Alter - GoKawiil

YC-backed Alter launches access control platform for multi-user AI agents

Alter, a startup from Y Combinator's Summer 2025 batch, has launched a product that manages credentials and permissions for AI agents acting on behalf of multiple users. The system stores credentials in a central vault and injects them into proxied API calls at request time, while assigning each agent its own identity and scoped permissions. Sensitive actions, such as a billing agent issuing refunds, can be configured to require human approval before executing.

alterauth.com · 2026-10-21

Smithsonian essay traces how Benjamin Franklin used pseudonyms to speak freely

A Smithsonian magazine special report examines how Benjamin Franklin repeatedly invented fictional authorial personas—such as the widow Silence Dogood and the unwed mother Polly Baker—to publish opinions he couldn't voice under his own name. As a teenager, Franklin used the Dogood persona to sneak past his brother's ban on printing his writing, while Polly Baker's fictional courtroom defense skewered unequal treatment of unmarried mothers versus the men who fathered their children.

smithsonianmag.com · 2026-08-30