零知识证明:它的工作机理、用例和应用概述

https://research.aimultiple.com/zero-knowledge-proofs/

Cem 于 2017 年创立了高科技行业分析师 AIMultiple。AIMultiple 每月通知约 100 万家企业(根据similarWeb),其中包括 55% 的财富 500 强企业。

在他的整个职业生涯中,Cem 担任过技术顾问、技术买家和技术企业家。十多年来,他为麦肯锡公司和奥特曼索伦的企业提供技术决策建议。在向首席执行官汇报的同时,他领导了一家电信公司的技术战略和采购工作。他还领导了深度科技公司的商业增长,这些公司的年经常性收入在 2 年内从 0 增长到 300 万。

Cem 定期在国际技术会议上发表演讲。他以计算机工程师的身份毕业于 Bogazici 大学,并拥有哥伦比亚商学院的 MBA 学位。

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As businesses collect a vast amount of customer data to gain insights, improve their products and services, and monetize their data assets, they can become vulnerable to

cyber threats

and data breaches. Breaches’ cost are rising every year,

reaching ~$4.2M per breach

, and as seen in Figure 1 they significantly harm businesses’ reputations and trustworthiness.

Privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs)

such as zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) provide ways for businesses to protect their sensitive data. We describe the functioning of ZKP and examples of its application in this article to assist executives in strengthening their

organization’s cybersecurity posture

.

Figure 1: Cost of data breaches

https://research.aimultiple.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Possible-short-and-long-term-cost-of-cyberattacks-1200x678.png

What are zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs)?

A zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) is a mathematical technique to verify the truth of information without revealing the information itself. The method was first introduced by researchers from MIT in a 1985

paper

.

How do zero-knowledge proofs work?

A popular example to illustrate the basic idea behind ZKPs is as the following:

Suppose you (the prover) have a color-blind friend (the verifier) that cannot distinguish a green and a red ball from each other (have zero knowledge about whether the balls are different colors). You need to prove that the colors of the balls are different but your friend needs something more than your words to be convinced. A ZKP method for this problem would be like this:

  1. Your friend takes the balls and lets you see which ball is in which hand.
  2. Then, they either switch the balls between their hands or not behind their back.
  3. They then present the balls to you and asks you whether they switched the balls or not. As you can distinguish the green ball from the red one, you can easily give the correct answer.
  4. Your friend is not convinced. You have a 50% chance to correctly guess whether they switched the balls or not and the balls can still be the same color.
  5. However, if they repeat this several times, eventually, the probability of you correctly guessing whether they switched the balls or not each time would be very low. This enables your friend to verify that the balls are different colors without knowing the actual colors of the balls.

A series of cryptographic algorithms are used in the real-world applications of ZKPs to enable the verification of a computational statement. For instance, using ZKP methods, a receiver of payment can verify that the payer has sufficient balance in their bank account without getting any other information about the payer’s balance.

What are the properties of zero-knowledge proofs?

A zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) method must satisfy these criteria:

What are the different types of zero-knowledge proofs?

There are two main types of zero-knowledge proofs:

What are some applications and use cases of zero-knowledge proofs?

Zero-knowledge proofs can be used to protect data privacy in a diverse set of use cases, such as:

What are the challenges of zero-knowledge proofs?

For more on data privacy and information security, you can check our other articles:

If you have other questions about zero-knowledge proofs or other privacy-enhancing technologies, we can help:

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Cem Dilmegani

Cem founded the high tech industry analyst AIMultiple in 2017. AIMultiple informs ~1M businesses (as per similarWeb) including 55% of Fortune 500 every month.Throughout his career, Cem served as a tech consultant, tech buyer and tech entrepreneur. He advised enterprises on their technology decisions at McKinsey & Company and Altman Solon for more than a decade. He led technology strategy and procurement of a telco while reporting to the CEO. He has also led commercial growth of deep tech companies that reached from 0 to 3M annual recurring revenue within 2 years.Cem regularly speaks at international technology conferences. He graduated from Bogazici University as a computer engineer and holds an MBA from Columbia Business School.

随着企业收集大量客户数据以获取洞察力、改进其产品和服务并将其数据资产货币化,他们可能容易受到

网络威胁

和数据泄露的影响。违规成本每年都在上升,

每次违规达到约 420 万美元

,如图 1 所示,它们严重损害了企业的声誉和可信度。诸如零知识证明 (ZKP) 之类的

隐私增强技术 (PET)为企业提供了保护其敏感数据的方法。

我们在本文中描述了 ZKP 的功能及其应用示例,以帮助高管加强其

组织的网络安全态势

图 1:数据泄露成本

https://research.aimultiple.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Possible-short-and-long-term-cost-of-cyberattacks-1200x678.png

什么是零知识证明 (ZKP)?

零知识证明 (ZKP) 是一种数学技术,可以在不泄露信息本身的情况下验证信息的真实性。该方法首先由麻省理工学院的研究人员在 1985 年的

一篇论文

中提出。

零知识证明如何工作?

一个流行的例子来说明 ZKP 背后的基本思想如下:

假设你(证明者)有一个色盲的朋友(验证者)不能区分绿色和红色球(对是否球是不同的颜色)。你需要证明球的颜色是不同的,但你的朋友需要的东西比你的话更能说服你。这个问题的 ZKP 方法是这样的:

  1. 你的朋友拿起球,让你看看哪个球在哪只手上。

  2. 然后,他们要么在双手之间切换球,要么不在背后。

  3. 然后他们将球呈现给您并询问您是否交换了球。因为你可以区分绿球和红球,你可以很容易地给出正确的答案。

  4. 你的朋友不相信。你有 50% 的机会正确猜测他们是否换了球,而且球仍然可以是相同的颜色。

  5. 但是,如果他们重复几次,最终,您正确猜测他们是否每次都换球的概率将非常低。这使您的朋友可以在不知道

    球的实际颜色的情况下验证球的颜色是否不同 。

在 ZKP 的实际应用中使用了一系列密码算法来验证计算语句。例如,使用 ZKP 方法,收款人可以验证付款人的银行账户中是否有足够的余额,而无需获取有关付款人余额的任何其他信息。

零知识证明的性质是什么?

零知识证明 (ZKP) 方法必须满足以下标准:

零知识证明有哪些不同类型?

零知识证明主要有两种类型:

零知识证明有哪些应用和用例?

零知识证明可用于在各种用例中保护数据隐私,例如:

零知识证明的挑战是什么?

有关数据隐私和信息安全的更多信息,您可以查看我们的其他文章: