Every hardware selection, every software configuration, and every default setting in the Obsidian product line was chosen with a single architectural principle: nothing leaves without your explicit consent, and everything that does leave is anonymized before it goes. This page describes the technical architecture that makes that true.
Every Obsidian unit ships with a dedicated network security appliance - a fanless, hardened firewall running OPNsense open-source firmware - positioned between the appliance and your router. All outbound traffic is inspected and controlled at the hardware level before it reaches the internet. WireGuard VPN tunneling is pre-configured. Nothing exits your network silently.
Every external query - web searches, any optional external AI calls - routes through a Swiss-registered VPS before reaching any external endpoint. No external service ever sees your IP address, your location, or any identifying information about the client or the office. The Swiss VPS is registered to a Wyoming LLC. There is no direct line between your query and your identity.
Your entire corpus - every conversation, every document, every profile entry - is encrypted with a key that only you hold. Apex Fortress AI holds ciphertext it cannot read. In the event of a legal demand, there is nothing we can produce. The encryption is not a policy. It is a physical and mathematical fact. This is the real subpoena-resistance claim - not a legal argument, but a technical one.
The appliance ships with all external communication disabled by default. Web search requires an explicit consent gate. External AI fan-out requires a second explicit consent gate. Both are off until you turn them on. Privacy is the default state, not something you configure after the fact.
GlassWire Pro provides real-time visualization of every network connection leaving the machine - who is connecting, when, and to where. Every unauthorized outbound connection is flagged the moment it occurs. You see everything. Nothing leaves silently. GlassWire is your real-time audit dashboard; OPNsense logs are the authoritative audit trail.
Every unit ships with Windows 11 Pro stripped of virtually every telemetry pathway, surveillance service, and privacy-breaking program Microsoft includes by default. Cortana, Copilot AI, Advertising IDs, OneDrive, activity history, location tracking, diagnostic reporting, and sponsored content are permanently disabled system-wide. Feature updates - which can reset privacy settings or re-enable telemetry - are blocked. Security patches only. Your privacy hardening stays intact.
Every local AI model available on the Obsidian platform originates from Western institutions - Meta (Llama), Google (Gemma), and Mistral (France). No Chinese-origin models are offered or supported. This is not a political statement. It is a supply-chain privacy decision, and it is disclosed clearly as a product specification. Custom local AI models are also available at an additional charge.
We also offer access to any external AI model that provides an API key - including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, and others. Before any query leaves your device, our proprietary Personally Identifiable Information stripping layer removes your name, location, financial details, and any other identifying context. The external AI receives a clean question. It never knows who asked. You can query one external AI, several at once, or combine external AI responses with your local AI - all from a single interface, all anonymized, all stored privately on your Obsidian system.