No, this is more like this. Here is my ZKP to verify you are older than 18. Please pass it your ID card and give me result. I’ll verify result and prove you are above 18. On top of that the proof output would contain your photo from the document so I can visually compare it with your face.
In the end all I know is you are older than 18. I don’t know your driver license number or SSN, I don’t know your name. I know nothing but the fact that your are older than 18.
Same thing. In my example the function only knows whether the provided hash equals the one on file. Yours is essentially the same - is the provided DOB < the one on file (presumably, today's date 18 years ago). No other data is known about the person in either case.
This is also accomplished by just properly scoping the function. Considering the widespread availability of solutions to this well-known* problem, I wonder why anyone would "use ZKPs" - and what does that even mean? What npm should I install - and why?
The hash check is binary, you can only check if a password is correct or not. The ZK proof can prove anything, like that the password has enough special symbols and numbers that it's secure.
There's no way to check that someone's age is old enough with just a hash unless you break the hash.
The most common but painful way to write ZK circuits is with Circom. Better more modern ways are with Noir or using SP1 which can prove arbitrary rust code.
Apparently not, isn't it designed specifically such that it's scoped to a particular "proof"?
You guys always say "without it linking you to your identity" as if identity is built into JavaScript or something. How does using a password hash inherently leak my PII? What problem does ZKP solve?
Using conventional development you can also do the trivial stuff you mentioned like running password through regexp.
What do you mean scoped to a particular proof? There are different proof types like there are different hashing algorithms, they can all prove any data just like sha256 and md5 can hash any data.
How do you verify the password meets certain requirements sever side without getting that user data? Client side input can't always be trusted as anyone can modify that regex check.
With something like TLS notary you can prove anything signed by a https certificate, so you can prove there are enough funds in your bank to get a mortgage without revealing how much money you have.
In response to your comment The ZK proof can prove anything, like that the password has enough special symbols and numbers - you definitely do not need "ZKPs" to do this trivial task.
and
> There's no way to check that someone's age is old enough with just a hash
Yeah you can, you log them in then link them to that userData with an identifier - typically an email address or unique user ID. You can easily write the login API to know nothing but hashes, or you can write it to respond with - to use your example that user's age - if the password is correct (without ever actually knowing the password).
Re: Passport verification
Anybody can verify any document with enough identifying information about the document and a registry to match it up to. You don't need a private/public key library wrapped around any functions to accomplish that, but the government probably requires the photo for a reason. Maybe you can verify the document, but a lot of services are going to require photo identification regardless of what your library can do without a photo. Again trying to find what problem this solves. Would have been way cooler if you said it verified faces with passport photos - that's the hardest part.
> Yeah you can, you log them in then link them to that userData with an identifier - typically an email address or unique user ID. You can easily write the login API to know nothing but hashes, or you can write it to respond with - to use your example that user's age - if the password is correct (without ever actually knowing the password).
This doesn't make sense, how do you verify someones age without getting their birthday? Hashes are binary yes/no checks, not range checks.
> Anybody can verify any document with enough identifying information about the document and a registry to match it up to.
So your alternate solution is that every government in the world runs an API you can check a passport against? Instead of them just providing a known public key they signed the passport with? Sounds way over complicated compared to a ZK proof.
> Re: Validating passwords
> You haven't provided an alternative way though?
Check if it has numbers: \d
Check if it has symbols: \W
Check if it's 6-64 chars long: {6,64}
> This doesn't make sense
Promise you it's how it works.
> Hashes are binary yes/no checks
Nope, just means encrypted text.
> every government in the world runs an API
Hilarious you think a decentralized approach where every participant has a copy of an append-only ledger is simpler than a central server with SQL database. The argument for decentralization was never that it was simpler - it's of course way simpler in many ways to have a single source of truth. If you mean using that passport library on a regular server, then you also have to run an API or nobody can use it.
- Do you not understand that client side checks are insecure?
- As you're still not getting it, how about this: This is a sha256 hash of my birthday, write a function that returns if I'm over 21: `1028d7ea22cbbcb17c4926b08b591506227d7b0e32ce6ce76122461e551a5ab2`
- Nothing I've mentioned needs an append only log, where are you even getting that from? A ZK proof is created from only the data stored on the passport chip.
Everybody understands that - the underlying point is there's no need for "ZKP" to validate or hash anything.
And for the sake of this kindergarten discussion the hash is computed client-side - that's the whole point, so the server doesn't know your password. The hash is checked on the server side.
Your ZKP has no use case - most of you guys aren't web developers (that much is obvious) and don't realize these problems and solutions are trivial.
It depends on what you want to do, if it's user login over HTTPS you can pass a plaintext password to the server and hash/compare on the server only. It would still be secure because the plaintext is never saved in a db (only the hash is), and was TLS encrypted in transport.
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> This is a sha256 hash of my birthday, write a function that returns if I'm over 21: `1028d7ea22cbbcb17c4926b08b591506227d7b0e32ce6ce76122461e551a5ab2`
You hash the point of access like a password or key, not the data itself. When the access is granted, you return the data. sha256 is never meant to be decrypted. It would be like this:
If your requirement is to actually to decrypt the sha256 you misunderstand the purpose of one-way encryption. That said - if you really wanted such a system, for such a finite list of dates (365 x 21 = 7665) you can easily maintain an array of the valid 7,665 sha256's on any given day. If it doesn't match a sha256 on file, that birthdate is not a person over 21.
Lol, well yea if you throw away the zero knowledge part or trust the client to tell the truth of course you don't need zero knowledge proofs. Its not zero knowledge though (you just gave the server the info) and/or isn't proving anything.
This is the situation zero knowledge proofs are used in:
- The client doesn't trust the server and doesn't want to give it any info (that's the zero knowledge part)
- The server doesn't trust the client (that's the proof part)
If you break them of course the problem is much easier to solve.
If the client trusts the server they can give it a scan of their passport.
If the server trusts the client to run that code then you don't need a proof, you may as well just have a popup that says "are you over 21?"
A rainbow table is just breaking the hash and then you may as well not have it, in the real world the client would add a salt so this isn't possible.
>It depends on what you want to do, if it's user login over HTTPS you can pass a plaintext password to the server and hash/compare on the server only. It would still be secure because the plaintext is never saved in a db (only the hash is), and was TLS encrypted in transport.
:) if I get a penny every time someone logs sensitive information in plain text to some log file without realizing they did.
If I had a penny for every straw man argument. Who said anything about writing
plaintext passwords to files - you just made that up?
Also you might not understand web dev 101. Every website including this one that uses HTTPS sends encrypted data, the password you enter in a text input is in plaintext. For the backend - as I said above, the server hashes it and saves the hash, never the plaintext password.
That's how it works - nobody said anything about "log files".
In the end all I know is you are older than 18. I don’t know your driver license number or SSN, I don’t know your name. I know nothing but the fact that your are older than 18.