Why this exists
The problem is not just technical.
Digital identity today is effectively platform property. This is an order issue: who gets to define people, connect them, score them, and who can revoke that?
Platform-bound identity
Users are guests in other people's systems. Lock-in and opaque permission sprawl follow, along with a structural power asymmetry around profiles and relationship graphs.
A human starting point
In real life we read appearance first: calm or nervous, order or disorder. Digitally, the sequence is inverted: account, password, form fields. Encounters feel foreign and are easy to monetize.
Protocol mindset
CustosVeritas separates truth, meaning, and appearance the way web standards separate transport, markup, and style.
Truth
Cryptographic validity under a minimal key.
Meaning
Roles and statements describe what is relevant in a context.
Appearance
An order layer enables recognition without becoming a stage.
Questions we invite
CustosVeritas is a request for critique, not a pitch.
- What is the social risk if identity remains platform property?
- Which boundary must be non-negotiable so this cannot become a new power technology?
- How do we prevent an order/visual layer from turning into performance or profiling?
- What metaphor could explain the idea without technical jargon?