Letters of Marque for AI Agents: The 600-Year Authorization Architecture You're Reinventing

If you've implemented OAuth scopes, you've already touched the edge of a 600-year-old governance system. In January 2025, South, Marro, Hardjono, Mahari, and Pentland published arXiv:2501.09674 — a three-token architecture for AI agent authorization extending OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect: User ID-token — standard OIDC identity. Who owns the agent. Agent-ID token — the agent's capabilities, limitations, and unique identifier. Delegation token — cryptographically signed, scoped, revocable. The aut