About MIO

What MIO is for, what exists today, and the principles it would be built on

MIO (Machine Intelligence Omega) is a proposed company and has not been formed. Its purpose would be to run the commercial service around MDSL’s products: to manage the distributors who take them to market, to support implementation and customer success, and to stand behind the service as customers meet it. As proposed, MIO would earn by sharing in the recurring revenue of that service, not by licensing code. The reasoning is that software is cheap to copy and that, as machines handle more of a transaction, trust may become its central part. On that reasoning the value would sit in custody of signing keys (held by MDSL today), a time stamp from an outside authority, a draft standard of MDSL’s own and a service that is kept running. Whether customers will pay for it has not been tested (EST-21).

What exists today

• Village™ is live by paid subscription (VIL-01).
• MIO° Conduct Record™, AVA™ and Attested Accounts™ are available on request (CON-01, AVA-01, ACC-01).
• Provenance™ is available on request (PRV-02).
• The Email Decision Record™ is available on request; no customer is live yet (EDR-01).
• The Governance API is available on request as a sandbox, with evaluation access by a one-time link issued at MDSL’s discretion (API-01).

“Live” is used only for what a customer uses in production, which today is Village. Available on request does not mean customers use a product or that demand is proven (EST-21). The products page describes each one, and the evidence page separates what is operating from what is built and not yet in use.

How MIO would earn, and what it would do

MIO would share in recurring service revenue. It would take the agreed products to market through distributors it may appoint, manage those distributors, and support implementation and customer success. Distributors would be cooperative partners rather than only carriers of product: they would keep what they charge for their own services, and share in subscription revenue. No distributor has been appointed and no share or terms have been published or agreed with anyone (EST-03, EST-04, EST-31). How revenue would be shared between MDSL and MIO is not settled and would be documented.

What protects the work

The code is not what MIO would rely on. What it would rely on is set out below, each as it stands today, including where it falls short.

• Key custody. A separate signing host, operated by MDSL, keeps the signing key outside the process that writes records. It is in use for every active Village. A 2-of-3 split-key scheme is built and no tenant is on it; it cannot yet be switched on for a tenant. In both arrangements the key is still in MDSL’s hands (EST-15, EST-16).
• A time stamp from an outside authority. The authority in use today is Certum (Poland), which is non-qualified. A qualified EU authority, Aruba PEC (Italy), is contracted, built and tested, and available on request; it has not been used on a live customer engagement (EST-09, EST-36).
• A draft standard. MIO-STD-01 is MDSL’s draft standard for how records are sealed and time-stamped; no standards body has adopted it, and today’s time-stamp arrangement carries a disclosed non-conformance with section 5.3.2 of it (EST-20). A conformance suite for the offline checker is being prepared; none exists yet (EST-32).
• Review. An experienced architect reviewed the Governance API sandbox as an expert peer review. The reviewer is a design partner, so this is not arm’s-length assurance. No independent penetration test has been done; the scope of work is drafted and has not been sent (API-12, API-13). Apart from that peer review, the work was built by AI agents directed by John Stroh. Other AI agents that did not build it, each given fresh context, reviewed it adversarially, and automated scanning was run. No person has audited the code.

Direction

Today the software is proprietary. Village is bought by paid subscription, and every other product is available on request. MDSL’s intention is to move what it has built towards open source, in stages. It is an intention only: nothing has been released, nothing is dated, no licence has been fixed and no stage has been named. If that happens, the business would rest on running the service: hosting in New Zealand and the European Union, key custody, support and continuity. Distributors are invited to explore an arrangement. A draft agreement exists and has not been sent to anyone (EST-04, EST-30).

Principles

• The direction above is an intention and is not settled.
• MIO would run and stand behind the service, with documented rights to take the agreed products to market and to work with any distributors it appoints. MDSL would build and operate the platform and infrastructure under a documented arrangement.
• Pricing and service arrangements between MDSL and MIO would be written down and open to review by participants.
• Participants’ information, governance and protection rights would be set out in writing before anyone commits.
• Distributors would be cooperative partners, with bounded rights tied to performance, customer care and claims discipline.
• No participant receives automatic exclusivity by entering discussion.
• Conflicts would be disclosed and recorded, especially where a participant holds more than one role.
• Product marketing would stay within the claims on the status page.

What MDSL does

My Digital Sovereignty Ltd is a New Zealand company directed by John Stroh. It operates the platform and its infrastructure. The software is built by AI agents under his direction (see Review above). It owns the work today, and the code is proprietary (EST-02).

The time-attestation authority is a separate question

A New Zealand time-attestation authority may become important to the independence of the whole design. It is not assumed to be part of any MIO round. Its credibility depends on being independent of the operators whose records it attests, so any decision to establish or fund it is assessed separately for feasibility, governance, ownership, commercial independence, insurance and legal status.