Zero Knowledge

Latest Episodes:

Urbit with Galen Wolf-Pauly from Tlon Mar 18, 2020

Show notes

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/zksummit

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ZKPs in Ethereum with Vitalik Buterin & Justin Drake Mar 11, 2020

Show notes

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
Sparseness
Recursion
Custom gates
Hardware

Jacobian groups https://eprint.iacr.org/2020/196.pdf

Trilinear maps https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.07923

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Alistair and Jeff from Web3 on ZKPs & more Mar 04, 2020

Show notes

In this week’s episode, we sit down with Alistair Stewart and Jeff Burges, researchers at the Web3 Foundation, to dig into what they are working on, what they are thinking about at the moment, and how zero knowledge proofs can be used throughout the Polkadot ecosystem.

Here are some links and ressources to check out:

Thank you to this week's sponsor Trail of Bits

Check out the blog post describing how Manticore could have discovered the ENS bug here: https://blog.trailofbits.com/2020/03/03/manticore-discovers-the-ens-bug/

Thanks again Trail of Bits.

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Tarun and James talk Flash Loans & more Feb 26, 2020

Show notes

In this week's episode, we catch up with our friends Tarun Chitra and James Prestwich at the Stanford Blockchain Conference. We chat about the Flashloan phenomenon & the recent arbitrage 'exploit'. We also catch up about the known challenges facing PoS systems, what EVM support means on other chains & more!

Catch our previous episodes with Tarun and James here:

https://www.zeroknowledge.fm/99

https://www.zeroknowledge.fm/61

https://www.zeroknowledge.fm/34

The tweet that Anna quotes in the episode is here -> https://twitter.com/bneiluj/status/1228757175595438080

If you want to join the zkSummit, happening on March 31st, Berlin, do get your application in here: https://forms.gle/WDhUCmowAEk2ymYa7

Thanks to this week's sponsor Nucypher!

Nucypher is currently looking for an engineering lead to work on a new open-source cryptosystem for privacy-preserving smart contracts. This is a new product and so you will get to work on some cool primitives like fully homomorphic encryption and zero knowledge proofs. For more about lead engineer role, check out the ad here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21693548

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Isogenies with Luca De Feo Feb 19, 2020

Show notes

In this week’s episode, we take the podcast in a slightly different direction and dive into Isogenies - a topic at the cutting edge of cryptography. We look at how they are related to VDFs and randomness generation. Our guest, Luca de Feo, one of the co-inventor of SIDH, helps us get an understanding for what Isogenies - or morphisms of algebraic groups - really are.

Here are some useful links to check out:

https://sike.org/

https://isogeny.org/

https://vdfresearch.org/

Some visualizations:

https://isogenies.enricflorit.com/

Some blog posts:

https://blog.intothesymmetry.com/2019/07/on-isogenies-verifiable-delay-functions.html

https://www.esat.kuleuven.be/cosic/asiacrypt19-verifiable-delay-functions-from-supersingular-isogenies-and-pairings/

https://www.esat.kuleuven.be/cosic/elliptic-curves-are-quantum-dead-long-live-elliptic-curves/

https://www.esat.kuleuven.be/cosic/csidh-post-quantum-key-exchange-using-isogeny-based-group-actions/

https://www.esat.kuleuven.be/cosic/csi-fish-a-new-record-class-group-computation-and-fast-isogeny-based-signatures/

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zkSync and Redshift: Matter Labs update Feb 12, 2020

Show notes

In this week's episode of the podcast, we catch up with Alex Glukowski of Matter Labs to hear about zkSync, the latest iteration of their zkRollup implementation built to be a scaling and privacy engine for Ethereum. We also touch on the Redshift protocol, a new transparent zkSNARK system that emerged as a result of work on this system.

Here are a few links that we mention:

Previous episode on Matter Labs

ZkSync and Redshift

REDSHIFT: Transparent SNARKs from List Polynomial Commitment IOPs

Hotstuff paper

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Cosmos, IBC and ZKPs with Chris Goes Feb 05, 2020

Show notes

In this week’s episode, we catch up with Christopher Goes, IBC Lead at Tendermint. We learn a bit more about the Cosmos Network ecosystem and his work on IBC. We then focus in on how he is thinking about zero knowledge proofs in the context of IBC like-interoperability constructions. We explore some of the ways in which zkps could be incorporated into different schemes for interoperability - including bridging, lightclient constructions, validity proofs and more.

We mention the following episodes on Cosmos:

Light Clients and ZKPs with Celo

Diving into Cosmos with Sunny

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Exploring the Fractal transparent SNARK construction Jan 29, 2020

Show notes

This week, we explore the Fractal transparent SNARK construction with its authors Dev Ojha and Nick Spooner - both students of Alessandro Chiesa at UC Berkeley. We explore how Fractal works, how it improves on some of the earlier work on Sonic and Marlin, how it borrows from but differentiates itself from STARKs, as well as what they discovered while working on this paper about recursive SNARKs and what makes that property possible.

Here is some of the material we touch on:

Fractal Paper

Ariel Gabizon's episode

Eli Ben-sasson's episode

Marlin Paper

Digging into recursive snarks

Latest recursive SNARKitecture with Izaak Meckler from O(1)Labs

Thank you to this week's sponsor Trail of Bits

Just recently, a critical vulnerability was found in the certificate validation functionality on Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016/2019 This bug allows attackers to break the validation of trust in a wide variety of contexts, such as HTTPS and code signing - Trail of Bits has developed a PoC exploit and put up a website Whose Curve is it Anyway that let's users test whether or not they are vulnerable.

To learn more about this vulnerability and the Trail of Bits exploit, please check out this recent blog post entitled: Exploiting the Windows CryptoAPI Vulnerability. Also keep an eye on the ToB blog for security news and explanation pieces like this one.

Thanks again Trail of Bits

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Latest recursive SNARKitecture with Izaak Meckler from O(1)Labs Jan 22, 2020

Show notes

In this week’s episode, we catch up with Izaak Meckler from 0(1) Labs to talk about launching a recursive snark based incentivised test net, a recap of recursive SNARKs, updates on the working SNARKitecture, and a look at what's next for the project. We also touch on some new use-cases and ideas for how zkps may be a component in making computer programmes potentially more accountable to their users.

Please listen to our earlier episode with Izaak and Evan to get a full picture of 0(1)Labs and the Coda project

Here are a few of the other projects we mentioned!

ZEXE

Marlin

Fractal

Notes from the SNARKoconomicon at the zkSummit

Give 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/LtQQyKJV6r7LrSND7

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Dive into Plonk! Jan 15, 2020

Show notes

In this week’s episode, we learn more about Plonk with Ariel Gabizon and Zac Williamson from Aztec. PLONK is a recent highly efficient, universal SNARK construction. We explore what distinguishes Plonk from some other other new constructions including their focus on Lagrange-bases to deconstruct complex problem statements into simple polynomial identities.

This episode goes very deep and so we do recommend you check out a few of previous episodes to help you follow along! All mentioned can be found here along with the other deep zk-topic episodes: https://www.zeroknowledge.fm/zkseries

Here is Justin Drake Polynomial commitment schemes study club video, as well as videos from the zkSummit on Marlin and Supersonics

Ariel also mentions the [Bayer groth permutation argument](www0.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/J.Groth/MinimalShuffle.pdf) which influenced their work.

Thanks to this week's sponsor Nucypher!

On January 20th, NuCypher's incentivized testnet is launching on Coinlist. This incentivised testnet has the motto "Come and Stake It”!

If you are interested, be sure to pre-register now. Keep an eye on their blog for launch date, structure, and prize details. All winners will need to complete KYC/AML. Please go to [nucypher.com](nucypher.com) to sign up.

Thanks again Nucypher for sponsoring our show!

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