When someone figures out how to do something with one of these technologies for the first time, but before practitioners have dealt with the hard work of actually implementing them, the field of possibilities is wide open. As you’ll remember from high school physics, potential energy is highest before that kinetic energy gets burnt off. Samesies here. (View Highlight)
When nothing’s been done, all possibilities are wide open.
This, incidentally, is why it’s easier to raise venture capital with an idea and a deck and maybe a prototype than it is once you have a product in customers’ hands and a little bit of revenue. It’s probably why the NBA Draft gets twice as many viewers as the average nationally televised game. People fucking love potential. (View Highlight)
Note: Potential starts the hype cycle
To quote the original paper defining zero-knowledge proofs, they “convey no additional knowledge other than the correctness of the proposition in question.” (View Highlight)
The trio were working on a problem related to a concept called an interactive proof system. In such a system, there are two parties: a prover of some information and a verifier of that information. Generally in these systems, it is assumed that the prover cannot be trusted while the verifier can be. It is the goal of the system to be designed in such a way that:
The verifier can be convinced of a true statement by an untrusted prover, and
That it is impossible for the prover to convince the verifier of an untrue statement. (View Highlight)
Goldwasser, Micali, and Rackoff added an additional layer of complexity to the whole interaction. They asked (and answered) the question: how do we handle it if, not only can the bouncer not trust me — but I also cannot trust the bouncer. Maybe I suspect that the bouncer has been stealing people’s identities. Maybe I don’t want him to know that I’m a Taurus. Whatever the issue is, suddenly the prover does not want the verifier to know the underlying information.
Using what those MIT academics introduced as a zero-knowledge proof, I can convince the bouncer to let me in without ever telling him my actual birthdate. (View Highlight)
Evervault captures the ethos of the new generation of privacy technology perfectly:
Privacy is a basic expectation and human right, but it’s something that should never create any friction or slow down the speed of technological advancement.
In other words, we no longer need to accept the privacy trade-offs we historically have. (View Highlight)
Cloud infrastructure, for example, could become a whole lot more secure using these ZKPs (no cryptocurrency required). Users could leverage cloud computing, for example, without ever exposing sensitive consumer data to the cloud providers. This is particularly important for financial services, government, and other similarly risk-averse entities when it comes to data security. These industries have been notorious laggards in their adoption of hosted cloud infrastructure, much to the frustration of forward-thinking CTOs, cost-sensitive CFOs, and end-users craving a more modern experience. If zero-knowledge can enable these industries to start using cloud providers without trusting those providers with that sensitive data, then a revolution awaits. (View Highlight)
Note: ZKP could expand cloud to other risk-adverse industries
