, facilities and field operations where there is no connectivity to rely on
- Organisations whose data may not leave the internal network
- Teams with equipment already purchased and no software that unifies it
You need this when
- The data cannot leave your network, and every product on the market is cloud-only
- The site has no connectivity, and work still has to happen there
- You need to talk to specific equipment: sensors, instruments, radios, cameras, GPS
- The hardware is bought, but nothing brings it into one picture
- An existing system demands a permanent connection to the vendor's server, and that is unacceptable
What is included, end to end
- Survey of the environment: the network, the equipment, the regulations, what may never leave
- Integration map: which devices, over which transport, speaking which protocols
- Per-device feasibility assessment — which are documented, which will need recovery work
- Quote, contract and NDA
- Architecture: autonomy, local storage, behaviour when the link drops, synchronisation between nodes
- Pilot on one node and one device
- Development: native device layer, services, client, inter-node synchronisation
- Autonomous delivery: installation with no internet, local dependencies, offline updates
- Bench testing, then field testing on site
- A planned remediation stage after field testing — budgeted, not called a warranty
- Handover: sources, access, documentation, instructions for standing the system up from zero on an isolated machine
- Support and updates deliverable without connectivity
What you get
- A system that runs on a machine with no internet and comes up from zero by written instruction
- Integration with your specific equipment, verified on that equipment
- An audit trail: who did what, and when
- A field-test report
Evidence
Work actually shipped. Client names and domain details are under NDA; the engineering is described without them.
Removed internet access from a client application entirely — not behind a feature flag: the cloud map engine was deleted. Air-gap as an architectural requirement rather than a setting.
UAV video without ffmpeg: RTP/H.264 received and remuxed to MPEG-TS in pure Go, with a custom FLV to Annex-B player, hardware decode and reconnect. No external binary anywhere in the path.
Native hardware access on Windows: GPS through the IGeolocator COM interface, self-elevation through UAC, vendor-agnostic CPU temperature.
Two independent links with graceful degradation: a primary TCP protocol and a fallback over UDP, HF radio and Bluetooth, with a local store, an outbox and acknowledgements.
The failure class that only exists in these conditions, each case fixed with evidence: an echo loop between two links; a false 'sent' while the message was actually lost; a resend storm; state divergence after reconnect, closed with a link epoch; source-name collisions across sixty nodes; device clocks never synchronised with each other.
Computation that cannot be moved to a cloud: A* over a road graph of roughly 8 million edges with zone avoidance, terrain sampling and trafficability by vehicle class — all computed locally on a machine with no network.
The platform traps of autonomous delivery, all met and fixed: pthread stack overflow on Android, SIGPIPE, a Windows database file that cannot be renamed while open, CP1251 against UTF-8 in paths, and EMFILE from a polling file watcher.
How it works commercially
Fixed price by stage, with field testing and remediation as a separately budgeted stage. Support under its own agreement. Priced against the cost of downtime rather than the volume of code. Be aware the sales cycle here is long: procurement, security review, sometimes tender.
Not included
- Information-security audit, certification or accreditation
- Hardware supply