Identity Privacy and Role Obfuscation

Enabling Secure, Role-Based Governance Without Compromising Identity Sovereignty or Operational Security

9.5.1 Why Identity Privacy Is Non-Negotiable

In the NSF environment, participants include:

• Civil society actors

• Treaty negotiators

• Journalists and whistleblowers

• Government operatives

• AI agents executing clause-based logic

Public disclosure of roles or credentials can:

• Compromise operational security

• Expose individuals to retaliation or coercion

• Undermine trust in multilateral negotiations

• Violate treaty or jurisdictional confidentiality terms

Thus, identity obfuscation is a first-class design requirement—not a secondary privacy feature.

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9.5.2 Identity vs. Role: A Governance Distinction

NSF separates:

Element	Scope
Identity (DID)	Who you are, cryptographically anchored
Role (VC)	What you’re authorized to do, where, and under what conditions

Roles are executable; identities are protected.

This allows governance logic to:

• Operate on the basis of role validity

• Enforce jurisdictional and simulation boundaries

• Without exposing underlying personal, institutional, or national identities

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9.5.3 Identity Privacy Techniques

Technique	Function
Pseudonymous DIDs	Rotating identifiers, unlinkable across proposals unless explicitly joined
Decoy DID Pools	Camouflaged execution triggers or DAO votes
Forward-Secure VC Presentation	Time-bound proofs of credential validity without replayable identifiers
Zero-Knowledge Role Assertions	“This agent has MonitorVC,” without disclosing DID or DAO history
Non-Correlation Keys	Fresh ephemeral keys for each session or clause interaction
Obfuscated Voting Traces	DAO ballots verified cryptographically, but anonymized within quorum logic

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9.5.4 Role Obfuscation in Governance and Clause Execution

Roles may be:

• Declared via ZK circuit

• Tied to specific jurisdiction or clause domain

• Hidden from public audit but traceable through verified aggregation

• Presented only to execution engines (e.g., CAC, DAO, forecast validator)

This enables clause gating by authorization without violating individual privacy or institutional boundaries.

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9.5.5 Anonymous DAO Participation

DAO participation includes:

• Encrypted ballots

• Voter eligibility verified via ZK-proven credentials

• Vote results published without voter linkage

• Obfuscated vote tallies for small quorums (to avoid inference)

This supports safe participation in contested regions or conflict zones.

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9.5.6 Simulation Participation Without Identity Leakage

When a simulation requires sensitive input:

• Inputs are hashed and obfuscated

• Results are verified using STARK/zkVM proof bundles

• Participants can submit results anonymously with validator signature rings

• Any resulting clause trigger is verified independently

Use cases include:

• Climate treaty backtesting

• Pandemic modeling

• Human rights clause activation

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9.5.7 Credential Privacy and Revocation Visibility

NSF balances:

• VC usability

• Revocation traceability

• Presenter privacy

Mechanisms:

• Sparse Merkle trees for revocation

• ZK inclusion proofs for validity without revealing credential hash

• Conditional disclosure: attributes revealed only if needed for execution

• Jurisdictional scope redaction via homomorphic filters

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9.5.8 Threat Model: Deanonymization and Surveillance Resistance

NSF mitigates:

• Credential linkability across proposals

• DID tracing in DAO or clause logs

• Side-channel leakage from execution timing or pattern matching

• State-level decryption of public registry entries

Countermeasures include:

• Execution delay randomization

• DID unlinking across registry layers

• Metadata stripping during bundle propagation

• Simulated fake traffic during sensitive governance windows

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9.5.9 Role Expiry, Rotation, and Nonce Policies

• All roles expire unless renewed via DAO or credential signer

• Role-nonce policies prevent role reuse across domains

• Simulation-based validation needed for role reissuance

• DAO triggers can rotate or revoke roles based on behavior or incident reports

This supports situational, scoped, and revocable authorization frameworks.

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9.5.10 Privacy as a Governance Right

In NSF:

• Governance is not conditional on public exposure

• Simulation-based legitimacy replaces identity-based trust

• Execution integrity does not require personal sacrifice

• Auditors can verify outcomes, not participants

NSF makes identity privacy a structural requirement—not a user preference—enabling safe participation in planetary-scale, high-stakes governance.