One protocol.
Every place data moves or rests.
DialectForge gives two machines a private language that changes every two minutes. Anything that doesn't speak today's language is designed to be dropped. I've been applying that one idea to networks, storage, an operating system, and as demos and designs to radios, cars and a bank ledger. None of it has been independently tested yet.
Two machines invent a language, use it for two minutes, then throw it away.
Most secure connections pick a well-known protocol and lock it down. That works, but a well-known protocol has a well-known shape, and anyone watching the wire can spot that shape, block it, or aim at it.
DialectForge works the other way. Both ends start from a shared random seed and work out a dialect: how identifiers are remapped, how payloads are scrambled, what the frames look like. Every 120 seconds they both move to the next dialect without having to talk about it. A frame that isn't in the current dialect isn't treated as a bad message. It's treated as noise and dropped. That's the design; it hasn't been independently tested yet.
It's its own protocol, not a wrapper around WireGuard or OpenVPN. And it doesn't care what carries it: UDP, WiFi, Bluetooth, a CAN bus, a disk block, or a page of memory.
It's like changing the locks every two minutes, and the new key is cut the same way on both sides without anyone handing it over.
The short version, in four steps
Seed
One node makes a 256-bit random seed from hardware entropy and shares it with its peers over a protected channel. The design target is under 50 ms.
Propose
Each node's negotiation agent turns the seed into proposals: how to remap IDs, how to scramble payloads. They trade proposals for 3 to 5 rounds.
Agree
Proposals are combined (XOR consensus) into one shared dialect. A quorum of more than 70% has to agree before traffic flows.
Refresh & reject
On a timer, every 120 s by default, the dialect moves forward from the seed. Both sides know the next one already. Frames that don't fit the current dialect are dropped, and repeated misses raise an anomaly score that can lock things down and force a fresh seed.
Think of two devices inventing their own secret language every two minutes. If someone slips a fake message in, it gets thrown out, because they don't know today's language.
One protocol, applied domain by domain
Same seed, same negotiation, same refresh, same rule about foreign frames. What changes is what gets remapped: an IP flow, a MAC address, a CAN ID, a disk sector, a memory page.
VPN Offline
VPN built on the protocol. The service is offline; the code is being open sourced. DF-VPN v1 is in testing and not yet released.
D-02 · NETWORKMesh / Tunnel
Server-to-server and database traffic wrapped in DF. The database thinks it's talking to localhost.
D-03 · NETWORKTerminal / SSH
SSH over DF, with TOTP, session tokens and a pinned certificate. The current app uses an earlier protocol; a new version is in testing.
D-04 · RADIOWiFi Design
MAC addresses and frame types that hop each cycle; seeds exchanged in protected association frames.
D-05 · RADIOBluetooth / BLE Design
Device addresses and GATT handles that hop; seeds set during secure pairing.
D-06 · VEHICLECAN bus Simulation
Designed to hop IDs while keeping arbitration priority, plus scrambled payloads. Browser simulation only; not tested on a vehicle.
D-07 · STORAGEdialectfs
An encrypted filesystem where every volume, directory and file has its own derived seed.
D-08 · FINANCEBanking Demo
A browser demo of a COBOL-style wire transfer processor showing negotiation, an injected attack, lockdown and recovery.
D-09 · OPERATING SYSTEMStratosphere In development
A clean-room Rust OS where DF isn't added on. It's how processes talk at every level.
D-10 · MOBILEDFoS Android Planned
DF at every layer of a hardened Android base.
D-11 · MESSAGINGMessenger In development
Two layers: DF on the wire, end-to-end encryption on the content.
D-12 · VERIFICATIONVerify Open-sourcing
Seed-scoped module isolation for proof checkers, with targeted revocation.
D-13 · AIPrompt Research paper
Training a language model to only take instructions in dialect. Published Feb 2026.
D-14 · AILu Open source · AGPL-3.0
An AI with no neural network or weights: a typed knowledge graph whose answers come from spreading activation through its bonds, so they can be traced. It says “I don't know” instead of guessing, and “scars” keep removed knowledge from coming back. Cattledog came out of it.
D-15 · AI SAFETYCattledog Open source · Apache-2.0
Wraps any LLM with honesty (“I don't know”) and scars: it gates the model's tool calls and checks its answers.
D-16 · DEPLOYMENTEnterprise
Container-first deployment of the tunnel for offices, clouds, branch sites and industrial networks. Commercial licenses available.
An experimental operating system built around the protocol.
DFoS is a fork of the Linux kernel with DialectForge as a kernel subsystem. Every process gets its own dialect seed. Memory pages are encrypted with keys derived from it, and the filesystem speaks dialect natively. It comes with demo attack scripts I wrote. Its security hasn't been independently tested or reviewed, and I'm not claiming it resists any particular attack. Once the source is out, I'd welcome review.
root@dfos:~# dfctl status dialect: active cycle: 120s cipher: AES-256-GCM lsm: dialectforge zones: 3 quarantined: 0 root@dfos:~# df_pentest.sh --all
A computer designed so even the memory is scrambled with a key only that one program has. Whether it holds up is something other people need to test, not something I can just say.
All of it is going open source.
Every DialectForge project is being prepared for public release under the GNU AGPL-3.0. You'll be able to read it, run it, test it and build on it. If you want to use it inside a closed product without AGPL obligations, DialectForge LLC sells commercial licenses. Kernel code stays GPL-2.0, like Linux. Cattledog is Apache-2.0.
Lu and Cattledog are public now. DF-VPN is in progress: I'm finishing the spec and the library. No date yet. The rest will follow and be announced here.
| Lic. | Covers |
|---|---|
| AGPL-3.0 | Protocol, VPN, Mesh, Terminal, Messenger, Verify, DFoS tools Free to use, change and share. If you run a modified version as a service, share your changes. |
| GPL-2.0 | DFoS kernel and kernel-facing code Same license as the Linux kernel it's built on. |
| Apache-2.0 | Cattledog Permissive, so AI teams can drop it in anywhere. |
| Comm. | Commercial license from DialectForge LLC For use without AGPL obligations. Email [email protected]. |
You can look at every line. If you're a company that can't share your changes, you can buy a license instead.
A carpenter who built a protocol.
I'm John Martin, a fourth-generation carpenter from Michigan. I taught myself to build software the same way I learned to build houses: measure, cut, test the fit, and do it again until it's square. DialectForge started as one question: what if a connection didn't have a shape anyone could recognize? It turned into a protocol, and then I kept finding places to use it.
I also built a few iOS apps and LiveFlyer, a web app that makes gift-triggered animations and overlays for TikTok LIVE streamers. They're how I fund the work on DialectForge. LiveFlyer isn't open source.
I'll tell you what's working, what's in progress and what's still an idea. Where I say something is designed to resist an attack, that's the goal and the reason it's built that way, not a promise. That's what the open source release and outside review are for.
Get in touch
Questions, testing, security research, partnerships, licensing, or you just want to talk protocols.
| General | [email protected] |
| Support | [email protected] App help, or see the Help Center. |
| Where | DialectForge LLC, a Delaware limited liability company. Built in Michigan, USA. |
One Discord for DialectForge and LiveFlyer
Join the DialectForge and LiveFlyer Discord to ask questions, share what you're building, and hear about updates.
