zkMesh: Dec recap & 2020 wrap up!
Welcome to the 12th edition of the zkMesh - a monthly newsletter about the latest in decentralised privacy-preserving technologies, privacy protocol development and zero knowledge systems research.
This past year, Mikerah (HashCloak) and Anna (Zero Knowledge Podcast, zkSummit) have released a monthly zkMesh covering the latest research, useful articles, videos, podcasts, tweets, tools, project updates and events.
As readers of the zkMesh, we would love to hear from you what you liked about the zkMesh and what you think we could do better this year - Please help us by filling out this form!
Expect a new edition at the beginning of every month and be sure to subscribe!
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Also quick note to readers: Mikerah’s HashCloak is offering free 30 min consultation slots for anyone in need of more guidance around privacy-preserving tech and blockchains. You can schedule a time here.
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Research
On the Security of Homomorphic Encryption on Approximate Numbers by Baiyu Li and Daniele Micciancio
Zero-Knowledge Succinct Arguments with a Linear-Time Prover by Jonathan Bootle and Alessandro Chiesa and Siqi Liu
How to compute all Pointproofs by Alin Tomescu
Flexible and Efficient Verifiable Computation on Encrypted Data by Alexandre Bois and Ignacio Cascudo and Dario Fiore and Dongwoo Kim
Oblivious Pseudorandom Functions from Isogenies by Dan Boneh and Dmitry Kogan and Katharine Woo
A Framework of Private Set Intersection Protocols by Ziyuan Liang and Weiran Liu and Fan Zhang and Bingsheng Zhang and Jian Liu and Lei Zhang and Kui Ren
Achieving privacy and accountability in traceable digital currency by Amira Barki and Aline Gouget
Efficient Verifiable Image Redacting based on zk-SNARKs by Hankyung Ko and Ingeun Lee and Seunghwa Lee and Jihye Kim and Hyunok Oh
Unifying Compilers for SNARKs, SMT, and More by Alex Ozdemir and Fraser Brown and Riad S. Wahby
Halo Infinite: Recursive zk-SNARKs from any Additive Polynomial Commitment Scheme by Dan Boneh and Justin Drake and Ben Fisch and Ariel Gabizon
Halo 0.9: An Halo Protocol with Fully-Succinctness by Lira Wang - SECBIT Labs
Proof-Carrying Data without Succinct Arguments by Benedikt Bünz and Alessandro Chiesa and William Lin and Pratyush Mishra and Nicholas Spooner
Aggregatable Distributed Key Generation by Kobi Gurkan and Philipp Jovanovic and Mary Maller and Sarah Meiklejohn and Gilad Stern and Alin Tomescu
Articles
A Simple and Succinct Zero Knowledge Proof - Ittai Abraham, Alin Tomescu
Multi-asset shielded pool project (MASP) - Metastate Team
Reverie: An optimized zero-knowledge proof system - Ben Perez (Trail of Bits)
How Zero Knowledge is Rebalancing the Scales of the Internet - Alex Pruden (Aleo)
Tezos Will Get Zcash's Privacy Features in Next Upgrade - Decrypt
Bittrex To Delist Privacy Coins Monero, ZCash and Dash in Two Weeks - Decrypt
https://www.coindesk.com/why-ledger-kept-all-that-customer-data-in-the-first-place - Coindesk
Ethereum mixer Tornado Cash's privacy pool value reaches all-time high for 2020 - Coindesk
Privacy wallets are becoming a more frequent tool for criminals to launder bitcoin, says Elliptic - Coindesk
An Incomplete Guide to Rollups - Vitalik Buterin
Videos/Podcast:
Efficient Fully Secure Computation via Distributed Zero-Knowledge Proofs by Elette Boyle, Niv Gilboa, Yuval Ishai, Ariel Nof
Game-Theoretically Secure Protocols Inspired by Blockchains by Elaine Shi (Cornell University)
Zero Knowledge Podcast - Ep 161: Loopring with Matt & Brecht
Zero knowledge proofs (ZK proofs) – Eli Ben Sasson (Starkware)
Reading "SQISign: compact post-quantum signatures from quaternions and isogenies" by Deirdre Connolly
Blockchain Privacy in a TweetShell
Tools
Guides and Resources
Code Spotlight: the Reference Implementation of Ed25519 (Part 1)
A Tutorial on the Implementation of Block Ciphers: Software and Hardware Applications
Attacks and Vulnerabilities
A Brief Breakdown of Monero's Ongoing Network Attacks by Seth Simmons
Project Updates
PLONK Benchmarks — 2.5x faster than Groth16 on MiMC - Thomas Walton-Pocock - Aztec
Loopring's zkRollup AMM is Live by Daniel Wang - Daniel Wang - Loopring
Multi-asset shielded pool project (MASP) - Metastate Team
(Why) Bringing Privacy to Smart Contracts is Non-trivial - Ravital Solomon - Nucypher
StarkEx 2.0 is Now Live on Mainnet! - StarkWare
The Zcash Foundation Would Like to Grow User Adoption - Zcash Foundation Team
Drivechain Releases
Ring Signatures over Taproot Outputs PoC - Jonas Nick
Events/Hackathons
Privacy Enhancing Technologies in Practice - Series of Short Workshops - Ongoing
#CryptoHackathon Functional Encryption Hackathon: Challenges, Applications and Use Cases -Jan 8-15 2021 in conjunction with RWC (11th-13th Jan)
De·crypto: decentralized academic research group towards digital democracy - Jan 20 + Jan 27 2021
The 4TH ZKPROOF workshop Home edition: April 19 - 29 2021, Call For Papers are open now
The 11th BIU Winter School on Cryptography February 14-17, 2021
Jobs:
Zero Knowledge Podcast is looking for a part-time Event Manager. Role would begin January 2021. Experience hosting online events and some knowledge of blockchain/zero knowledge community is a must. Get in touch with zkPodcast at hello[at]zeroknowledge.fm
Note: If you have an open job position and would like to have us include it in our next edition get in touch!
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There you have it! Hope you liked this edition of zkMesh. Be sure to subscribe to get the next edition in your inbox.
Also if you have something you think should be included in the next edition, or something you think we should do differently with the format - Tweet at us!