Zero Knowledge

In this week's episode, Anna catches up with Kenny Paterson, Professor of Computer Science and Lead of Applied Cryptography Group at ETH Zurich. The goal of the episode is to take a deeper look at DP-3T and privacy preserving contact tracing research in Europe generally. They cover his work at ETH Zurich, discuss how the DP-3T project came to be, look at risks facing contact tracing protocols generally, and discuss why putting privacy and decentralisation at the heart of these types of protocol is so important. A few of the topics we cover: ZKPodcast interview with Claudia Diaz ZKPodcast interview with Henry de ValenceDP-3T site Some early critical analysis of the protocol Here + HereApplied Crypto group at ETH ZurichIf you like what we do: Follow us on Twitter - @zeroknowledgefmJoin us on TelegramGive us feedback! https://forms.gle/iKMSrVtcAn6BByH6A Support our Gitcoin GrantSupport us on the ZKPatreonOr directly here: ETH: 0xC0FFEE1B5083230a5154F55f253B6b6ae8F29B1aBTC: 1cafekGa3podM4fBxPSQc6RCEXQNTK8ZzZEC: t1R2bujRF3Hzte9ALHpMJvY8t5kb9ut9SpQ

In this week's episode, we go deep into Consensus Algorithms and HotStuff with Ittai Abraham from VMware Research. We chat about the evolution of consensus algorithms, BFT, and how these early ideas have become the backbone of blockchain tech. We cover PBFT, Tendermint and Ittai's research into SBFT, HotStuff, and the improvements he has been working on since HotStuff's incorporation into Facebook's Libra protocol. The papers and references we mention:Early zkpodcast episode on consensus with Robert HabermeierPBFT (Castro and Liskov) (see project here)BASE (Castro, Rodrigues, and Liskov) (the forgotten companion of PBFT that suggests a clean State Machine abstraction)Consensus in the Presence of Partial Synchrony (Dwork, Lynch Stockmeyer)Consensus in the Presence of Partial Synchrony (Dwork, Lynch Stockmeyer) (this paper won the 2007 Dijkstra award)Multiple leader BFT (Katz and Koo)Some of Ittai's work: SBFT (with Golan, Grossman, Malkhi, Pinkas, Reiter, Seredinschi, Tamir, and Tomescu)Hotstuff (with Yin, Malkhi, Reiter, and Golan)Asynchronous BFT (with Malkhi and Spiegelman)Sync Hotstuff (with Malkhi, Nayak, Ren, and Yin)Optimal Good-case Latency for Byzantine Broadcast and State Machine Replication (with Nayak, Ren, and Xiang) new!On the Optimality of Optimistic Responsiveness (with Nayak ,Ren, and Shrestha) new!Ittai's group blog on cryptography and consensus: Decentralized Thoughts blog We also mention:Tendermint (from 2016 not 2014)Casper FFGThunderellaThe AVA consensusThank you to this week's sponsor Matter Labs. Matter Labs, the creator of the first zkRollup prototype, is also the team behind zkSync: a user-centric Ethereum scaling solution, secured by zero-knowledge proofs. zkSync testnet is live! You are welcome to try out its simple and intuitive user interface at zksync.io. If you like what we do: Follow us on Twitter - @zeroknowledgefmJoin us on TelegramGive us feedback! https://forms.gle/iKMSrVtcAn6BByH6A Support our Gitcoin GrantSupport us on the ZKPatreonOr directly here: ETH: 0xC0FFEE1B5083230a5154F55f253B6b6ae8F29B1aBTC: 1cafekGa3podM4fBxPSQc6RCEXQNTK8ZzZEC: t1R2bujRF3Hzte9ALHpMJvY8t5kb9ut9SpQ

In this episode, Henry de Valence from the Zcash Foundation discusses strong crypto libraries, the Zebra Zcash client, and privacy-preserving contact tracing protocols. They explore the challenges of developing crypto libraries in Rust and the implementation of Ristretto. They also talk about the role of a cryptographic researcher, decentralized contact tracing, and compatibility between different proposals.

Anna talks with Claudia Diaz, a professor at KU Leuven and Chief Science Officer at Nym Technology, about mixnets, privacy technology, and opportunities for new privacy tech. They discuss the integration of mixnets with blockchain systems, the role of zero knowledge proofs, and the differences between mixnets and mixers. They also explore the applications of mixnets in financial, messaging, and contact tracing sectors, and highlight the importance of privacy in the face of increasing surveillance.

Flavio Bergamaschi from IBM Research discusses Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE), its advancements, standardization efforts, encoding videos with FHE, applications in finance, healthcare, and government, relationship between FHE and NPCs, and efforts to improve library usability and encourage collaboration.

In this episode, we catch up with Sean Bowe and Daira Hopwood from the Electric Coin Company to chat about Halo, a recursive proof composition that doesn't require a trusted setup. We cover the efficiency techniques used in Halo such as "nested amortization", how the protocol was developed, what some of the key findings are, and how it fits in with the other recent SNARK-based protocols. We touch on the following material: Sean Bowe on SNARKs, Trusted Setups & Elliptic Curve Cryptographyhttps://github.com/daira/tweedleHalo whitepaperEndomorphismLatest recursive SNARKitecture with Izaak Meckler from O(1)LabsExploring the Fractal transparent SNARK construction If you like what we do: Follow us on Twitter - @zeroknowledgefmJoin us on TelegramSupport our Gitcoin GrantSupport us on the ZKPatreonOr directly here: ETH: 0xC0FFEE1B5083230a5154F55f253B6b6ae8F29B1aBTC: 1cafekGa3podM4fBxPSQc6RCEXQNTK8ZzZEC: t1R2bujRF3Hzte9ALHpMJvY8t5kb9ut9SpQ

In this episode, Benjamin Perez from Trail of Bits discusses auditing zero knowledge proof systems and the challenges faced. They touch on the evolution of the crypto tech auditing business, recent bugs and vulnerabilities in zkp systems, and the importance of analyzing security properties in protocols like Zcash.

In this episode, we meet with Galen Wolf-Pauly from the Tlon Corporation to discuss the project Urbit. Urbit is an encrypted peer-to-peer network comprised of a deterministic operating system (Urbit OS / Arvo) and a secure, global identity layer (Urbit ID / Azimuth). The Urbit contributors have created new stack, built from the ground up as an integrated system with a focus on user experience. It also describes itself as a personal server built from scratch. For some additional links about the project, have a look here: https://urbit.org/faq/https://urbit.org/blog/urbit-and-the-blockchain/https://urbit.org/blog/urbit-for-normies/If you are interested in participanting in the now ONLINE version of the zkSummit - Sign up directly here: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/zksummitYou will then receive a link to an updated ticket page shortly. If you like what we do: Follow us on Twitter - @zeroknowledgefmJoin us on TelegramSupport our Gitcoin GrantSupport us on the ZKPatreonOr directly here: ETH: 0xC0FFEE1B5083230a5154F55f253B6b6ae8F29B1aBTC: 1cafekGa3podM4fBxPSQc6RCEXQNTK8ZzZEC: t1R2bujRF3Hzte9ALHpMJvY8t5kb9ut9SpQ

In this episode, we catch up with Justin Drake and Vitalik Buterin from the Ethereum Foundation to chat about how zero knowledge proof systems are being used throughout the Eth1x and Eth2.0 stacks. We look at their applications for privacy and scalability throughout layer 1, layer 1.5 and layer 2, as well as explore some other emerging applications. Here were some of the articles and ideas discussed:5 ways to optimise zkps:Remove the need for FFTs SparsenessRecursion Custom gates HardwareJacobian groups https://eprint.iacr.org/2020/196.pdfTrilinear maps https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.07923Give the Zero Knowledge Podcast some feedback. Whether you are a long-time listener or new to the show, we would love to hear from you! Please share your feedback with us here: https://forms.gle/LtQQyKJV6r7LrSND7If you like what we do: Follow us on Twitter - @zeroknowledgefmJoin us on TelegramCatch up with us on YoutubeSupport our Gitcoin GrantSupport us on the ZKP PatreonOr directly here: ETH: 0xC0FFEE1B5083230a5154F55f253B6b6ae8F29B1aBTC: 1cafekGa3podM4fBxPSQc6RCEXQNTK8ZzZEC: t1R2bujRF3Hzte9ALHpMJvY8t5kb9ut9SpQ

Alistair Stewart and Jeff Burges from Web3 Foundation discuss their work on Polkadot and the use of zero knowledge proofs. They explore different proof designs, encryption considerations, privacy techniques, and design plans for messaging layer crypto and roll-up.