authority-delegation-garden-patch

• is_a::[[Citation Form]]
• has_status::[[Seed Stage]]
• in_domain::[[Self-Sovereign Identity]]
• in_precinct::[[Garden Precinct]]
• cites_work_by::[[Christopher Allen]]

Allen (2024) Progressive Trust

Bibliographic Entry

Progressive Trust, 2024, [developer reference], Christopher Allen, Blockchain Commons. Retrieved from https://developer.blockchaincommons.com/progressive-trust/

Summary

Progressive trust rejects the binary trusted/untrusted model. Trust is a progression: initial contact → identity verification → context exchange → commitment → collaboration, with each stage requiring verification before advancing. The framework applies to both human relationships and technical systems — authentication, disclosure, and commitment deepen together rather than being set to maximum strength upfront.

Key Points

Trust is not binary. Systems that model trust as trusted/untrusted miss the spectrum between first contact and deep collaboration. Progressive trust maps this spectrum explicitly.

Verification before advancement. Each stage of trust deepening requires some form of verification — not necessarily cryptographic, but appropriate to the stage. A shared introduction (Level 0 in IFP terms) is sufficient for initial contact; verified public keys (Level 2) are appropriate for sustained exchange.

Disclosure deepens with trust. What you share is proportional to how much trust has been established. This is not a privacy setting — it is a natural consequence of the relationship stage.

Commitment deepens with trust. Early-stage relationships involve low-commitment exchanges (gossip, context sharing). Deeper trust enables higher-commitment actions (recommendations, collaboration, shared projects).

Applies to both human and technical systems. The same progressive model governs how people build trust in face-to-face relationships and how agents build trust in protocol exchanges.

Influence

Progressive trust is the conceptual foundation for two of IFP’s core models: progressive authentication (IFP-5, four levels from shared secret to DID-bound identity) and disclosure tiers (IFP-12, six tiers from public to close). IFP operationalizes progressive trust for agent-to-agent communication.

Sources

• https://developer.blockchaincommons.com/progressive-trust/

Relations

• relates_to::[[Progressive Authentication as Trust Deepening]]
  • IFP’s four authentication levels implement progressive trust for agent identity verification.
• relates_to::[[Disclosure Tier Hierarchy for Persona-Peer Relationships]]
  • IFP’s disclosure tiers implement progressive trust for information sharing boundaries.
• relates_to::[[Granularity of Progressive Authentication Stages]]
  • The progressive trust framework describes a spectrum — the inquiry asks whether IFP’s four discrete stages capture the right boundaries.
• relates_to::[[Progressive Disclosure Over Eager Loading]]
  • Progressive disclosure is the information-sharing expression of progressive trust.
• relates_to::[[Authority Flows from the Person]]
  • Progressive trust assumes the person controls their own trust progression — no external authority decides when to deepen.
• relates_to::[[Conversation Temperature as Protocol Cadence Spectrum]]
  • Temperature and trust deepen in parallel — cool conversations at low trust, hot collaboration at high trust
• relates_to::[[Allen (2022) Progressive Trust]]
  • The 2022 developer reference operationalizes the concepts here with implementation vocabulary and domain examples; this node provides the why, the developer reference provides the how
• relates_to::[[Allen (2023) A Laypersons Intro to Schnorr]]
  • Progressive trust architectures can use threshold signatures for escalating trust levels — requiring more signers as trust requirements increase
• relates_to::[[Allen (2023) Data Minimization and Selective Disclosure]]
  • Progressive trust requires a disclosure mechanism; this article specifies the technical requirements for selective disclosure as that mechanism
• relates_to::[[Allen (2023) Least and Necessary Design Patterns]]
  • Progressive trust is the interaction model for implementing necessary access — trust and data disclosure increase incrementally based on demonstrated need
• relates_to::[[Allen (2023) Open Silicon]]
  • Hardware trust is the base layer of progressive trust: trust cannot progressively increase if the hardware foundation is unverified
• relates_to::[[Allen (2023) Problems of Cryptographic Agility]]
  • Progressive trust’s verification phases depend on cryptographic operations; constrained choice simplifies verification across the lifecycle
• relates_to::[[Allen (2024) Building Trust in Gradients]]
  • The blog post operationalizes the lifecycle phases described in this developer reference; together they form a concept-specification pair
• relates_to::[[Allen (2025) Fair Witnessing in a Decentralized World]]
  • Fair witnessing provides the disclosure format that progressive trust requires; progressive trust describes the dynamics, fair witnessing provides the data structure
• relates_to::[[Allen (2025) How My Values Inform Design]]
  • Progressive Trust is developed as a values-to-design example in the appendix of the values article
• relates_to::[[Allen (2025) Interop What Is It Good For]]
  • Progressive trust operates across system boundaries; interoperability enables the trust-building interactions that progressive trust describes.

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