ICSA Faculty Talk - 24/10/2019

Title: Smart Privacy and the Sonic Zero-Knowledge Proof System

Abstract: Our need for privacy is rooted in human experience. How do we cope with the loss of privacy due to technological innovations?  My talk is divided into two parts. The first part is about distributed systems and privacy. The transparency and accountability of public ledgers and smart contracts is attractive as it counters the power of near monopolies. The public nature of block chains, however, also poses severe privacy risks. Private crypto-currencies and private smart contracts based on zero-knowledge proofs are promising technologies for privacy build from public ledgers.