From last year’s DAO classic to the earlier NFT classic (and before that, the original crypto classic).
This article curates a set of resources for those seeking to understand, deepen, and build on zero-knowledge: the powerful foundational technologies that hold the key to blockchain scalability and represent the future of privacy applications, including crypto/ applications in web3, and countless other innovations.
These innovations have been around for a long time: Shafi Goldwasser, Silvio Micali, and Charles Rackoff introduced the zero-knowledge proof system in 1985 and had a transformative impact on the field of cryptography; they won the 2012 ACM Turing Award for this. Since this work has been decades in the making, especially in its journey from theory to practice, we are also sharing for the first time in our Classics series a second installment in an annotated reading list organized thematically and chronologically by Justin Thaler .
This article is the first part.
foundation, background, evolution
Some of the papers also deal more with cryptography in general (not all are zero-knowledge per se), including outlining problems or key advances that zero-knowledge proofs address today: how to ensure privacy and authentication in open networks.
New directions in cryptography (1976)——New directions in cryptography (1976)
Author: Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman
https://ee.stanford.edu/~hellman/publications/24.pdf
A method for obtaining digital signatures and public-key cryptosystems——A method for obtaining digital signatures and public-key cryptosystems
Author: Ronald Rivest, Adi Shamir, Leonard Adelman
https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download;jsessionid=856E21BC2F75800D37FD611032C30B9C?doi=10.1.1.40.5588&rep=rep1&type= pdf
Protocols for public key cryptosystems (1980)——Protocols for public key cryptosystems (1980)
Author:Ralph Merkle
http://www.merkle.com/papers/Protocols.pdf
Secure communications over insecure channels (1978) - Secure communications over insecure channels (1978)
Author:Ralph Merkle
https://www.merkle.com/1974/PuzzlesAsPublished.pdf
Use of elliptic curves in cryptography (1988) - Use of elliptic curves in cryptography (1988)
Author: Victor Miller
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2F3-540-39799-X_31.pdf
The knowledge complexity of interactive proof-systems (1985) - The knowledge complexity of interactive proof-systems (1985)
作宇：Shafi Goldwasser、Silvio Micali、Charles Rackoff
https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.419.8132&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Computationally sound proofs (2000) - Computationally sound proofs (2000)
Author: Silvio Micali
https://people.csail.mit.edu/silvio/Selected%20Scientific%20Papers/Proof%20Systems/Computationally_Sound_Proofs.pdf
From extractable collision resistance to succinct non-interactive arguments of knowledge [SNARKs], and back again (2011) - From extractable collision resistance to succinct non-interactive arguments of knowledge [SNARKs], and back again (2011)
作宇：Nir Bitansky、Ran Canetti、Alessandro Chiesa、Eran Tromer
https://eprint.iacr.org/2011/443.pdf
Efficient zero-kn