Steemit Crypto Academy Contest / S12W6 - Privacy is important

Hey friend,

It's such an honour to once again drop an entry for such lovely contest hope to see your your own entry, comment to help improve the engagement or steem block chain.

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What is Zero Knowledge Protocol (ZKP)? Give your own opinion and explain an example.

Zero-Knowledge Protocol (ZKP) is a privacy security feature that uses cryptographic procedure to easily protect data/information in other to prove the claim or guarantee without exposing the vital data and the main reason.

In other words, Zero-Knowledge Protocol (ZKP) permits a user to convince the other account owner that they have certain information or details without exposing the full features or details. For example if you see a novel and want buy it, the shop owner may permit you to read through the summary of the book.
Now as a buyer you know what is contained in the book and what's expected in the book without having a full detail of what was written in the book.

Zero-Knowledge Protocol (ZKP) Is a very special tool to that helps sustain the privacy of digital assets informations or data that are not supposed to be exposed to the public without conditions or fees. These helps maintain the originality and quality of the main digital asset/information.

Zero-Knowledge Protocol (ZKP) helps both individuals or users run transactions even if there is no or little trust between all the parties involved in the transaction, also it's helps maintain confidentiality, protection sensitivity information and could be used when showing poof of ownership to users that are involved in the transaction.

The presence of Zero-Knowledge Protocol would help fight different privacy bridges data theft, data mismanagement, digital assets claiming, data claiming and every other type of data privacy and security issues found in the digital world nowadays.

Recently and cryptocurrency We wrote about tokenization and how tokenization is used to protect vital information from the public. It might come as a surprise to you but Zero knowledge protocol can also be used for tokenization and protection of vital in other word the act of using tokenization on vital is a very good and nimportant example, this is because "Token" are used to hide vital information or data from the public.

This tokens our important data because they are useless if they fall on the wrong hand because the main details are always kept secret, in the case of Zero-Knowledge Protocol the information the token would be related to the main stuff so that only little information is received or shared to the public or receiving party.

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What is the ZK-SNARK protocol? Give your own opinion

Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge, also known as ZK-SNARKs, represents a upgraded cryptographic protocol with deeper implications across a different of fields, modt especially in blockchain technology, cybersecurity, and data preservation. This protocol is designed as a result of complex mathematics and advanced computational theory, aiming to creating a proof of possesses of a specific data/information without exposing the information itself.

ZK-SNARKs helps the user or sender produce a proof of ownership to convince the other party about the originality of a asset without exposing any details about the asset, information or data. The proof of originality and authencity is created through a succinct proof that can be fastly verified. The "zero-knowledge" tool shows that the user shows vital facts without exposing the full details.

In the context of blockchain technology, ZK-SNARKs have emerged as a special tool to ensure privacy and security. ZK-SNARKs permit the verification of transactions on a public Blockchain without displaying important data of the transaction, to the public.

The adoption of ZK-SNARKs can be used outside the crypto world, that's to say it helps In different field like Banking, Education, Finance, and other Technology industries, the tool can help secure and transmitte to very sensitive information in this industry without leaking its privacy. For example, verifying a student academic records without exposing the other important details about the students, would really be nice in the academical.

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How does the ZK-SNARK work and is it possible to adapt it to the Steem Blockchain? Give your own opinion.

Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge (ZK-SNARK) as i have said before it's an advanced cryptographic tool or technology that allows a user, (sender), to share knowledge which could need secrecy and privacy protection to another user or account (receiver) without exposing the knowledge, to asssure it's the truth of the statement.

The basic reason behind the innovation of ZK-SNARK lies in its advance and upgraded security features, it has proven to be trust worthy because it has came up with a tougher features that could be lacking in Zero-Knowledge Protocol (ZKP) and cryptography. As expected its more complex than Zero-Knowledge Protocol (ZKP), cryptography and even tokenization but it's worth it.

How does the ZK-SNARK work ?

• It's Setup: A one-time setup is done on the public parameters for the mathematical elliptic curve of the blockchain after which cryptographic elements are produced as outcome. This parameter are we the Blockchain uses for all ZK-SNARKs task.

• The Generation Of Keys: Before the sender sends the knowledge, the user generate two keys which could be called verifying key and proof key. So the proof key is used to generate a produce proves out the transaction while the verificating key is used to verify the proof given by the sender.

• Generation of Polynomial: The sender then produce a proof by making a auxiliary codes and generates a polynomial that acts as a representative which then used throughout the process.

• The Verification of Proof: This is the final stage where verifier cross checks the validity of the proof produced or sent, this is done without saving any details about the original knowledge, data or information.

In short ZK-SNARKs receives the data, information or knowledge, then it generates two key's which are used for proving and verification of proof. It then produce polynomial function that are used throughout the procedure, then a verifier using verification key is used to verify the proof if its legit or not.

is it possible to adapt ZK-SNARKs to the Steem Blockchain?

Yes it's possible to adapt it to steem blockchain but it would be more complex and difficult, I would prefer ZK-STARK on steem blockchain. This is because ZK-SNARKs is for privacy driven project which steemit is not.

Source

Just as I have said earlier it is a really complex technology that requires complex mind and complex skills integrate into any blockchain or consensual mechanism. Truly I say it would really improve the security and privacy on steem blockchain because it encodes data, information or knowledge.

Before such advance technique or technology would be integrated into system blockchain it would be advised that it looked into deeply, to avoid any conflicting actions between the new tech the old tech and the steem blockchain.

Also such advanced technology requires advanced skills and much complexity which makes it quite difficult integrating or implementing it on the blockchain so it's advisable all these factors are deeply checked and consider before search lovely technology would be integrated to secure the privacy and security of the blockchain transaction data and information.

Another important Factor to be considered before integrating on implementing such advanced technology is the cost and time to achieve search improvement in the blockchain. It is a very complex technology that will cost so much money for employment of developer and other necessary tools or equipment used to achieve or develop search advanced technology.

Because of its complexity and it advanced nature it might also take so much time to integrate implement it into the blockchain as I have said before so many factors need to be checked and considered before adopting it into steem block chain.

Note: I didn't say it's not possible but it would be extremely difficult to achieve because its used for privacy driven project.

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What is the difference between ZK-SNARKs and ZK-STARKs? Explain

Fields	ZK-SNARK	ZK-STARK
It's Applications	ZK-SNARK are mostly is special or specific project that are privacy driven	ZK-STARK are use is any project that also want privacy security, for example ZK-SNARK would be easier to use on steemit but ZK-STARK won't.
It's Scalability	ZK-SNARK is designed for smaller or medium sized system which matches why it's not too good for complex Blockchain.	It could be used for all sorts of system especially larger system, so therefore this why it can be used on any project.
It's Speed	ZK-SNARK is much slower because of the complexity in it verification	ZK-STARK is much faster because they are less intense than ZK-SNARK
It's Resources	It's uses Smaller amount of resources because it's work on smaller project	ZK-STARK Uses more resources because of it's types of projects.
It's Setup	it's requires a one time setup as first stage of it's procedure	it don't requires any one time setup.

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What are the main privacy mechanisms used by the Steem Blockchain?

When you talk about privacy steem blockchain, they are different things to consider or check mate. That is to say privacy falls under different field you could classify them into. The only thing close to a privacy securing mechanism is cryptography.

Cryptography is the act of using algorithm to convert plain text into cipher text also known as encoding and decoding of plan text. The product of cryptography can be seen in our keys whether public or private keys.

Our keys are used for logging in and performing a
other transaction on steemit where text encrypted using an advance technology skill known as cryptography aside from that aspect I'm not sure steemit has any other means or for privacy protection.

Because the transparency on steemit or steem blockchain permit anyone too easily access sensitive data such as wallet address or memos for transactions on steem blockchain. Also on steem blockchain both parties involved in a transaction can be seen by anyone. Also the amount of steem transferred in the transaction can easily be seen by anyone on steem blockchain. For example I am going to use @whitestallion as example

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Note: Zoom to see clearly

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For example above you can see whitestallion account in the above image you see his transaction and full detail is showed, so therefore it's for this reason I say that steem blockchain has no strong privacy mechanisms.

And that's not bad because every blockchain faces their difficulty, if you doubt read about*"Blockchain Trilemma". In Blockchain Trilemma its difficult for a Blockchain to have perfect security, perfect decentralization and scalability.

I must also add that I really love the ability to check people transaction on steemit, because it helps fetch many scammers with double account and rewards related crime on steemit.

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conclusion

In general I will say privacy is needed into this world because of the rise of crimes and hacking of people account over the internet , so therefore that sensitive and vital information I hidden from the public at large.

_{Thanks for going through remember starrchris cares ❤️, I am inviting @khursheedanwar @sahmie @princa @chukwu10}