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Opening up ‘Zero-Knowledge Proof’ technology

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Re: Opening up ‘Zero-Knowledge Proof’ technology

#151

Post by ranger_danger »

prophesi wrote: post #133
heavyset_go wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you happen to know what the answer of this scheme to "I have a wireguard connection to another country, you can't see my traffic" is? WG traffic is easily identifiable and able to be blocked, it's what happens in countries that ban VPNs.

At that point something along the likes of shadowsocks would be more effective, and the question still remains.

I think the answer is that it's likely illegal if someone can prove an intent to defraud or commit a theft of service, but the chances of getting caught may be small depending on your technical ability/OPSEC.

Re: Opening up ‘Zero-Knowledge Proof’ technology

#152

Post by ranger_danger »

djoldman wrote: post #69
api wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but I'm also not convinced that a ten year old being able to be face to face with hard-core BDSM and incest fetish porn within 40 seconds of opening a web browser is healthy. I don't like this but don't have another solution other than the porn industry self-policing which isn't promising.

For kids with a guardian, the answer is enabling and empowering the guardian to control what the child can access. Somehow we've inappropriately shifted responsibility away from parents/guardians in some areas like internet access. In other areas, like letting your kid go outside by themselves, we've criminalized reasonable caregiver actions. It's a wild world.

> reasonable

I think the real issue is that the definition of "reasonable" is subjective and often changes with time/culture/people in charge at the moment.

Re: Opening up ‘Zero-Knowledge Proof’ technology

#153

Post by ranger_danger »

MatteoFrigo wrote: post #131
csense wrote: post #128

How do you defend against someone who: - Buys or borrows a laptop / phone / whatever from somebody with an authorized private key - Downloads an authorized private key file from a sketchy forum (maybe hacked from an unwilling target, maybe willingly shared by a free-speech advocate) - Uses a VPN over HTTPS to visit websites in countries where age checks aren't legally mandated (and non-compliance is implicitly or exp…

The credential ("driver's license") contains a public key whose secret key is stored securely in a hardware secure element. The standard assumption is that the SE is in the phone, but it could be a yubikey or similar device. In order to use the credential, you need the SE. So you cannot buy a phone from somebody and download a credential from somebody else. You can however buy a phone and the credential from somebody…

> the SE is in the phone, but could be a yubikey or something else

Just like with passkeys or MFA, the "something else" could be purely software though, right? And hence automated?

For example I can run Windows 11 in a virtual machine on Linux, using softu2f to emulate TPM 2.0, and Windows does not know the difference.

Re: Opening up ‘Zero-Knowledge Proof’ technology

#154

Post by remram »

_alternator_ wrote: post #130
remram wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's only for interactive proofs though. Like GP I have no problem understanding those.

There is a trick to convert an IP to a non-IP. Usually in an IP, the prover (Bob) has to answer questions from the verifier (Alice), and Alice chooses her questions by flipping a coin. If the Bob doesn’t really know the answer, he’ll get caught cheating with high probability. So now the trick: Bob starts generates his initial answer. Then he hashes it (“commits” in the jargon), and uses the hash as “Alice’s first coi…

It "feels" much easier to generate random non-solutions and check if the random questions happen to pass, though. Is it really all there is to it? You increase the number of questions to compensate and that's the whole scheme? Wouldn't the responses be a ludicrous amount of data?

Re: Opening up ‘Zero-Knowledge Proof’ technology

#156

Post by [deleted] »

abhv wrote: post #44
coldpie wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I'm also interested in some of the details here, but the linked library repo is a bit too low-level for my current understanding. For example, in the usecase of providing a proof-of-age to a website: who provides the verification data (the government?); what form does that take (a file in a standard format?); who holds/owns the verification data (the user?); who runs the verification software (the end-user's web…

(1) in this case, an identity issuer provides the source of truth identity information. Examples include state DMV, your passport (you can try "Id pass" in Google wallet), etc. (2) One of the goals of this project was to layer ZK on top of current identity standards that DMVs already issue, so that gov orgs don't have to change what they currently do to support the strongest user privacy. One example format is called…

[deleted]

Re: Opening up ‘Zero-Knowledge Proof’ technology

#157

Post by _alternator_ »

tptacek wrote: post #143
_alternator_ wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a trick to convert an IP to a non-IP. Usually in an IP, the prover (Bob) has to answer questions from the verifier (Alice), and Alice chooses her questions by flipping a coin. If the Bob doesn’t really know the answer, he’ll get caught cheating with high probability. So now the trick: Bob starts generates his initial answer. Then he hashes it (“commits” in the jargon), and uses the hash as “Alice’s first coi…

This is Fiat-Shamir, right?

Correct. I didn’t remember the name, so thanks!

Re: Opening up ‘Zero-Knowledge Proof’ technology

#158

Post by Ar-Curunir »

tucnak wrote: post #13
MatteoFrigo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, no blockchain involved.

To say this has nothing to do with blockchain is like saying RADAR had nothing to do with war. Yes, people knew Maxwell's equations prior, i.e. "knew the proofs," w.r.t. ZKP but it has only really been developed much later, during the war. The whole field of zero-knowledge mathematics was, if not non-existent, but certainly marginalised, before the crypto investment has hit the scene; this is facts. Yes, Shamir et al…

That’s not accurate; all the industrial interest in ZKPs came from academic research. Yes, after the initial deployments the blockchain folks invested a shit-ton of money and greatly accelerated the available implementations (along with also contributing some new schemes), but it’s not like academic research was in some kind of stone-age beforehand.

Re: Opening up ‘Zero-Knowledge Proof’ technology

#159

Post by Ar-Curunir »

dboreham wrote: post #15
EGreg wrote: post #5

[flagged]

ZKP can be thought of as a "fancy hash function". It's often puffed up to a mysterious magic level in order to appeal to blockchain audiences, but there's really no magic.

Oversimplification is not helpful either. ZKPs are not glorified hashes. There’s much more mathematics that goes into design of efficient ZKPs and their security proofs.

Re: Opening up ‘Zero-Knowledge Proof’ technology

#160

Post by cma »

cma wrote: post #135
goopypoop wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that "Draw a Waldo with this outline"?

Imagine it isn't Waldo, but an unknown figure and you are only given the silhouette to find. If you can draw what's within the silhouette or something, you've proven you've located it to high certainty without saying where. Say the whole image looked like noise and was generated from quantum measurements, and the coordinates to hash for the problem were generated with quantum measurements, and you were given the silh…

I think my example isn't great and would need to be modified like maybe give the hash of a neighboring area to prove you found it, so your answer couldn't be used by others to find the location much more cheaply.
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