I agree that we have more capable+flexible cryptographic primitives than ever before, but I don't really buy the "Universal Protocol" thing.
For non-cryptographic uses we have "universal protocols" already, JSON being an example. You can adapt just about any format to and from JSON, if you want. But the fact that this is possible has not solved the interop problem, in the general case.
Similarly for "Hallucinated Servers". Even if you trust all nodes (and don't need cryptography), distributed computing is still kinda hard, and we have to write programs in particular ways to make them efficiently distributable. I'm sure this can work really well for some problem domains, but it's a subset.
Zk would perfect for online age verification, but governments do not want to implement it like this. Instead they want id and face collection for mass surveillance, using age verification as an excuse.
Based on recent revelations with certain "files" and brazen disregard for human life, I find it hard to believe that the "people" in the gov really care about children at all.
For age verification and identity verification both afaik. Sometimes I wonder if what's needed is "just" a more public push for it, but these topics are so hopelessly technical, I think it has no hope to ever reach the mainstream and poll well. And that is ignoring all the other counterarguments against these that compound on top, some of which are culturally sensitive for many.
I saw a presentation about this 6 months ago, it looked promising for age verification for example, it's even an already done system, not a research article.
I agree that we have more capable+flexible cryptographic primitives than ever before, but I don't really buy the "Universal Protocol" thing.
For non-cryptographic uses we have "universal protocols" already, JSON being an example. You can adapt just about any format to and from JSON, if you want. But the fact that this is possible has not solved the interop problem, in the general case.
Similarly for "Hallucinated Servers". Even if you trust all nodes (and don't need cryptography), distributed computing is still kinda hard, and we have to write programs in particular ways to make them efficiently distributable. I'm sure this can work really well for some problem domains, but it's a subset.
Zk would perfect for online age verification, but governments do not want to implement it like this. Instead they want id and face collection for mass surveillance, using age verification as an excuse.
Google is rolling out ZKP for age verification with state-issued digital IDs. See https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/07/zero-knowledge-proofs-... for context
Based on recent revelations with certain "files" and brazen disregard for human life, I find it hard to believe that the "people" in the gov really care about children at all.
For age verification and identity verification both afaik. Sometimes I wonder if what's needed is "just" a more public push for it, but these topics are so hopelessly technical, I think it has no hope to ever reach the mainstream and poll well. And that is ignoring all the other counterarguments against these that compound on top, some of which are culturally sensitive for many.
I saw a presentation about this 6 months ago, it looked promising for age verification for example, it's even an already done system, not a research article.
https://github.com/microsoft/crescent-credentials
But of course the thing would need users in order to attract users.
But won't this make the Palantir AI Overlord angery?