Securing MCP Interactions at Scale; The NFL as a Platform Economy: Value Creation, Network Effects, and the Economics of Fan Monetization 2 views

In my technical capstone project, I propose a security framework to address a critical vulnerability in the Model Context Protocol (MCP), Anthropic's open standard for enabling AI agents to call external tools. Current MCP implementations rely on static bearer tokens for authentication, a model that offers no granular access control and becomes dangerously inadequate as agents begin handling sensitive tasks like financial transactions and personal data. I designed a three-layer verification system in which each AI agent is assigned a unique Agent Verification Number (AVN) and a cryptographic keypair, signing every tool request before it is validated through a centralized Gateway Service, similar to how Visa processes and authorizes financial transactions. The Gateway abstracts sensitive credentials away from agents entirely, maintains an immutable audit ledger, and issues short-lived authorization tokens only after full cryptographic verification. This architecture is projected to reduce unauthorized or replayed tool calls while reducing developer setup time from hours to minutes via an accompanying Agent SDK. Beyond its technical contribution, the project argues that robust agent verification is a prerequisite for broader societal trust in autonomous AI systems. In my STS research paper, I examine the NFL as a platform-based economy to assess whether the league generates sufficient economic and social value to justify its antitrust exemptions and public subsidies. Prior scholarship concludes that professional sports teams produce little measurable local economic benefit, but these assessments rely on pre-digital frameworks that fail to account for the NFL's transformation into a technology-integrated media system. Drawing on financial disclosures, broadcasting data, consumer spending metrics, and two-sided market theory, I argue that the NFL generates substantial value through national media rights, digital ecosystems, and network effects, functioning not as a sports league but as the central node of a technology-driven economic network. At the same time, the research identifies a structural tension: the same platform dynamics that enable value creation at scale increasingly incentivize multi-layered extraction from the same fan base. I argue that the NFL's long-term sustainability depends on whether policymakers introduce safeguards to preserve the fan experience that makes the entire economic ecosystem possible.

BS (Bachelor of Science)

Model Context Protocol (MCP); Platform Economy; AI agents; NFL

School of Engineering and Applied Science Bachelor of Science in Computer Science Technical Advisor: Rosanne Vrugtman STS Advisor: Karina Ripley

English

All rights reserved by the author (no additional license for public reuse)

2026-05-04