notes: research/papers/papers-toip-tsp-proposal-2023-03-08

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research/papers/papers-toip-tsp-proposal-2023-03-08 ToIP Trust Spanning-layer Protocol (TSP) Proposal: A Secure Identifier Overlay for the Internet summary v0.1 — 2026-10-15: drafted by Claude from the PDF slide deck (all 97 slide titles, slides 1-36 and 72-73 in full); unread by Mark; marked partner on Mark's word 2026-10-21, paraphrase only partner 481 # ToIP Trust Spanning-layer Protocol (TSP) Proposal: A Secure Identifier Overlay for the Internet **Abstract.** A 97-slide deck by Samuel M. Smith proposing, for ToIP (Trust over IP), that the trust spanning layer be an identifier system security overlay built on KERI (Key Event Receipt Infrastructure) autonomic identifiers. The file is named for 8 March 2023 but its title slide keeps the 2023/02/08 date of the earlier 61-slide version. For specification contributors and implementers. ## Summary The deck defines an identity (identifier) system security overlay as a binding of identifiers to key pairs that establishes the authenticity of a message payload carried over IP, with persistent identifiers mapped through a verifiable data structure of key state changes. It explains what an overlay is (citing Gartner and NIST definitions alongside the KERI white paper) and why overlays are useful, using an automated-reasoning example of uncertainty overlays and an authenticity example: the value of a statement depends on whether its source can be securely attributed. It then pairs an authenticity overlay with a confidentiality overlay, introducing end verifiability and end viewability, and describes trust domains, trust bases, appraisability and zero-trust data protection. It shows self-identity and relationship graphs, the ToIP design goals (authenticity, then confidentiality, then privacy), the PAC (privacy, authenticity, confidentiality) theorem, and a multiple-overlay design spiral. A short section on privacy names exploiters and rates third-party, second-party and first-party aggregator threats and identity theft, concluding that the internet is broken mainly by identity theft and that fixing it eases later privacy protection. The appendix develops the hourglass theorem and spanning layers, with many routing diagrams for application-layer and last-hop shortcuts, and concludes that the minimally sufficient trust spanning layer is an identifier system security overlay, with routing and discovery protocols adjacent to it. It offers an IP analogy (a TSP identifier is to an IP address as an IP address is to a MAC address), reviews the flaws of DNS/CA (certificate authority) and PGP web of trust as spanning layers, and argues that CESR (Composable Event Streaming Representation) unifies text and binary encodings. ## Key terms trust spanning layer, identifier system security overlay, autonomic identifier, key state proof, end verifiability, end viewability, hourglass theorem, trust domain, trust basis, PAC theorem ## Claims and their evidence - The minimally sufficient trust spanning layer is an identifier system security overlay. [informative] - Authenticity must be established before any further processing of received information. [informative] - The internet is broken primarily because of identity theft. [informative] - Routing and discovery protocols sit adjacent to, not inside, the trust spanning layer. [informative] ## Related Trust Spanning Protocol specification (ToIP); KERI white paper 2.x; CESR specification; SPAC; the 2023/02/08 version of this deck. ## Provenance Drafted by Claude on 2026-10-15 from the PDF in Smith's Papers repository: all 97 slide titles, slides 1-36 and 72-73 read in full as extracted text. Not yet read by Mark.

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