zkMesh: Aug 2021 recap
Welcome to zkMesh, a monthly newsletter covering the latest in decentralized privacy-enhancing technologies, privacy protocol development and zero knowledge systems research. zkMesh is put together by Mikerah & Yahsin from HashCloak and Anna from Zero Knowledge Podcast & ZKValidator.
It includes links to research, useful articles, videos, podcasts, tweets, tools, project updates and events. Expect a new edition at the beginning of every month and be sure to share and subscribe!
Research
Reinforced Concrete: Fast Hash Function for Zero Knowledge Proofs and Verifiable Computation by Mario Barbara, Lorenzo Grassi, Dmitry Khovratovich, Reinhard Luftenegger, Christian Rechberger, Markus Schofneggerk, Roman Walch.
Differential Privacy in Constant Function Market Makers by Tarun Chitra, Guillermo Angeris, Alex Evans.
A Simple Post-Quantum Non-Interactive Zero-Knowledge Proof from Garbled Circuits by Hongrui Cui and Kaiyi Zhang.
Aggregating hash-based signatures using STARKs by Irakliy Khaburzaniya, Konstantinos Chalkias, Kevin Lewi, and Harjasleen Malvai.
Brakedown: Linear-time and post-quantum SNARKs for R1CS∗ by Alexander Golovnev, Jonathan Lee, Srinath Setty, Justin Thaler, Riad S. Wahby.
Lelantus-CLA by Pyrros Chaidos and Vladislav Gelfer.
LOVE a pairing by Diego F. Aranha and Elena Pagnin and Francisco Rodríguez-Henríquez.
SIDH Proof of Knowledge by Luca De Feo, Samuel Dobson, Steven D. Galbraith, and Lukas Zobernig.
Zero-Knowledge Middleboxes by Paul Grubbs, Arasu Arun, Ye Zhang, Joseph Bonneau and Michael Walfish.
Mt. Random: Multi-Tiered Randomness Beacons by Ignacio Cascudo and Bernardo David and Omer Shlomovits and Denis Varlakov.
Articles
Polygon acquires Hermez Network for $250M, will merge native tokens | Cointelegraph
Introducing Zero-Knowledge Proofs for Private Web Attestation with Cross/Multi-Vendor Hardware | The Cloudflare blog
Demystifying recursive zero-knowledge proofs | Simon Masson | Anoma Blog
Privacy Startup Nym Hires Whistleblower Chelsea Manning to Audit Mixnet | Coindesk
How does PLONK work? Part 1: What's PLONK? | David Wong
John Oliver's Last Week Tonight Takes Aim At Privacy Coin Monero | Scott Chipolina | Decrypt
Palantir Bug Gave FBI Unauthorized Access to Virgil Griffith Data | Adriana Hamacher | Decrypt
Bitcoin Mixer CEO Pleads Guilty to Dark Web Money Laundering | Jeff John Roberts | Decrypt
Concerns around data privacy are rising, and blockchain is the solution | Cointelegraph | Anne Fauvre-Willis
Mitigating Sandwich Attacks at the Protocol Level | Nicolas Laurent
Videos/Podcast
Epicenter: Aztec Protocol – Bringing Scalable Privacy to DeFi #405
Taipei Ethereum: Oskar's talk on zk-SNARKs mathematical foundations
Taipei Ethereum: CC’s talk on Tornado Cash with Poseidon Hash
IACR: Threshold Schnorr with Stateless Deterministic Signing from Standard Assumptions
Nym: Holistic Privacy: Why Zero-Knowledge Proofs Are Not Enough
SCRF Interviews: PlonK and SNARKS with Ariel Gabizon and Lucas Nuzzi
Blockchain Privacy in a TweetShell
Vulnerabilities
Two Rights Might Make A Wrong | samczsun | Paradigm
Popsicle Finance Exploit: How The Hacker Did It | Breadcrumbs
Explainer: How hackers stole and returned $600 mln in tokens from Poly | Reuters
NetworkQuantum attack resource estimate: Using Shor’s algorithm to break RSA VS DH/DSA VS ECC | Tommaso Gagliardoni
Tools
Project Updates
ZK Open Legal Working Group and Report Launch | ZKValidator
Announcing Aleo Setup | Alex Pruden | Aleo
Introducing Hermez zkEVM | Polygon Hermez
Zero Knowledge Podcast has a new website! | ZK Podcast
Presenting Lelantus Spark, Firo's Flexible New Privacy Protocol | Firo
Zcash Should Go Proof Of Stake And Wind Down Its Carbon Footprint | Steven Ehlrlich | Forbes
Ferveo Cryptography Overview | Joel Bebel | Anoma
Warp Your Way To StarkNet | Greg Vardy | Nethermind
Cairo – a Turing-complete STARK-friendly CPU architecture | Lior Goldberg and Shahar Papini and Michael Riabzev
Dark Forest v0.6 Round 3: Grape Extra-Small | Dark Forest
A Trustless Sidechain-to-StarkEx Bridge Secured by Ethereum | StarkWare
Explaining Polygon Hermez | Polygon Hermez
Tornado.Cash Deployment Proposal On xDAI | Tornado Cash
Consulting ZCAP on ZF Board Elections & the Future of Zcash | Zcash Foundation
Into the Unknown. Detailed Technical Insights into the Challenges of Building zkSync 2.0 | astarinmymind | Matter Labs
Events/Hackathons/TrustedSetups
ZK Jobs Fair #4 Online. Sept 30 2021
Aleo trusted setup Online. On now!
IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy 2021 (EuroS&P) Online. Sept 6-10, 2021
CHES 2021 Online. 13-17 September 2021
ACM Advances in Financial Technologies George Mason Campus in Arlington, VA. Sept 26-28 2021
Cryptographic Frontier Open Problems in Ethereum Research Zagreb, Croatia. Oct 17, 2021
Eurocrypt 2021 Zagreb, Croatia. October 17-21 2021
WAHC 2021 – 9th Workshop on Encrypted Computing & Applied Homomorphic Cryptography Seoul South Korea. Nov 15, 2021
Tokenomics 2021 Online. Nov 18-19, 2021
18th IMA International Conference on Cryptography and Coding Online. Dec 14-15, 2021
Financial Cryptography and Data Security 2021 March 1-5 2022
CHES 2022 Beijing, China September 2022
Jobs:
ZK Jobs Board - open jobs
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