Agent Registry for Identity & Authorization
ARIA Protocol
What DNS is to domain names, ARIA is to AI agent identity.
The Problem
AI agents are proliferating without verifiable identity. They cross organizational boundaries, access sensitive data, make financial transactions, and represent legal entities — yet there is no standardized way to confirm who they are, who authorized them, or what they're permitted to do.
ARIA is the protocol that changes this. It provides a verifiable, DNS-anchored identity for every AI agent — with four trust levels, post-quantum cryptography, real-time revocation, and a three-phase authorization handshake.
Six Protocol Layers
Four Trust Levels
The agent exists
Cryptographic identity. Self-service. No DNS required.
A person is accountable
DNS-anchored and verified. An identified person controls this agent.
An organization is verified
DNS TXT ownership via DoH + government attestation. 2-day human review.
Enterprise-grade compliance
Legal documentation + admin approval + compliance audit. 2-3 weeks.
Agent Trust Protocol
ARIA gives agents a passport. ATP is customs. A three-phase handshake:
- 1
Phase 1 — Declare: Agent presents its identity (AID) and a cryptographically signed Intent Declaration.
- 2
Phase 2 — Evaluate: Receiving system evaluates against its Agent Trust Policy (a DNS TXT record). Evaluation is local — zero network round-trips.
- 3
Phase 3 — Admit: Result communicated via ATP response code, queued for the Agent Interaction Log (future).
Post-Quantum Cryptography
ARIA doesn't retrofit security. It was born post-quantum. Primary: ML-DSA-65 (FIPS 204). Composite: Ed25519 (RFC 8032) — AND logic, both must verify. Session keys: ML-KEM-768 (FIPS 203). Hard sunset on classical-only signatures: December 31, 2029.
Trust Ledger
An append-only, SHA-256 hash-chained record of every credential lifecycle event — issuance, renewal, suspension, revocation, expiry, tombstone. Modeled on Certificate Transparency (RFC 9162). Seven-year minimum retention. Not a blockchain — no consensus mechanism, no mining, no gas fees.