The PIC Model organization is an effort to define and implement
PIC (Provenance Identity Continuity) for distributed execution systems.
PIC is a formal execution model that prevents confused-deputy failures by making authority a property of execution continuity, not of possessed artifacts.
The following organizations and products are adopting or experimenting with the PIC Model:
| Organization / Product | Link |
|---|---|
| Nitro Agility | https://www.nitroagility.com |
| Permguard | https://www.permguard.com |
| Amla Labs | https://amlalabs.com/ |
Listing here does not imply endorsement or conformance certification.
🧠 PIC is a guardrail for distributed execution — including AI systems.
Here’s a simple example 👇
Cache key = URL
/report → HTML
- Admin hits first → admin page cached
- Next user → receives admin page
✅ Works
❌ Secure? No → Confused deputy
Cache key =:
(URL, hash(authority-continuity))
- User ≠ Admin authority
- Different continuity → different cache entry
A request can only reuse results derived from its own execution continuity.
No token parsing.
No role checks.
No edge-side policy guessing.
🔐 Authority is enforced by continuity, not possession.
📉 Monotonicity
Reuse is allowed only if:
ops₁ ⊆ ops₀
Never by authority expansion.
🚫 PoP is the root cause
OAuth tokens, sealed credentials, capability replay →
the deputy is structurally unavoidable.
The same applies to AI “guardrails” built on possession or role prompts.
Change what authority is →
you change the gravity of distributed systems.
PIC.
- The PIC Model defines the core execution invariants.
- The PIC Spec defines the normative semantics.
- PIC Protocol documents (when published) define concrete protocol encodings and interoperability profiles.
Authorship, attribution, and normative authority are defined in the official PIC Spec.
“This work is based on the Provenance Identity Continuity (PIC) Model created by
Nicola Gallo. The model and its initial specification originate from this work.
Maintenance of the PIC Spec and related PIC Protocol documents is performed over
time by the PIC Spec Contributors, with authorship of the model remaining with
Nicola Gallo.”
Content is published under
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).