The Nature of Trust: Weaving Identity, Relationship, and Place

TalkKaliya Young, Kevin TriplettSeptember 23, 2026

Kaliya Young argues that hard technical protocols (like those governing the Linux kernel) depend on 'soft' relational protocols for trust, using the XZ backdoor incident—where a fabricated contributor nearly inserted malware—as proof that the failure was relational, not cryptographic. She traces digital identity through three generations (username/password, OAuth/OpenID, then DIDs/verifiable credentials) to a proposed third generation of 'digital trust graphs': peer-to-peer verifiable relationship credentials, verifiable membership credentials, and verifiable trust agents, developed through the Trust Over IP/Decentralized Trust Graph working group. Kevin Triplett discusses Project Weave's focus on adoption, emphasizing that groups—not individuals—should be the unit of reputation and AI alignment, and that these protocols can be applied locally, even to place-rooted neighborhood governance.

Topics

decentralized-identifiers-dids digital-trust-graphs governance group-based-reputation-and-ai-alignment organizations protocols symposium-2026 technology verifiable-relationship-credentials verifiable-trust-agents

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