19/388,580: Systems and Methods for Memory-Native Identity and Authentication

COMPUTER PROGRAM LISTING

A Computer Program Listing is submitted concurrently with the specification as a TXT formatted file, with a file name of “20596-005USU1-Computer-Program-Listing-Appendix.txt”, a creation date of November 13, 2025, and a size of 47 kilobytes. The Computer Program Listing filed is part of the specification and is incorporated in its entirety by reference.

FIELD

The present disclosure generally relates to cryptographic systems and methods for determining digital identity and authentication, and more specifically to systems and methods for memory-native identity and authentication without keypairs.

BACKGROUND

Conventional digital identity and authentication systems rely on persistent public-private keypairs and signature-based validation mechanisms. These systems expose users and devices to various vulnerabilities, including key compromise, metadata correlation, certificate revocation failure, and susceptibility to quantum cryptographic attacks. Public key infrastructure (PKI) typically requires centralized trust anchors, global registries, and persistent key material, making it unsuitable for decentralized, memory-constrained, or privacy-sensitive environments.

In ephemeral or cognition-native systems—such as distributed AI agents or stateless substrates—the requirement to maintain static credentials is impractical or infeasible. Accordingly, there is a need for systems and methods that address these shortcomings.

SUMMARY OF THE DISCLOSURE

A computer-implemented method for memory-native two-stage authentication includes generating, by a sender agent, a dynamic agent hash (DAH_t) as a successor of a prior trusted dynamic agent hash (DAH_{t−1}) generated by the sender agent, wherein the DAH_t is generated under an update rule that incorporates at least one unpredictability contribution and a volatile salt. The method further includes deriving, by the sender agent, a symmetric encryption key from a current dynamic identity of a recipient selected from a recipient dynamic agent hash (DAH_R) or a recipient dynamic device hash (DDH_R), encrypting a payload with the symmetric encryption key and embedding within the encrypted payload an embedded sender dynamic agent hash (DAH_S) computed contemporaneously with the DAH_t, constructing a message comprising a transport header and the encrypted payload, and placing the DAH_t in the transport header and the DAH_S within the encrypted payload, wherein the message does not include the symmetric encryption key. The method additionally includes transmitting the message to the recipient, receiving the transmitted message, and reconstructing, from a locally retained trust-slope state for the sender agent that includes at least the most recently validated DAH_{t−1}, an expected successor candidate for time t under the update rule and within a recipient-defined set of policy-bounded continuity parameters. The recipient then validates the DAH_t against the expected successor candidate, derives a symmetric encryption key from a corresponding one of DAH_R or DDH_R, and decrypts the payload. The recipient extracts the DAH_S from the decrypted payload and validates the DAH_S against a reconstructed trust slope for the sender agent obtained by advancing the locally retained trust-slope state under the update rule and within the same policy-bounded continuity parameters. The message is accepted only upon successful validation of both the DAH_t and the DAH_S.

A system for agent mutation entanglement is also provided. The system includes a host device configured to compute a dynamic device hash (DDH_t) as a successor of a prior dynamic device hash (DDH_p) under an update rule that incorporates at least one unpredictability contribution and a volatile salt. A semantic agent executing on the host device computes a successor dynamic agent hash (DAH_s) from a prior dynamic agent hash (DAH_p) and a host mutation token derived from the DDH_t and a mutation class associated with the host device. An entanglement module emits a signed entanglement trace that records DAH_p, DDH_t, the host mutation token, and mutation metadata. A validator accepts DAH_s only if the entanglement trace opens to DDH_t under policy and DAH_s is a valid successor of DAH_p.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

For the purpose of illustrating the disclosure, the drawings show aspects of one or more embodiments of the disclosure. However, it should be understood that the present disclosure is not limited to the precise arrangements and instrumentalities shown in the drawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 illustrates components and steps of a lifecycle of a Dynamic Agent Hash (DAH) or Dynamic Device Hash (DDH) within the Dynamic Signature Mesh (DSM) in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 2 illustrates a sparse slope reconstruction process from a checkpoint using bounded proofs and periodic anchors in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 2A illustrates a stepwise replay process of FIG. 2 in more detail;

FIG. 3 illustrates components for a process for fallback compatibility with legacy, signature-based systems in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 4 illustrates components of a DSM-secured message and steps for processing the DSM-secured message in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 5 shows a process for detection and rejection of spoofed or replayed identity claims in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 6 illustrates components and steps for predictive validation of agent and device identity in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 7 illustrates components and steps for agent-to-substrate slope entanglement in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIGS. 8A and 8B illustrate an example of an append-only mutation lineage log for an agent in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 9 illustrates components and steps for quorum-based recovery after memory loss in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 10 illustrates components and steps for rotation of an entropy anchor and adaptive reinitialization of a trust slope in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 11 shows components and steps for delayed slope validation under high-latency or intermittent connectivity conditions in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 12 provides an overview of components and steps for determining cumulative slope entanglement across multiple substrate nodes during agent migration in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

1. Overview

An authentication architecture is needed that operates securely without persistent keys or external verification authorities, and instead derives identity from locally retained, time-sensitive, and context-aware behavioral information. A memory-native identity substrate is provided in which a device or agent expresses identity as a trust slope—that is, the cumulatively validated sequence of Dynamic Agent Hashes (DAHs) or Dynamic Device Hashes (DDHs) formed by successive, verifiable identity mutations—rather than a static credential. Trust-slope continuity denotes that a presented successor is a valid descendant of a previously trusted state under policy-bounded checks. Each identity step is computed from the immediately prior step and a source of non-exported unpredictability, enabling receivers to evaluate continuity and provenance locally, without reliance on centralized authorities, long-lived keypairs, or synchronized registries.

In one embodiment, a static hardware anchor is combined with a volatile, non-repeating salt to derive a per-epoch contribution. In another embodiment, a locally observed state is collected into a local state vector and transformed by a strong extractor to yield a bounded pseudorandom token; the token is then combined with a volatile salt. Either of these embodiments alone, or a hybrid that incorporates both in the same step, produces a successor identity value bound to time, context, and prior state. In this way, constrained devices can be accommodated that expose a hardware identifier as well as richer platforms that can derive robust local state vectors.

The trust slope is append-only and verifiable: a receiver stores any previously trusted step and evaluates a presented successor against policy-defined continuity criteria. Because each step binds to the prior step and to non-exported unpredictability, an attacker lacking the device’s local state (or volatile salt) cannot feasibly synthesize valid successors. The continuity policy is tunable to favor stability within a role or operating context while remaining sensitive to genuine context changes. This may be achieved by constructing the local state vector with stability-preserving projections and by verifying bounded drift with error-tolerant sketches.

Messages are constructed so that identity is bound at both transport and semantic layers. A sender places the current dynamic hash in the message header for fast, stateless screening at the receiver, and also embeds the same value inside the protected payload to bind semantics to transport. In certain embodiments, payload confidentiality and integrity are derived from receiver-local identity material, allowing two-stage validation that rejects malformed traffic before decryption and prevents man-in-the-middle substitution after decryption.

In addition, an append-only lineage mechanism is provided in which each identity step is committed into a compact chain of commitments with periodic anchors. This permits sparse storage at senders and receivers while enabling delayed or offline reconstruction of intervening steps. Where recent anchors are missing or devices are intermittently connected, receivers request short proofs or checkpoints and verify the recomputed path against stored anchors, preserving verifiability in delay-tolerant and edge environments.

To maintain long-term health of the identity process, the system supports reseeding and anchor rotation policies that detect staleness or environmental drift and initiate controlled re-anchoring without breaking verifiability; forward links are recorded so downstream verifiers can bridge old and new anchors under policy. In addition, a quorum-based recovery path allows a device or agent to rejoin the trust graph after state loss by aggregating attestations from previously trusted peers, with the recovery token recorded into lineage for downstream audit.

2. Identity Generation and Trust Slope

FIG. 1 provides a schematic overview of components and a process for the generation and evolution of a memory-native identity for a device or agent as a verifiable trust slope. At initialization, a slope root is established by computing a dynamic hash from one of two exemplary mechanisms. In the first, a static hardware anchor (e.g., TPM, TEE, SoC identifier) is combined with a volatile salt to yield an unpredictable seed. In the second, a locally observed state is collected into a local state vector, processed by an extractor to produce a bounded pseudorandom token, and combined with a volatile salt. A semantic context vector and a memory state indicator may be incorporated to bind role, zone, or process mix to the initial identity. The resulting dynamic device or agent hash at epoch zero forms the slope root.

The initial identity is advanced by an update rule that concatenates the prior hash with a fresh entropy input and a domain-separating tag to yield the next step on the slope. In one example, the update is computed as H(DAH_prev ∥ Ext(X) ∥ salt ∥ tag), where X is derived from the local state vector. Alternatively, the update is computed as H(DAH_prev ∥ KDF(HWID, salt) ∥ tag) using the hardware anchor and volatile salt. These may also be combined in a hybrid derivation to increase robustness. Application of the update yields successive identities along a verifiable trust slope, with arrows indicating the forward-only evolution rather than hardware connectivity.

In the local-state embodiment, the local state vector consists of device-observable signals sampled within an epoch, including one or more of monotonic counters, high-resolution timing deltas, CPU performance counters, scheduler jitter statistics, I/O inter-arrival micro-jitter, sensor noise, rolling process histograms, and short-horizon sketches of recent dynamic hashes. The feature map that produces X from the local state vector applies normalization and clipping, projects to a fixed dimension via signed random projections with a public seed, optionally appends a discrete context code derived from the semantic context vector, and applies a locality-sensitive binarization so that small fluctuations produce stable X values while genuine role or zone changes flip a controlled subset of bits. The extractor maps X to a pseudorandom token suitable for use in the update rule.

To align with the example code in the Computer Program Listing, the following steps may occur within each epoch: compute X from the local state vector using the signed-projection and locality-sensitive mapping; compute the token as Ext(X); compute the successor dynamic hash by hashing the prior hash with the token, the volatile salt, and a domain-separating tag; and record a mutation class describing the semantic rationale for the step. Each step appends a trace entry to the memory state, enabling downstream verification that the successor is valid relative to the prior step on the trust slope.

The hardware-anchor embodiment proceeds similarly but replaces the locally derived token with a keyed derivation from the hardware anchor and the volatile salt. The volatile salt is non-repeating at the device-epoch level, maintaining unpredictability even when the hardware anchor is constant. In the combined embodiment, both the locally derived token and the hardware-derived contribution are included in the update step, maintaining compatibility with constrained devices while benefiting from richer state capabilities on more capable platforms.

The resulting trust slope encodes continuity of identity over time as a sequence of dynamic hashes, with each step bound to the hardware anchor with volatile salt, the local state vector with the extractor, or both. Mutation classes are recorded for each step to preserve semantic provenance, and the forward-only nature of the process is enforced. This construction enables verifiable identity in disconnected or asynchronous networks because validation of the successor relationship does not require external authorities, keys, or registries.

3. Stateless Symmetric Encryption

FIG. 4 illustrates a process in which a sender derives a symmetric encryption key from the recipient’s current dynamic device hash or dynamic agent hash by applying a key-derivation function to the recipient identity together with a domain-separating context. The sender performs authenticated encryption over the payload and embeds an additional copy of the sender’s current dynamic agent hash inside the ciphertext for payload-layer verification. The constructed message contains a transport-layer header carrying the sender’s current dynamic hash and an encrypted payload. Depending on deployment configuration, the recipient identity used for key derivation may originate from a local-state vector processed through an extractor, from a hardware anchor combined with a volatile salt, or from a hybrid that combines both mechanisms into a single identity value.

Upon receipt, the recipient performs a two-stage validation procedure. First, the dynamic agent hash presented in the message header is checked against the last trusted successor stored locally using a lightweight continuity test to ensure that the incoming header value is a valid successor on the sender’s trust slope. If continuity cannot be confirmed immediately, the recipient may defer the decision until a bounded proof or checkpoint is obtained. If continuity is validated, the node derives a decryption key from its own current identity and attempts payload decryption. Successful decryption demonstrates that the encrypted payload was generated for the correct memory-resolved identity state of the recipient at the time of transmission.

Following decryption, the recipient extracts the embedded sender dynamic agent hash from the plaintext and validates it as the expected successor on the sender’s trust slope under policy-bounded continuity rules. This second-stage verification provides semantic authentication independent of the transport header, ensuring that both routing-layer and content-layer integrity requirements are satisfied before the message is accepted. If either the header-level or payload-level validation fails, the recipient records a rejection, may degrade the sender’s trust score according to local policy, and may quarantine the message or sender for review.

In scenarios where the sender does not possess the recipient’s most recent identity value, the sender derives the symmetric key from the most recently trusted recipient anchor or epoch and transmits an initial attempt under a bounded rekey failure tolerance. If decryption fails, the sender performs a fallback consisting of either a short challenge–response rekey exchange scoped to the recipient’s current epoch or a checkpoint request sufficient to reconstruct a successor window to the recipient’s current identity. Once the sender obtains the updated recipient identity, the two-stage authentication proceeds without dependence on external certificate authorities or persistent key-exchange state.

This architecture permits fully stateless operation. Neither sender nor recipient maintains long-lived session keys; instead, all symmetric keys are derived transiently from identity values produced by the dynamic update rule. When identity is produced through a local-state vector, stability-tuned projections and error-tolerant sketches prevent benign fluctuations in local measurements from causing unnecessary decryption failures, while substantive role or context changes intentionally alter recipient identity and force rekeying. When identity is produced from a hardware anchor and volatile salt, freshness is maintained by the non-repeating salt. Hybrid implementations combine both sources to improve robustness across heterogeneous device classes and environmental conditions.

An implementable embodiment consistent with the attached reference code performs derivation at the sender using a domain-specific context string and applies authenticated encryption to the payload while embedding the sender’s dynamic agent hash inside the ciphertext. At the receiver, an equivalent derivation from the recipient’s current identity reconstructs the symmetric key needed to decrypt the payload, after which the embedded dynamic agent hash is validated against the stored sender trust slope. Across all embodiments, header validation, identity-derived key construction, payload decryption, embedded-hash comparison, and associated failure logic proceed as process flows defined entirely by the memory-native identity substrate and local policy rather than hardware-level coupling.

4. Trust Slope Validation and Resistance to Spoofing and Replay

A stored trust slope consists of a sequence of previously validated dynamic identities derived under the update rules. When a new message or agent presents a claimed identity in its transport header, the receiving node determines whether the claim is a valid successor to the most recently trusted value under policy-bounded continuity rules.

The node performs a fast continuity comparison by reconstructing the expected successor neighborhood from the last trusted identity and checking whether the presented value lies within the allowed successor set. In local-state embodiments, continuity constraints are enforced using a stability-tuned acceptance radius over extractor outputs derived from local state vectors. In hardware-anchor embodiments, continuity constraints are enforced through verification of per-epoch salt freshness and cadence. In hybrid embodiments, both checks are enforced. Claims that satisfy continuity are classified as on-slope and allowed to proceed; those that do not are treated as probable spoofed or forged identities.

In embodiments using stability-tuned local state vectors, the receiving node may validate a short distance sketch included with the claim to confirm that the extractor output associated with the presented identity falls within a policy-acceptable neighborhood without exposing underlying local state. In hardware-anchor embodiments, the node verifies that the volatile salt used to derive the successor is fresh relative to past observations and expected temporal cadence. Both mechanisms allow deterministic rejection of off-manifold, stale, or fabricated identity claims without relying on external registries or persistent keypairs.

Replay resistance is achieved by binding acceptance to monotonic advancement along the trust slope and by forbidding reuse of previously accepted successors within a policy horizon. If the presented identity matches a previously accepted value for the same sender and context, or regresses behind the last trusted state, the node rejects it as a replay or regression attempt. Policies may further require advancement of a local epoch counter or enforcement of minimum inter-step intervals to mitigate rapid replay attempts.

Failure outcomes are recorded with explicit reasons, such as continuity violation, sketch or neighborhood mismatch, stale salt, cadence anomaly, or replay detection. Based on policy, the node may reject the claim outright, degrade the sender’s trust score, or quarantine the sender for later review. If continuity is validated, the node accepts the claim, updates its stored reference, and appends a validation trace to its local memory.

Validation is uniform across embodiments. In hardware-anchor embodiments, successor validation relies on salted derivations of a static anchor. In local-state embodiments, successor validation relies on extractor tokens derived from stability-tuned state vectors. In hybrid embodiments, both sources must satisfy continuity, and anomalies in either source suffice to trigger rejection. Acceptance and rejection decisions follow the trust-slope lineage and local policy and do not require external authentication services.

5. Agent Mutation and Substrate Entanglement Mechanisms

An agent is a cryptographically signed, memory-bearing data object that functions as a protocol operand and includes a unique identifier, payload, memory field, transport header, and signature. A semantic agent extends this structure with an intent field and cognition-compatible components supporting policy-aware mutation, delegation, and context-sensitive execution. Mutation events performed by an agent are entangled with the identity state of the host device executing the mutation, creating a verifiable coupling between device identity and agent identity evolution.

A host node maintains a current Dynamic Device Hash (DDH) computed under the update rules, derived either from a hardware anchor plus volatile salt, a local state vector processed by an extractor, or both. The host additionally maintains local context and entropy inputs used to parameterize mutation policy for the current epoch. When a semantic agent with a prior Dynamic Agent Hash is admitted to the host’s execution context, the host prepares to entangle any mutation initiated by the agent with its current DDH.

When the agent initiates a mutation such as a role change, delegation, policy commit, or semantic state transition, the host computes a mutation class indicator and derives a host mutation token bound to the current DDH. The mutation token may be calculated as a hash of the DDH, mutation class, and epoch identifier, or may include additional stability-tuned features of the host’s entropy inputs. The agent’s successor identity is computed as a hash of its prior identity, the host mutation token, an optional agent-side extractor output derived from agent memory and semantic context, a volatile per-epoch agent salt, and a domain-separating tag. In embodiments where the agent lacks its own extractor, the successor identity is computed without the agent-side token.

The host records an entanglement trace entry containing the prior agent identity, the host’s current device identity, the mutation token, the resulting successor identity, and the mutation class. The host signs the entanglement entry (or authenticates it with a MAC derived from the host’s DDH), and the agent appends the entry to its memory field. The agent updates its cumulative commitment chain by hashing the prior commitment with the new entanglement entry, ensuring forward-secure tamper evidence.

A verifier replays the mutation by checking that the successor identity is a valid derivation from the prior identity using the disclosed mutation token and salt, verifying the host’s signature or MAC, and confirming that the mutation token matches a DDH consistent with policy. Because the host’s device identity is itself derived from non-exported unpredictability under the identity update rules, an attacker lacking the host’s device entropy inputs cannot synthesize a valid mutation token or forge an acceptable entanglement entry.

Agents that execute across multiple hosts accumulate a sequence of entanglement trace entries, forming a provenance path linking each agent-side identity transition to the host on which it occurred. This sequence allows distributed audit and later reconstruction of agent evolution without external registries or global ledgers.

The entanglement mechanism is independent of whether the host uses hardware-anchor entropy, local-state extractor entropy, or a hybrid of both. Verification fails closed if the host’s signature or MAC is invalid, if the mutation token cannot be reconciled with a valid host DDH under policy, or if the successor identity is not a valid derivation from the predecessor.

Entanglement traces may be authenticated either with ephemeral signing keys destroyed upon rotation or with MACs keyed using values derived from the host’s current DDH, preserving the property that no persistent long-lived keypairs are required. In all cases, a purported successor lacking a coherent entanglement trace or referencing an invalid host device identity is rejected, and policy may require trust degradation or quarantine.

By coupling agent identity evolution to host device identity through verifiable entanglement traces, the system prevents off-substrate mutation, detects tampering, and ensures that each agent identity transition is anchored to a trusted and policy-validated device identity.

6. Construction and Validation of Append-Only Mutation Lineage Logs

An append-only mutation lineage records the evolutionary history of a semantic agent’s identity as a tamper-evident sequence of structured entries. Each entry captures a transition to a new successor identity together with the host device identity, semantic context, timestamp, and a mutation-class label. Entries are produced by applying the successor rule that hashes the prior agent identity together with a host-derived mutation token, a freshness input sourced either from hardware-anchor entropy, local-state extractor entropy, or both in a hybrid embodiment, and domain-separating parameters. Hosts sign each entry, producing authenticated entanglement traces that bind the agent-side transition to the host device identity at the time of execution.

A first lineage entry records the initial successor identity along with the executing host’s device hash, initialization context, and timestamp. Subsequent entries advance the identity under policy-driven mutation classes or context-specific migration classes. For each entry, the successor identity is computed using either a local-state embodiment—hashing the prior identity with the host mutation token, an extractor output derived from the agent’s state, and a volatile per-epoch salt—or a hardware-anchor embodiment, in which the freshness input is computed from a hardware identifier and non-repeating salt via a key-derivation function. Hybrid embodiments combine both contributions in the same update step. Each entry includes the prior identity, resulting successor, host identity, mutation class, timestamp, and a host-signed entanglement trace.

To preserve integrity, each entry produces a structured per-entry digest that is folded into a cumulative chain hash. The cumulative chain is updated by hashing the prior cumulative value with the new per-entry digest, creating a forward-secure log in which modification, reordering, omission, or replay of entries is detectable by divergence of the terminal cumulative value. In size-bounded deployments, periodic anchors are emitted every fixed number of entries by hashing the cumulative chain with the prior anchor, enabling compact proofs over long histories while retaining verifiability.

Validation proceeds through bounded replay from a stored reference. A verifier requests a lineage proof window and receives the relevant entries, their host signatures, and either a terminal cumulative hash or a set of periodic anchors sufficient to validate the window. The verifier checks host signatures against the disclosed host identities, recomputes each successor identity using the disclosed entanglement inputs, verifies that the mutation token aligns with the referenced host device hash and mutation class, and folds the per-entry digests to recompute the cumulative chain. Acceptance follows when the recomputed cumulative chain opens to the trusted anchor and all per-entry checks succeed.

Replay resistance is enforced by rejecting entries whose successor identity regresses relative to the verifier’s stored reference or whose freshness input violates policy-defined cadence guarantees. Entries reproducing previously accepted successors within a replay horizon are rejected as replays. Any omission, substitution, or reordering attempt is detected when the cumulative chain fails to match the provided terminal hash or cannot be opened against periodic anchors, resulting in a tamper finding recorded under local policy.

The lineage is neutral to unpredictability source and compatible with domain-specific governance. Hardware-anchor embodiments derive freshness solely from per-epoch salted hardware identifiers; local-state embodiments derive freshness from extractor outputs over stability-tuned local-state vectors; hybrid embodiments concatenate both into the successor rule. Lineage entries may include additional metadata such as mutation class labels or execution-zone identifiers, enabling heterogeneous trust domains to enforce local acceptance criteria while maintaining cryptographic interoperability through cumulative chains and anchors.

By chaining, signing, and verifying each identity transition, the append-only mutation lineage provides verifiable provenance for semantic agents operating across decentralized substrates. It supports incremental validation from recent anchors, complete reconstruction from earlier checkpoints, and reliable detection of spoofing, forgery, and replay attempts using only locally available materials and bounded proofs, without relying on external authorities or persistent key registries.

7. Cumulative Slope Validation Across Distributed Substrates

A semantic agent migrating across multiple substrate nodes produces a verifiable cumulative identity slope in which each mutation step is cryptographically entangled to the executing host’s device identity. As the agent executes on successive hosts, each node computes a host-specific mutation step that is appended to the agent’s lineage, forming a tamper-evident, multi-node provenance path that binds agent evolution to device-level identity transitions. Each step is produced as an entangled entry containing the prior identity, the resulting successor identity, the executing host’s device hash, the mutation class, and a timestamp, along with a host-generated signature or MAC. The accumulated steps form a cross-substrate slope that preserves forward-only progression regardless of network topology or administrative boundaries.

Each entangled step is constructed using the mutation mechanism in which a host derives a mutation token from its current device hash and mutation class, and the agent computes its next successor identity by hashing the prior identity with the host token, a freshness input, and a domain-separating tag. The freshness input may originate from hardware-anchor entropy combined with a volatile salt, from a local-state vector processed by a strong extractor, or from a hybrid of both unpredictability sources within the same step. These embodiments interoperate seamlessly within a single cumulative path, ensuring that heterogeneous devices can participate without weakening verifiability.

Each entangled step is recorded as a structured lineage entry containing the previous dynamic agent hash, the newly derived successor hash, the executing host’s device hash, the associated mutation class, and a timestamp. Each entry is signed by the executing host and hashed into a cumulative chain value. In size-bounded embodiments, periodic anchors are emitted after designated intervals by hashing the cumulative chain with the prior anchor, enabling compact proofs and long-term validation across extended migrations. Optional scope tags may be included to record policy domains, zones, or administrative boundaries, enabling federation without requiring centralized coordination.

To validate a cumulative slope, a verifier requests a lineage proof window that spans one or more entangled steps and that opens against a previously trusted anchor or one of the provided periodic anchors. For each disclosed step, the verifier checks the host signature, verifies that the mutation token opens to the disclosed device hash under local policy, recomputes the successor identity using the disclosed materials, and folds the per-entry digests into the cumulative chain. Acceptance occurs when the recomputed cumulative chain value matches the trusted anchor and each step conforms to policy-defined validity; inconsistencies result in a tamper finding recorded to local memory.

The cumulative-slope verification process is neutral to the unpredictability source employed by each host. Hardware-anchor embodiments enforce freshness through non-repeating salts; local-state embodiments enforce freshness through stability-tuned extractor outputs; hybrid embodiments bind both contributions, and anomaly in either results in rejection. Because validation requires only replay from a stored trusted point using bounded disclosures and periodic anchors, the mechanism tolerates disconnected, asynchronous, and delay-tolerant operation without reliance on global consensus, synchronized ledgers, or central authorities.

When agents traverse trust or administrative boundaries, included scope tags allow policy-aware verification. A verifier may require certain steps—identified by specific scope tags—to be corroborated by designated host roles or quorum attestations before acceptance. By binding every mutation to a host device hash and chaining those steps into a cumulative, anchored lineage, the system provides end-to-end, cross-node provenance that is verifiable, replay-resistant, and tamper-evident using only local materials and bounded disclosures.

8. Recovery From Memory Loss: Quorum-Based Reauthorization

A quorum-based recovery mechanism enables an agent to restore its verifiable trust slope after memory loss, entropy corruption, or state discontinuity without relying on persistent credentials. When an agent detects that its lineage is missing or invalid, it initializes a reseeded identity value and issues an attestation request to peers previously encountered during its operational history. The request is transmitted as a signed semantic agent containing the new identity, role and scope metadata, and any surviving anchors or checkpoints. This initiates a decentralized recovery process driven solely by peer memory and policy-local evaluation.

Each peer evaluates the recovery request using its locally retained evidence, including stored checkpoints, lineage anchors, historical mutation classes, and prior execution context. In embodiments that use stability-tuned local state vectors, the requester may include a short distance sketch of prior extractor outputs to support bounded similarity checks without revealing raw local state. In hardware-anchor embodiments, freshness and cadence relative to earlier salts are verified. A peer that finds the request consistent with policy tolerances issues a signed attestation referencing the requester’s new identity, citing the most recent trusted anchor it holds, and recording its own device identity and evaluation timestamp.

Attestations are collected and aggregated under a quorum policy to form a recovery token. The recovery token is a cryptographic commitment over the requester’s reseeded identity, the set of validating attestations, and a policy identifier specifying quorum thresholds and weighting rules. The quorum logic may be defined by an adaptive consensus protocol in which eligibility, voting weights, and minimum counts derive from a policy agent. Thresholds may be count-based or trust-weighted depending on deployment context and governance requirements.

Once quorum requirements are met, the recovery token is accepted as a successor anchor for the requester’s identity and is appended to the agent’s lineage. This reinsertion step reattaches the agent to the distributed trust graph by establishing a forward link from the reseeded identity to the new quorum-backed anchor. Downstream verifiers may then bridge pre-loss and post-loss identity segments using only local policy and the information embedded within the recovery token. If insufficient attestations are available or conflicts arise, the agent remains quarantined until additional evidence is obtained.

The recovery mechanism operates independently of the unpredictability source used to generate the requester’s new identity. Hardware-anchor embodiments derive the reseeded identity from a static anchor and volatile salt; local-state embodiments derive it from an extractor applied to a stability-tuned state vector and volatile salt; hybrid embodiments incorporate both contributions. Peer validation remains purely local and deterministic in all cases, relying exclusively on retained lineage evidence and checkpoints rather than centralized registries or persistent keypairs.

Third-party verification of the recovery token proceeds by validating all aggregated attestations against the signers’ identities and recomputing the commitment embodied in the token. Acceptance requires that all attesters be eligible under the referenced policy, that their signatures be valid, and that the attested linkage between any pre-loss anchors and the reseeded identity meet quorum thresholds. Any violation results in rejection and may trigger trust-score adjustments for the requester or for peers whose attestations deviate from policy.

By substituting persistent secrets with quorum-backed attestations rooted in locally retained memory, the recovery mechanism provides a decentralized, spoof-resistant reauthorization path that tolerates disconnection and state loss. The recovery token serves as a durable pivot point for all future validation, restoring continuity of the requester’s trust slope without centralized authorities, long-lived keypairs, or external registries.

9. Entropy Anchor Rotation and Adaptive Slope Reinitialization

A rotation mechanism maintains freshness, forward secrecy, and policy alignment by periodically regenerating an entropy anchor and reinitializing the trust slope. A slope health monitor evaluates staleness indicators such as elapsed-epoch limits, observed drift or cadence anomalies, entropy reuse heuristics, degradation in trust behavior, or compromise signals emitted by the substrate. When a monitored condition meets policy-defined thresholds, a staleness determination triggers reseeding of the identity process.

Upon reseeding, the system generates a new entropy anchor and derives a new initial identity for the device or agent. In hardware-anchored embodiments, the anchor is derived from a keyed function applied to a static hardware identifier and a fresh volatile salt; in local-state embodiments, it is derived from a stability-tuned local state vector processed by a strong extractor; in hybrid embodiments, both contributions are combined. The new initial identity is computed using the same update rule applied throughout the identity process, with a versioned domain separator that distinguishes anchor epochs.

Following anchor rotation, a new trust slope is constructed from the freshly derived initial identity. To preserve verifiability across the transition, a forward link is recorded that cryptographically binds the terminal value of the prior epoch to the newly established initial identity. This forward link enables downstream verifiers to reconcile pre-rotation and post-rotation slopes using only local policy and bounded proofs, without requiring global registries or synchronized ledgers.

Rotation policies determine how previous epochs are treated. In some embodiments, the pre-rotation slope is made read-only and excluded from future successor validation, marked for archival, and protected by replay prevention rules that reject reuse of identifiers from the retired epoch. In other embodiments, a grace window temporarily permits parallel acceptance of both epochs solely for bridging proofs that traverse the forward link.

Certain embodiments allow biometric-assisted reseeding as an optional source of fresh, non-exported entropy. A biometric sample such as a fingerprint, voiceprint, or behavioral feature is pre-processed, passed through a privacy-preserving fuzzy extractor, and transformed into a bounded seed. Optional liveness verification may be applied. The seed is never stored or exported in raw form and is used only locally to augment the entropy anchor derivation, composing cleanly with both hardware-anchored and local-state identities.

Verifiers handle rotation deterministically. When encountering a rotated identity, they request or receive bounded proofs containing the forward link and the new initial identity. They then replay successors along the new slope and confirm that the new epoch opens to the previous one through the recorded forward link. Because anchor and identity generation draw from the same permitted unpredictability sources—hardware anchor plus volatile salt, local-state vector plus extractor, or a hybrid—the verification process remains uniform across epochs.

In privacy-sensitive deployments, dynamic identity presented in transport headers may rotate at a defined cadence independent of payload semantics to reduce long-range linkability. Verifiers resolve these rotations by opening the corresponding forward links or anchors, ensuring auditability without compromising privacy.

Entropy anchor rotation maintains a memory-resolved, high-entropy identity throughout a device or agent’s operational life. Staleness detection triggers a reseed event, producing a new anchor and initial identity; execution continues along a fresh slope; and the forward link ensures that continuity and auditability are preserved while allowing expiration, archival, and replay protection of prior epochs.

10. Delayed Validation for High-Latency and Intermittent Systems

A delayed-validation mechanism supports environments where continuity checks cannot be performed immediately due to latency, intermittent connectivity, or long-duration disconnection. A sender prepares a message containing its current dynamic identity, a transmission timestamp, and a bounded set of mutation proofs that compactly represent trust-slope evolution since a previously trusted anchor. These proofs enable downstream verifiers to reconstruct missing identity steps without requiring persistent connectivity or external registries.

In one embodiment, each mutation proof includes per-step materials necessary to recompute successors deterministically. When the local-state embodiment is used, each step carries an extractor token derived from a stability-tuned local state vector and a per-step volatile salt. When the hardware-anchor embodiment is used, each step includes a keyed derivation computed from a hardware identifier and a per-step volatile salt. In hybrid embodiments, both contributions are included. The proof set may also include a reference to the most recent periodic anchor or a checkpoint to facilitate bounded replay.

Upon receiving a message without a recent anchor, a verifier replays the missing trust-slope steps by iteratively applying the update rule using the disclosed per-step materials. Starting from the verifier’s last trusted value, the verifier recomputes each successor until reaching the dynamic identity associated with the message’s timestamp. For local-state proofs, the verifier may apply a neighborhood constraint to ensure bounded drift. Validation succeeds when the recomputed chain opens to the referenced anchor or stored checkpoint and the terminal recomputed identity matches the presented value.

If the verifier’s stored state predates the included anchor or the proof set is insufficient to complete replay, the verifier issues a checkpoint request. A bounded checkpoint response provides either a newer anchor or an additional short proof window, enabling the verifier to complete reconstruction without relying on centralized authorities or synchronized ledgers.

Replay failure occurs when a per-step token is inconsistent, a salt is stale relative to expected cadence, a neighborhood constraint is violated, or the recomputed terminal identity does not match the presented identity. In such cases, the verifier rejects the presentation under local policy, with optional actions including trust-score adjustment or quarantine pending corroboration from anchors or peers.

The mechanism is agnostic to the source of unpredictability. In hardware-anchor embodiments, proofs include keyed derivations that enforce freshness via per-epoch salts. In local-state embodiments, proofs include extractor tokens derived from stability-tuned state vectors. In hybrid embodiments, both appear in the same update rule, and failure of either contribution is sufficient for rejection. Acceptance requires strict monotonic advancement and prevents replay by prohibiting reuse of previously accepted successors for a given sender and context.

If header-level continuity validation succeeds but payload decryption fails due to drift in the recipient’s identity, the recipient advertises its current anchor or checkpoint. The sender retries once using that anchor; if unsuccessful, the sender requests a bounded checkpoint response. Retries are limited to a fixed attempt window to avoid oracle leakage while enabling recovery from sparse state.

By enabling authentication from sparse local state using bounded proof windows and optional checkpoints, delayed validation supports secure operation in stateless, intermittent, or disconnected environments. The process preserves memory-resolved authentication, avoids persistent credentials, and operates without reliance on centralized authorities or synchronized public ledgers.

11. Sparse Trust Slope Recovery Using Embedded Checkpoints

Sparse trust-slope recovery enables devices or agents with limited memory to re-establish continuity from incomplete local state using embedded checkpoints and bounded proof windows. A device may retain only select dynamic identities—such as two non-adjacent slope points—and a compact checkpoint summarizing all validated mutations up to that point. When continuity must be reconstructed, a bounded slope proof supplies just the per-step materials needed for the missing interval, allowing deterministic forward replay from the stored checkpoint to the presented identity.

In this model, a checkpoint encapsulates the cumulative state of the trust slope at a specific epoch, while sparse retention holds only a few identity values. To rebuild continuity, the verifier loads the checkpoint, selects a bounded proof window, and iteratively reconstructs each missing identity step. For each step, the proof window provides the unpredictability contributions—either extractor tokens derived from stability-tuned local state vectors, keyed derivations from a hardware anchor and per-step salt, or both in hybrid embodiments. Each reconstruction advances the slope and recomputes a successor until reaching the presented identity.

The unrolled replay procedure evaluates a sequence of steps, obtaining per-step materials from the window and rebuilding successors in order. When periodic anchors are present, each reconstructed segment is opened against its corresponding anchor to ensure consistency. Once the final step of the bounded window is verified and the recomputed terminal value matches the presented identity, the verifier updates its local state, enabling subsequent validations or creation of a new checkpoint.

Per-step commitments ensure tamper evidence during reconstruction. Each proof window includes commitment siblings necessary to open per-entry commitments against either the stored checkpoint or a periodic anchor. Commitments are chained into anchors at predefined window sizes, allowing compact proofs for long intervals. Validation succeeds when the recomputed per-entry commitments and cumulative digest reconcile to the stored checkpoint or anchor.

If the stored checkpoint is missing or outdated, the verifier issues a checkpoint request. A bounded checkpoint response provides either a fresh checkpoint or a short bridging proof sufficient to reach a trusted anchor. Because each successor depends only on the prior dynamic identity and disclosed per-step materials, reconstruction remains entirely local and does not require persistent credentials, centralized ledgers, or synchronized registries.

The sparse recovery mechanism is agnostic to the unpredictability source. Hardware-anchor embodiments provide keyed derivations tied to non-repeating salts; local-state embodiments provide extractor tokens derived from stability-tuned vectors; hybrid embodiments include both and require both to validate. Policy determines checkpoint cadence, balancing storage overhead against replay cost: frequent checkpoints reduce reconstruction complexity, while sparse checkpoints lower memory requirements at the cost of longer proofs.

By combining sparse identity retention, embedded checkpoints, per-step bounded proofs, periodic anchors, and optional checkpoint requests, sparse trust-slope recovery ensures verifiable reconstitution of identity continuity in memory-limited or intermittently connected environments using only locally available materials and bounded disclosures.

12. Predictive Mutation Verification and Behavioral Drift Detection

Predictive mutation verification supplements continuity checking by forecasting expected successor identities and bounding acceptable deviation before full trust-slope discontinuity occurs. A forecasting engine operates over a history buffer containing prior validated identities, mutation classes, and inter-step cadence statistics. From this buffer, a cadence estimator models expected timing for future steps, and a role-transition model predicts likely semantic classes for upcoming mutations, producing forecast parameters for near-future epochs.

The cadence estimator maintains an exponentially weighted moving average of inter-step intervals and variance, generating a predicted timing window for the next successor. The role-transition model encodes a Markov transition matrix in which each row expresses conditional probabilities for transitioning from a current mutation class or semantic role to a successor. These predictions yield a most-likely mutation class and a small set of alternates, which drive an expected-token generator that forms a neighborhood envelope for the next slope step.

The expected-token generator supports all unpredictability sources. In local-state embodiments, it projects recent feature vectors into a stability-tuned subspace and computes a predicted extractor token with an acceptance envelope defined as a Hamming ball around the predicted token, sized by observed intra-role variability. In hardware-anchor embodiments, it forecasts expected salt freshness and cadence bounds for the next derivation. In hybrid embodiments, both the token-space envelope and the salt-cadence window are produced and must be satisfied simultaneously.

The forecasting engine emits an expected-identity set comprising one or more predicted successors and their acceptance envelopes and timing expectations. Upon receiving a presented identity claim, a comparator evaluates whether the claim lies inside the predicted envelope and within the expected cadence window. If so, the claim is classified as consistent with the predicted trajectory and proceeds to standard continuity validation.

Claims outside predicted bounds are treated as behavioral drift. A drift detector classifies deviations into categories such as cadence anomalies, semantic divergence relative to the transition model, or token-space deviation beyond the acceptance envelope. Policy actions may include trust-score adjustment, request for supplemental bounded proofs, or quarantine pending corroboration from peers or checkpoints.

Predictive validation composes with delayed or sparse verification. Even when a verifier lacks a recent anchor, it can use predicted envelopes to triage incoming claims: those far outside expectations are rejected or quarantined, while near-boundary claims are held until a checkpoint or bounded proof arrives. Once such material is available, the verifier replays steps from the last trusted state to confirm or disprove the predicted trajectory.

The predictive framework is compatible with all unpredictability sources. Hardware-anchor embodiments enforce predicted salt freshness and cadence windows; local-state embodiments enforce neighborhood envelopes over stability-tuned extractor outputs; hybrid embodiments require both. Forecast parameters update continuously as new validated steps arrive, allowing acceptance envelopes to tighten or relax in response to observed behavior while remaining sensitive to genuine role changes indicated by the transition model.

Through continuous forecasting, envelope construction, comparator evaluation, drift detection, and policy outcomes, predictive mutation verification provides early, local detection of compromise or unauthorized mutation while remaining interoperable with the core trust-slope validation model.

13. Compatibility with Legacy Systems Using Fallback Identifiers

Compatibility with legacy PKI-based systems is enabled through a fallback identifier mechanism that preserves strict isolation between memory-native identity evolution and legacy authentication paths. A transient, session-scoped identifier allows interoperability without leaking or importing any information that would affect DAH or DDH continuity.

A legacy-bridge adapter generates a temporary keypair and a session nonce under a domain-separated context. From these, it derives a fallback identifier as a hash of the public key, the nonce, and the context tag. This identifier is maintained entirely within an isolation boundary that prevents any interaction with trust-slope update rules. A volatile, in-memory mapping links the fallback identifier to session metadata for the duration of the session.

For outbound communication, the adapter constructs a legacy-compliant message containing the fallback identifier and a PKI signature produced with the ephemeral private key. Legacy recipients validate the signature under their existing PKI policies. Throughout this exchange, DAH/DDH formation and trust-slope behavior remain unaffected and continue governing routing, caching, and semantic authorization locally.

For inbound messages, the adapter verifies the counterparty’s PKI signature and resolves the corresponding fallback identifier via the local mapping table. When policy requires correlation to a current dynamic identity for audit purposes, the adapter may produce a one-way binding token that states the fallback identifier was serviced while a particular DAH value was active. This token is written to a segregated audit log and has no influence on successor computation or slope continuity.

The fallback identifier lifecycle is short-lived and bounded. When a session ends or expires, the mapping entry is deleted, the ephemeral private key is destroyed, and the fallback identifier is invalidated. Optional revocation metadata can be emitted to prevent reuse. Because DAH/DDH never incorporates PKI artifacts, teardown cannot alter or pollute the trust slope.

The isolation boundary enforces strict non-contamination rules. Any attempt to inject PKI material into DAH/DDH, to export DAH/DDH internals to satisfy legacy requirements, or to extend a fallback identifier beyond its authorized scope results in closed-fail termination. Policy may additionally restrict legacy bridging to approved domains or require human approval in sensitive environments.

The compatibility mechanism operates independently of the unpredictability source used for DAH/DDH derivation—hardware-anchored, local-state, or hybrid. The adapter functions entirely at the boundary layer and never modifies slope formation, continuity validation, lineage chaining, delayed verification workflows, or checkpoint replay logic.

By scoping fallback identifiers to isolated, ephemeral sessions and restricting their use to a segregated adapter path, legacy interoperability is achieved without weakening memory-native authentication, revealing slope evolution, or enabling cross-domain correlation.

14. Cryptographic Threat Model and DSM Defense Surface

The Dynamic Signature Mesh (DSM) defines a threat model built around identity as a progressing trust slope rather than persistent keys. Identity is derived per step from local unpredictability and semantic context, whether sourced from a hardware anchor with per-epoch volatile salt, a stability-tuned local state vector processed by a strong extractor, or a hybrid combination. Successors are validated strictly through monotonic continuity rather than long-lived credentials.

Resistance to static-key compromise arises from the absence of persistent secrets. Each DAH or DDH is ephemeral, non-reusable, and meaningful only as part of a monotonic sequence anchored in a previously trusted state. Observing a dynamic identity yields no ability to generate successors because continuity checks require advancing from retained prior state under policy-bounded update rules.

Spoofing and impersonation are mitigated by enforcing on-slope continuity and validating entanglement traces. A presenter must produce a valid descendant of the verifier’s last trusted state and, for agent mutation steps, must provide a host-signed entanglement trace that opens to the device identity active at execution. Hardware-anchor embodiments rely on salt freshness and cadence bounds; local-state embodiments use neighborhood envelopes over extractor outputs; hybrid embodiments require both conditions to hold.

Replay is prevented by rejecting repeated or regressed successors and enforcing inter-step timing windows. Any reappearance of a previously accepted value, regression behind stored state, or claim outside an expected cadence window is rejected, triggering optional trust degradation or quarantine according to local policy.

Message-layer integrity composes with identity verification through a two-stage process: header continuity checks precede decryption, and payload-embedded sender identities are validated against the sender’s trust slope. Decryption keys derived from the recipient’s current identity bind confidentiality and integrity to memory-resolved state, ensuring deterministic rejection of malformed or substituted messages.

Tamper detection is provided by forward-secure commitments and periodic anchors over append-only lineage logs. Each entry updates a cumulative chain; any omission, reordering, or alteration diverges the terminal value and fails anchor validation. Sparse and delayed verification remain safe because bounded proofs expose only the materials required for local recomputation, never raw state vectors or static secrets.

Quantum threats are mitigated by avoiding algebraic assumptions vulnerable to Shor’s algorithm. Security depends on the min-entropy λ of per-step unpredictability and the preimage resistance of the hash or extractor. Offline forgery succeeds with probability roughly 2^(−λ), reduced to 2^(−λ/2) under quantum amplitude-amplification attacks; extractor outputs and digests sized at 256–512 bits provide conservative margins.

Side-channel and co-residency risks are constrained through locality and diversification. Hardware-anchor embodiments use per-epoch salts to prevent cross-context replay; local-state embodiments may disclose only short, error-tolerant sketches that are non-invertible. Optional biometric reseeding contributes fresh unpredictability but is confined to privacy-preserving fuzzy extractors and liveness checks.

Host compromise and off-substrate mutation attempts are contained through entanglement. Each mutation step requires a host-signed trace whose mutation token must open to the executing host’s DDH under policy. Absent or incoherent entanglement fails closed. Entropy-anchor rotation provides proactive renewal without sacrificing auditability or enabling stale-epoch replay.

Cross-protocol and downgrade attacks are mitigated by isolating legacy-system interoperability within a segregated adapter. Fallback identifiers and PKI signatures never influence DAH/DDH evolution; attempted crossover triggers closed-fail detection. Session-scoped mappings and explicit teardown prevent persistence, leakage, or correlation across epochs.

Flooding and admission-control threats are addressed through early discard of off-slope headers, strict replay protection, and rate limits tied to sender trust-slope state. Repeated near-misses may degrade trust or require supplemental bounded proofs; anomalies in cadence or neighborhood patterns support quarantine.

Extractor tokens and optional sketches are bound to domain-separated public seeds and context tags to prevent token malleability or cross-domain correlation. Policy-derived acceptance envelopes limit allowable drift; values outside the envelope classify as off-manifold and fail closed without exposing underlying local state.

Receivers support a two-epoch acceptance window and per-sender rate limits to mitigate denial-of-service conditions when senders encrypt using stale identities. Failure responses reveal nothing about rekey status; repeated failures degrade trust or trigger checkpoint-based retries.

Header-level DAH rotation with forward links further limits correlation and linkability while preserving verifiable continuity through bounded proofs.

Collectively, these controls form a defense surface that resists spoofing, replay, static-key compromise, mutation forgery, predictive entropy attacks, quantum acceleration, host compromise, and protocol downgrades, all while supporting stateless, intermittent, and federated operation using only locally available materials, anchors, and bounded disclosures.

15. Deployment Environments and Cognition-Native Adaptability

The disclosed mechanisms operate consistently across heterogeneous substrates—including stateless execution fabrics, intermittently connected networks, memory-constrained devices, decentralized multi-domain systems, and cognition-native platforms—by validating identity strictly as monotonic progression along a trust slope formed from local unpredictability and semantic context. No centralized authorities, persistent credentials, or synchronized ledgers are required for continuity or acceptance.

In stateless deployments such as ephemeral workers, serverless functions, relays, and mobile agents with no durable storage, devices derive DAHs and DDHs directly from local inputs using the update rules described herein. Minimal implementations perform header-level continuity screening, derive a symmetric key from the recipient’s current identity, and emit bounded validation traces. Optional checkpointing supports later reconstruction. Stateless nodes remain interoperable with memory-aware peers because neither persistent private keys nor session material are required.

In high-latency, disrupted, or disconnected networks—including delay-tolerant links, mesh overlays, opportunistic routes, and long-haul spaceborne paths—authentication proceeds through delayed verification and bounded proof windows. Senders include per-step proof materials sufficient for deterministic replay from the recipient’s last anchor; receivers reconstruct continuity upon reconnection without global synchronization. Sparse proofs and periodic anchors enable long-duration transit while preserving auditability and replay resistance.

In memory-constrained devices such as IoT sensors, wearables, embedded controllers, and ultra-low-power endpoints, the system uses sparse checkpointing and forward-secure chaining to minimize storage. Devices retain only selected identities and anchors and reconstruct intermediate steps as needed from compact proofs. Policy controls checkpoint cadence to balance memory load and replay cost, and acceptance remains strictly local and deterministic.

In decentralized and cross-domain environments—such as federated learning systems, distributed AI ecosystems, and multi-tenant data exchanges—the system provides a substrate-independent trust layer. Nodes validate each other via memory-resolved identity progression rather than external registries. Agent-side mutations are entangled with the executing host’s device identity, producing verifiable multi-node provenance and blocking off-substrate evolution as agents migrate across domains.

In cognition-native platforms, where agents possess intent fields, semantic payloads, and embedded policy, trust-slope continuity ties identity to behavioral integrity rather than static credentials. Agents may mutate, delegate, reclassify, or reindex under embedded policy while retaining verifiable lineage through entanglement traces, append-only mutation logs, and cumulative anchors. Predictive verification anticipates expected successors and surfaces drift early, strengthening containment and triage before full discontinuity.

The mechanisms are agnostic to unpredictability source. Per-step freshness may derive from a hardware anchor combined with a volatile salt, from a stability-tuned local state vector processed via strong extraction, or from a hybrid concatenation of both. Entropy-anchor rotation with forward links establishes new identity epochs without breaking auditability, and biometric-assisted reseeding may contribute additional local unpredictability via privacy-preserving extractors with optional liveness verification.

Because identity formation depends on local unpredictability, hash-based commitments, and bounded replay proofs—rather than algebraic assumptions vulnerable to Shor-type quantum attacks—the deployment model is inherently aligned with post-quantum security expectations. Strict isolation of legacy interoperability prevents protocol contamination, while two-stage authentication and replay controls allow early discard under adversarial load. These properties collectively support privacy preservation, operational autonomy, and verifiable provenance across distributed, stateless, and cognition-native infrastructures.

16. Definitions

“agent” means a cryptographically signed, memory-bearing data object that functions as a protocol operand within the disclosed substrate and contains a unique identifier, payload, memory field, transport header, and signature, participating in trust-slope formation and validation.

“semantic agent” means an agent with an intent field and cognition-compatible structure enabling policy-aware mutation, delegation, and context-sensitive execution; every semantic agent is an agent, but not every agent is semantic.

“policy agent” means an agent that encodes quorum rules, mutation eligibility criteria, role definitions, and related controls, referenced from another agent’s memory field to govern eligibility, weighting, and validation or consensus thresholds.

“substrate,” “host,” or “node” means any computational device or execution environment that processes agents and maintains a Dynamic Device Hash representing its own identity state.

“Dynamic Agent Hash (DAH)” means an ephemeral, memory-resolved cryptographic identifier generated by an agent as a successor to a prior trusted DAH under an update rule that includes at least one unpredictability source and a volatile salt, optionally combined with agent-side semantic features.

“Dynamic Device Hash (DDH)” means an ephemeral, memory-resolved cryptographic identifier generated by a device as a successor to a prior trusted DDH under an update rule containing at least one unpredictability contribution and a volatile salt, optionally combined with role or context features.

“trust slope” means the cumulatively validated sequence of DAHs or DDHs produced by successive identity mutations, where continuity requires each successor to be a valid descendant of the previous trusted state under policy-bounded checks.

“entropy” means locally available unpredictability used during successor formation and validation, derived either from a hardware anchor with per-epoch volatile salts, from a stability-tuned local state vector processed by a strong extractor, or from a hybrid concatenation of both; λ denotes the resulting per-step min-entropy.

“entropy anchor” means the initial unpredictability state from which a trust slope originates; anchors may be rotated or linked forward for auditability across epochs.

“local state vector (LSV)” means a bounded-dimension vector of locally observable device or execution signals that, after normalization and projection, forms a stability-tuned representation suitable for extraction without revealing raw state.

“extractor” or “strong randomness extractor” means a cryptographic function that derives a fixed-length, high-entropy token from the projected local state vector or related noisy input; extractor outputs may be disclosed in bounded proofs without leaking underlying state.

“volatile salt” means a non-repeating freshness value scoped to a successor step or epoch and combined with other inputs to ensure replay resistance and prevent cross-context reuse.

“host mutation token” means a value derived from the executing host’s current DDH and mutation class or epoch information, enabling agent-side successors to be entangled with the executing host.

“slope entanglement” means the process by which an agent’s successor DAH is bound to the executing host’s contemporaneous DDH via a host mutation token and a signed entanglement trace.

“entanglement trace” or “lineage entry” means a signed record stored in an agent’s memory that includes the prior DAH, the host DDH, the host mutation token, the successor DAH, the mutation class, and related metadata.

“cumulative chain hash” means a forward-secure digest computed over the ordered lineage entries such that omission, modification, or reordering of any entry causes divergence of the terminal value.

“anchor” means a periodic digest computed over lineage or commitments at selected intervals to support compact proofs and bounded validation across long histories.

“checkpoint” means a retained and trusted identity state—either embedded in an agent or stored by a verifier—from which missing successors can be recomputed using bounded proofs.

“slope proof” means a bounded disclosure containing per-step materials sufficient for deterministic recomputation of missing successors from a checkpoint or anchor without revealing raw local state or static device secrets.

“delayed validation” means authenticating a presentation after latency or disconnection by replaying successors from a stored checkpoint or anchor using a slope proof.

“predictive validation” means forecasting near-term successors and acceptance envelopes from observed cadence, mutation classes, and role transitions, then comparing incoming claims to the forecasts to detect drift.

“acceptance envelope” means a policy-defined bound for validating or predicting successors, such as token-space neighborhoods in the local-state embodiment or freshness/cadence windows in the hardware-anchor embodiment.

“recovery token” means a commitment over a reseeded identity and a quorum of signed attestations that, when validated under policy, re-anchors an agent’s slope after memory loss or discontinuity.

“quorum-based reauthentication” means restoring slope continuity by aggregating attestations from eligible peers under a referenced policy, without persistent credentials or centralized authorities.

“fallback identifier (FID)” means a session-scoped identifier derived from a transient public key and nonce for interoperability with legacy PKI systems, kept within an isolation boundary and excluded from DAH/DDH evolution.

“two-stage authentication” means first verifying header-level continuity of a presented DAH before decryption, then validating an embedded sender DAH after decryption, with failure at either stage causing rejection.

“biometric-assisted reseeding” means optionally deriving additional unpredictability from biometric input via a privacy-preserving fuzzy extractor with liveness verification, used solely for reseeding and never exported.

“scope tag,” “role,” or “mutation class” means policy-relevant metadata associated with a successor that constrains eligibility, weighting, or acceptance under local policy.

“Dynamic Signature Mesh (DSM)” means the memory-native authentication framework that validates identity through trust-slope progression using local unpredictability, bounded proofs, and anchors instead of persistent keys or external registrars.

“memory-resolved identity” means an identity model where authentication relies exclusively on locally retained information—including unpredictability sources, lineage evidence, and policy-scoped traces—rather than third-party attestations or long-term credentials.

“Domain separation” means seeding extractors and key-derivation functions with deployment-fixed public seeds and context tags to keep tokens and keys unlinkable across domains or epochs.

“near real-time” or “real time” means producing a given result with a slight but acceptable delay—approximately 250 milliseconds—from the occurrence of a relevant event.

“about” means a tolerance understood by a person of ordinary skill in the art; absent specific tolerances, a value satisfies “about” when its variation changes system performance by no more than five percent.

The disclosed computing system and methods may be implemented on any computer system, in software stored on non-transitory media, or deployed across stand-alone, intranet-connected, or internet-accessible environments.

WHAT IS CLAIMED IS:

1. A computer-implemented method for memory-native two-stage authentication, comprising: generating, by a sender agent, a dynamic agent hash (DAH_t) as a successor of a prior trusted dynamic agent hash (DAH_{t−1}) generated by the sender agent, wherein the DAH_t is generated under an update rule that incorporates at least one unpredictability contribution and a volatile salt; deriving, by the sender agent, a symmetric encryption key from a current dynamic identity of a recipient selected from a recipient dynamic agent hash (DAH_R) or a recipient dynamic device hash (DDH_R); encrypting a payload with the symmetric encryption key and embedding within the encrypted payload an embedded sender dynamic agent hash (DAH_S) computed contemporaneously with the DAH_t; constructing, by the sender agent, a message comprising a transport header and the encrypted payload, and placing the DAH_t in the transport header and the DAH_S within the encrypted payload, wherein the message does not include the symmetric encryption key; transmitting, by the sender agent, the message to the recipient; receiving, by the recipient, the transmitted message and reconstructing, from a locally retained trust-slope state for the sender agent that includes at least the DAH_{t−1} most recently validated and previously accepted by the recipient, an expected successor candidate for time t under the update rule and within a recipient-defined set of policy-bounded continuity parameters; validating, by the recipient, the DAH_t against an expected successor candidate; deriving, by the recipient, a recipient symmetric encryption key from a corresponding one of DAH_R or DDH_R and decrypting the payload; extracting, by the recipient, the DAH_S from the decrypted payload and validating the DAH_S against a reconstructed trust slope for the sender agent obtained by advancing the locally retained trust-slope state under the update rule and within the recipient-defined set of policy-bounded continuity parameters; and accepting, by the recipient, the message only upon successful validation of both the DAH_t and the DAH_S.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the accepting and validating are performed without reliance on persistent private keys or external certificate authorities.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the unpredictability contribution includes a keyed derivation from a static hardware anchor and a volatile per-epoch salt.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the unpredictability contribution includes an extractor output over a stability-tuned local state vector, the extractor output being used without exposing a raw local state.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the update rule includes a hardware-anchor derivation and a local-state extractor output and wherein both the hardware-anchor derivation and the local-state extractor output are concatenated in the update rule.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising rotating an entropy anchor upon detection of staleness and recording a forward link configured to bind a terminal value of a prior epoch to a new initial identity, and rejecting identifiers from an expired epoch except for bridging proofs that open through the forward link.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising forecasting a near-term successor identity and an acceptance envelope based on cadence statistics and role-transition models; classifying a presented successor as consistent when the presented successor lies within the acceptance envelope; and degrading trust, requesting supplemental proofs, or quarantining when the presented successor falls outside the acceptance envelope.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising validating, prior to decryption, header-level continuity of the DAH_t against an expected successor and, after decryption, validating payload-level continuity of the DAH_S against a reconstructed trust slope, and rejecting the message without external registry lookup upon failure of validation of either header-level continuity of the DAH_t or payload-level continuity of the DAH_S.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the symmetric encryption key is derived via a key derivation function keyed by the DAH_R or DDH_R and a context tag, and wherein no asymmetric key exchange is performed.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein, when the sender agent cannot derive a symmetric key from the DAH_R or DDH_R, deriving, by the sender agent, a provisional key from a last trusted recipient anchor and, upon decryption failure, performing, by the sender agent, a fallback including a checkpoint request that yields a bounded proof window or a short challenge–response rekey handshake.

11. The method of claim 10, further including retrying, by the sender agent, decryption within a policy-bounded attempt window.

12. The method of claim 1, further including separating by domain extractor tokens by a fixed public seed and context tag per deployment, and enforcing by validation an acceptance envelope that rejects off-manifold drift without exposing raw local state vectors.

13. The method of claim 1, further including applying, by the recipient, a two-epoch acceptance window for recipient identity, enforcing per-sender rate limits on failed decryptions, and emitting opaque failure codes to prevent oracle leakage.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising rotating the DAH_t presented in the header at a policy-defined cadence independent of payload semantics.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein deriving the symmetric key includes performing a key derivation function keyed by the DAH_R or DDH_R and a domain-separated context tag, and wherein the derived key expires with a recipient epoch to prevent cross-epoch decryption.

16. A system for agent mutation entanglement, comprising: a host device configured to compute a dynamic device hash (DDH_t) as a successor of a prior dynamic device hash (DDH_p) under an update rule that incorporates at least one unpredictability contribution and a volatile salt; a semantic agent configured to execute on the host device and to compute a successor dynamic agent hash (DAH_s) from a prior dynamic agent hash (DAH_p) and a host mutation token derived from the DDH_t and a mutation class associated with the host device; an entanglement module configured to emit a signed entanglement trace that records DAH_p, DDH_t, the host mutation token, DAH_s, and mutation metadata; and a validator configured to accept DAH_s only if the entanglement trace opens to DDH_t under policy and DAH_s is a valid successor of DAH_p.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the host mutation token comprises a cryptographic hash of DDH_t, mutation class, and epoch information, and the entanglement trace includes a signature of the host device.

18. The system of claim 16, further including a monitoring module configured to detect invalid entanglement, cadence anomaly, neighborhood mismatch of extractor outputs, and stale salt, and to degrade trust-score of the semantic agent or quarantine the semantic agent upon detection of invalid entanglement, cadence anomaly, neighborhood mismatch of extractor outputs, or stale salt.

19. The system of claim 16, wherein the semantic agent includes a policy reference to a policy agent that specifies quorum roles, voting weights, and eligibility for mutation validation, and is configured to accept entangled mutations only when quorum roles, voting weights, and eligibility for mutation validation are consistent with the policy.

20. The system of claim 16, further including a message authentication code configured to authenticate the entanglement trace by a value derived from DDH_t under a domain-separated key derivation function in lieu of a digital signature, wherein the key is ephemeral and locally scoped to an epoch of the host device.

21. The system of claim 16, wherein the host device is configured to employ an ephemeral signing keypair minted per epoch and destroyed upon rotation, and including a verifier configured to accept the entanglement trace only when an epoch identifier opens to DDH_t under policy.