A main tool of Privacy-Enhancing Cryptography (PEC) is the Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP). It enables proving the truthfulness of a mathematical statement, without revealing additional information that may have been useful in finding said truthfulness. For technical reasons, it is often useful to refer to a "ZKP of Knowledge", where the proof that a statement is true is done by proxy of proving knowledge of some secret information (witness) that is consistent with a public instance that supports the statement. For example:
Besides being useful on their own, ZKPs are also useful in establishing correct behavior in other cryptography protocols, such as in Secure Multi-Party Computation (MPC). The NIST PEC project is accompanying ZKP developments and initiatives toward future useful standards.
The Subcategory 2.6 of the NIST First Call for Multi-Party Threshold Schemes (NISTIR 8214C ipd) calls for submission of zero-knowledge proofs of knowledge (ZKPoK). The deadline (expectably in 2025) will be established in the final version of IR 8214C. The Threshold Call encourages the community of experts to participate in the process, by submitting ZKPoK schemes, and/or subsequently supporting their public analysis.
NIST has collaborated with the ZKProof initiative since 2019, as a way of supporting the development of open reference material on zero-knowledge proofs. This page lists some outputs of this interaction:
2023-Nov-30: NIST's views on standardization of advanced cryptography. Presented at ZKProof Policy @ DC. Washington DC, USA. [Slides] [Video]
2023-Aug-01: Educational Challenges in the Ever-Evolving Space of Zero-Knowledge. Presented at ZCon4. Barcelona, Spain. [Video]
2022-Nov-15: Panel: ZKProof Community Goals and Deliverables. Presented at 5th ZKProof Workshop. Tel Aviv, Israel. [Video]
2021-Apr-26: ZKpComRef 2021. Presented at 4th ZKProof Workshop — Home edition. Online. [Slides; Video]
2020-May-18: Towards Version 1.0 of the ZKProof Community Reference. Presented at 3rd ZKProof Workshop — Home edition. Online. [Slides; Video]
2019-Oct-10: Community reference material for zero-knowledge proofs (A brief update and a call for participation). Presented at ZKProof Community Event. Amsterdam, Netherlands. [Slides; Video]
2019-Aug-18: A perspective on standardization of advanced cryptography at NIST. Presented at 1st Workshop on Advanced Cryptography Standardization (ACS'19). Santa Barbara, USA. [Slides; Video]
2019-Apr-11: Community Standards: a Review and Further Work on the ZKProof Track Proceedings. Presented at 2nd Zkproof workshop. Berkeley, USA.
2019-Apr-11: Privacy-enhancing cryptography at NIST. Presented at 2nd Zkproof workshop. Berkeley, USA. [Slides; Video]
(Some talks were jointly presented with other ZKProof Editors)
Security and Privacy: cryptography, privacy