Project Patton

"Speed is Armor. Hold the Line."

Project Patton is a high-velocity security daemon written in Rust, engineered for Counter-Intelligence in Model Context Protocol (MCP) traffic. It intercepts, inspects, and neutralizes PII (Personally Identifiable Information) leaks before they cross the wire to external servers.

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Core Mandates

1. Zero Latency: Uses aho-corasick for O(n) multi-pattern vault matching and bounded regex for PII detection with ReDoS protection.
2. Surgical Precision: MCP-protocol-aware JSON-RPC parsing targets only methods that carry user data (tools/call, resources/read, sampling/createMessage), skipping safe methods like initialize and ping.
3. Command & Control: Every detected leak triggers a native macOS alert, putting the final decision in your hands: Advance or Retreat.

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Operating Modes

Passive Sniffer

Captures raw packets via pnet datalink. Attempts structural JSON-RPC parsing, falls back to raw string scanning. Triggers macOS dialog on detection.

sudo patton sniff [--interface en0]

Active Redaction Proxy

HTTP/1.1 interception proxy that scans requests and responses bidirectionally. Forwards sanitized payloads to upstream MCP server. Includes rate limiting, body size limits, and optional TLS MITM.

patton proxy [--addr 127.0.0.1:8080] [--upstream http://localhost:3000] [--enable-tls]

Tactical Dashboard

Real-time TUI showing interceptions as they happen, with live statistics.

sudo patton dashboard [--interface en0]

Background Service

macOS LaunchAgent for running the proxy as a persistent service.

patton service install
patton service status
patton service uninstall

PII Vault

User-defined sensitive patterns stored in config and matched via aho-corasick automaton.

patton vault add "MY_SECRET_TOKEN"
patton vault list
patton vault clear

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PII Detection

Patton detects the following PII types:

Type	Method	Marker
Credit Cards	Regex + Luhn validation	[REDACTED_CARD]
Email Addresses	Bounded regex	[REDACTED_EMAIL]
AWS Access Keys	AKIA... pattern	[REDACTED_AWS_KEY]
Generic API Keys	Common key formats	[REDACTED_API_KEY]
Vault Patterns	Aho-Corasick automaton	[REDACTED_SECRET]

All detection includes:

• Unicode normalization to prevent bypass attacks
• Chunked scanning for large payloads (>1MB) to prevent ReDoS
• Case-insensitive vault matching

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Architecture

src/
  main.rs       CLI entry point (clap subcommands)
  lib.rs        Library root, integration tests
  recon.rs      Packet capture via pnet datalink
  redact.rs     PII detection engine (regex + aho-corasick)
  sigint.rs     Generic JSON-RPC parser (sniff/dashboard)
  mcp.rs        MCP-protocol-aware message parser (proxy)
  proxy.rs      HTTP interception proxy (hyper + reqwest)
  tls.rs        TLS MITM cert generation (rcgen + rustls)
  config.rs     Persistent config via confy
  daemon.rs     macOS LaunchAgent management
  dashboard.rs  Real-time TUI (ratatui + crossterm)
  ui.rs         Native macOS alerts via AppleScript

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Prerequisites

• OS: macOS (Darwin)
• Toolchain: Rust (stable)
• Permissions: Root access required for packet capture modes (sniff, dashboard)

Build & Test

cargo build --release
cargo test

Configuration

Config location: ~/Library/Application Support/patton/default-config.toml

version = 1
vault = ["MY_SECRET_TOKEN", "API_KEY_123"]
interface = "en0"
auto_block = false
upstream_url = "http://localhost:3000"
verify_tls = true

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The Patton Doctrine

"No PII shall pass to a global MCP server without explicit clearance."

Project Patton operates as a transparent proxy. It doesn't just block; it inspects, redacts, and reports. If it sees your API keys or emails leaving the wire, it forces a decision: Neutralize or Authorize.

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Future Plans

• eBPF Integration: Linux-based packet interception
• WFP Implementation: Windows Filtering Platform support
• Secure Vault: Integration with local secret managers to auto-populate PII patterns

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Contributing

Submit PRs and help hold the line.

Author: Karan (@phenom249646)