Every result a computer produces comes with an implicit question: did the program run as claimed and produce correct outputs? Today, answering that question often requires a degree of trust alongside verification. We trust the operator, the vendor, the counterparty, or the agent, and we rely on contracts, audits, and logs to establish that trust.
Zero-knowledge proofs offer a fundamentally different approach to establishing trust. A program runs, and along with its output it produces a short proof, a cryptographic certificate that this program, on these inputs, produced this output. The proof is small and fast to check. Whoever receives it can confirm the result in milliseconds without rerunning the program, and can pass the proof on to anyone else who needs the same assurance. With the zero-knowledge property, the proof also reveals nothing about inputs that should stay private.
Source: Microsoft Research — Read the full article on the original site ↗