Tom Taylor · Software engineer and engineering lead

Work · Lead story

A tool for looking after real machines, where every command expires in 60 seconds

Dashcat is a tool for checking, fixing and updating Windows, Mac and Linux machines, with security designed in from the start.

Diagram of Dashcat, where an AI app asks Dashcat's cloud, which sends a signed command that names one machine and expires in 60 seconds to the agent on that machine — The cloud decides whether a command is allowed; the machine decides whether to believe it.

Letting software act on real machines is powerful, and it is exactly the kind of access that goes wrong quietly. So each command is signed for one machine, carries a request id and expires after 60 seconds, and the machine checks all of that before it runs anything.

Owners choose what is allowed for each team, group and machine. A machine can ask the person sitting at it first, and everything that comes back is treated as data, never as instructions.

60s: life of a signed command
500+: Rust tests
60+: decision records

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Also in this edition

Research

Can a line planted in a log file steer an agent that runs your machines?

An experiment on how text planted in logs and files can steer agents that manage machines, and which safeguards stop it.

Harm is checked from outside each machine, never taken from the agent's word.

Running 13–15 Nov 2026

Personal project

Rebuilding Resident Evil 3's source code, one byte-identical function at a time

Rebuilding the original C source of Resident Evil 3 from the PC game's executable, with each function accepted only when it compiles back to the same bytes.

3,687 functions matched, each one checked by the original compiler. Eight are left.

Eight functions to go

Personal project

Resident Evil 3 on modern PCs, playing exactly as the original does

A modern Windows port of Resident Evil 3 built from the decompiled source, with high frame rates and widescreen, checked tick by tick against the original game's logic.

21 test routes play with identical game logic to the original, every tick.

Playable, private

From the Lab

Everything in the Lab

About the author

I've spent ten years shipping software that other people depend on.

iOS and Android apps first, then ticketing, point-of-sale, kiosk and catering systems that cinemas in eight countries run their business on. Today I lead Admit One's development department of nine, and I still write a lot of the code myself.

Outside work I build things to understand them. A cipher machine became my "hello, world" for every new language, and Resident Evil 3 became a long exercise in verification. Dashcat is where those interests meet.

More about me

The record

Jan 2026 – nowHead of DevelopmentAdmit One
2026 – nowFounder and sole engineerDashcat
2021 – 2025Core Development Team LeadAdmit One
2018 – 2021Software EngineerAdmit One
2016 – 2018Junior App DeveloperResort Marketing

Full CV