Back when I was an undergrad computer science student, I had a hard time understanding its fundamental concepts, but when things finally clicked, I found very rewarding to understand how theory connected to practice. I started to see the beauty in automata theory, the cleverness behind the simplicity of Cook’s theorem, and the possible real world repercussions behind the P vs NP problem.
I recently had a similar experience learning zero knowledge cryptography (aka zk-cryptography). The learning journey was far from being simple or a straight line. Unfortunately, it was difficult for me to ramp up because I didn’t have enough foundation knowledge to understand the papers I read or some of the tutorials I found online. This is fair, this stuff is hard, so hard that until recently it was known as “moon math”. To be honest, after ramping up in zk-cryptography I realized that just a few people in our industry really understand it. So, I wanted to start writing about it to share what I learned (and I still am!) and some of the foundation that I was missing, with the goal of (hopefully 🤞) making it more accessible to anyone with enough determination to learn it is and how things work under the hood.
Don’t beat yourself if you don’t understand things the first time you read it, stay strong at it! You will probably have to read the same paragraph or rewatch a lecture multiple times to understand a concept, that’s OK, that is expected. In all honesty, when I first started studying this topic I felt lost, many things sounded innocuous to me. To really understand and make sense of what zero-knowledge proofs (aka ZKPs) were, I needed to take some steps back and learn about its underlying fundamental concepts first. Now, I humbly hope to help others to learn it too. The path involves computer science, mathematics, statistics, and cryptography, but don’t worry! We will walk it together from first principles, building a solid foundation as I introduce the math and theory needed for a good understanding of ZKPs. My goal is to write a series of posts, where I will work with you through these concepts and progressively reach the goal of defining zero-knowledge cryptography in a way that will actually make sense.
My goal is that as we explore what zk-cryptography is, you will start acquiring the knowledge you need to understand and appreciate how proof-systems work under the hood. Hopefully, as you learn more about it, you will also see the beauty in it. Start with the first post in this series to understand what zero knowledge proof is, I hope you enjoy it!