In early civilizations, truth was based on myth. Observations of worldly phenomena were wrapped in symbolic narratives, religious beliefs, and ancient wisdom. Over time, humanity began to value objective measurements and reasoning, birthing disciplines such as science, mathematics, and logic.
After the invention of the written word and, later, the printing press, books and documents captured the world’s information in written form, from academic literature and legal contracts to statistics and opinionated analysis. Then, in the twentieth century, phones, computers, and the Internet started a digital revolution in how information was created, distributed, and verified, with supercomputers now performing large-scale computations on complex data sets and billions of users across the globe generating, sharing, and talking about content every day in real-time.
Now, with a simple Internet connection, anyone in the world can instantly access a seemingly infinite flow of information. But while individuals are now empowered to consume and share more information than ever before, high-velocity, high-volume information scattered across a variety of applications poses extraordinary challenges.
{ Analogy From Chainlink Blog }
Verifiable computing allows a user to outsource computations to potentially untrusted computers while ensuring the correctness of the results. It works by having the remote computer perform the calculation and then provide a proof that the calculation was done accurately.
This proof can be verified by the user without needing to repeat the entire computation themselves. This is particularly useful for situations where a user has limited computational resources or needs to ensure the integrity of sensitive data being processed on an external system.
TL;DR
Cloud computing is great for complex tasks, but how do you know the results are accurate?
Verifiable computing lets you outsource computations and verify the answers without re-running everything.
It uses proofs (like a receipt) to confirm the work was done correctly.
Benefits include security, efficiency, transparency, and verifying scientific calculations.
There are two main proof types: interactive (client-worker dialogue) and non-interactive (proof verified with a key).
Other techniques like secure enclaves and homomorphic encryption can enhance security and privacy.
Verifiable computing helps blockchains scale by reducing workload and enabling complex smart contracts.
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In our world dominated by vast computational needs, outsourcing complex tasks to cloud servers has become routine. But herein lies the challenge: once we receive the results, how can we be confident of their accuracy? Consider this - you assign an AI training task to a platform like AWS. A week later, you receive millions of neural network parameters from this AI training task. But how can you ensure that these parameters genuinely reflect a week's worth of training and not just a day's?
The most straightforward solution is to send the identical task to another cloud platform, Google Cloud, and juxtapose the results. However, this method is not only redundant but also doubles the costs. So, what's the alternative? It is the topic of verifiable computing – a domain focused on validating outsourced computational outcomes without re-executing the entire process.
{ Analogy From Forbes }
🏵️ How Verifiable Computing Works
Imagine a scenario where you possess a computationally intensive task, such as financial data analysis or scientific simulations. Local execution might be impractical due to hardware limitations or security considerations. Outsourcing the computation to a cloud server appears to be a viable solution. However, a fundamental question arises: can you trust the server to perform the computation accurately?
A malicious server could manipulate the data or simply return fabricated results. Traditional approaches often involve redundant computations on multiple servers, which can be inefficient and resource-intensive. Verifiable computing offers an elegant solution to this dilemma.
📀 How Verifiable Computing Solve The Dilemma
Verifiable computing empowers you to outsource computations to untrusted servers while guaranteeing the correctness of the outputs. It achieves this through a two-pronged approach:
🔹 Proof Generation: The computation is transformed into a verifiable format along with a cryptographic proof. This proof acts as a mathematical guarantee that the computation was performed accurately without revealing the input data or the specific steps involved.
🔸 Proof Verification: You possess a verification tool that utilizes a secret key to validate the correctness of the received proof. If the verification succeeds, it assures you that the computation was executed as intended on the untrusted server, yielding a trustworthy outcome. Think of verifiable computing as a system for auditable computations.
You delegate the task to a worker, but you also get a verifiable receipt to confirm that the job was done correctly. This mathematical verification process allows you to trust the results without having to blindly rely on the server's integrity.
💡 Beneffits Of Verifiable Computing
Verifiable computing offers a multitude of benefits for various applications:
Security in Cloud Computing: It enables secure utilization of cloud resources for sensitive computations, ensuring data privacy and the integrity of results.
Scalability and Efficiency: Complex computations can be outsourced to powerful cloud servers, accelerating processes and improving efficiency.
Transparency in Distributed Systems: In collaborative projects where computations are distributed across multiple entities, verifiable computing guarantees the accuracy of partial results without compromising confidentiality.
Verifying Scientific Calculations: Researchers can leverage verifiable computing to ensure the reproducibility of scientific computations performed on remote servers.
🔆 Types Of Proofs
Verifiable computing can be implemented using two primary approaches:
Interactive Proofs :
In this method, the client and the worker engage in an interactive dialogue to verify the correctness of the proof. The client sends challenges to the worker, and the worker's responses are mathematically verified to ensure the validity of the computation.
Non-Interactive Proofs:
This approach eliminates the need for direct interaction. The worker generates a proof that can be verified by the client using a cryptographic key. Non-interactive proofs are often more efficient but may require stronger cryptographic assumptions.
The choice between interactive and non-interactive proofs depends on factors like the complexity of the computation, the desired level of efficiency, and the security requirements of the application.
⚡ Secure Enclaves and Homomorphic Encryption
While interactive and non-interactive proofs form the core of verifiable computing, other cryptographic techniques can enhance its capabilities:
Secure Enclaves:
These are isolated execution environments within a processor that protect the confidentiality and integrity of the computation during its execution on the untrusted server.
Homomorphic Encryption:
This technique allows computations to be performed directly on encrypted data, eliminating the need to decrypt the data before computation and enhancing privacy.
🚆 How It Helps in Blockchain scalability
Reduced Blockchain Load: Complex computations can be outsourced to verifier nodes, lessening the burden on validator nodes responsible for transaction verification and consensus. This frees up space on the blockchain for core functions like storing transaction data and enforcing smart contract rules.
Improved Transaction Throughput: By offloading computations, blockchains can process more transactions per second, leading to faster and more efficient transaction confirmation times. This is crucial for real-world applications that require high transaction volume.
Enabling Complex Smart Contracts: Verifiable computing allows smart contracts to leverage functionalities that might be too computationally expensive to execute directly on the blockchain. This opens doors for richer and more intricate smart contract applications.
🏵️ Verifiable Computing Apps in Crypto
Scalable blockchains: Blockchains can be slow due to the need for all nodes to validate transactions. Verifiable computing allows complex computations to be done off-chain, with only the validity proofs stored on the blockchain, making the system more scalable.
Secure smart contracts: Smart contracts are programs that run on a blockchain. Verifiable computing enables secure execution of complex smart contracts that involve private data, without compromising the privacy of that data.
Confidential transactions: Verifiable computing can be used to enable confidential transactions on blockchains, where only the sender and receiver know the amount being transacted, while still proving the transaction is valid.
💡 Specific Application
Verifiable computing, often referred to as Zero-Knowledge (ZK) proofs, is a powerful technology with applications in both blockchain and non-blockchain contexts. It enables one computer (the verifier) to delegate computation to another, more powerful computer (the prover) and efficiently verify that the computation was performed correctly. Here are some notable applications:
Layer 2 (L2) Blockchain: L2 blockchains use ZK proofs (specifically SNARKs) to guarantee the integrity of their state transitions. These proofs allow efficient verification without the need for full computation on-chain.
Cross-Chain Bridges: Cross-chain bridges leverage SNARKs to prove deposits or withdrawals on one chain to another. This ensures trustless interoperability between different blockchains.
ZK Coprocessors: A “ZK coprocessor” uses SNARKs to prove off-chain computations over on-chain data. For example, it can verify complex computations that would be too costly to natively compute in a smart contract.
🔬 Notable Projects
> Zcash
> Mina
> Starknet
> Loopring
> StarkEx
> ZigZag Network
> Immutable X
🔼 Data Credit
> Wikipedia
> Research Gate
> ArXiv
> Forbes
> Chainlink Blog
> Microsoft
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Verifiable computing is a game-changer for blockchain and cryptocurrency, not just for quantum computing. It, along with verified web, unlocks groundbreaking possibilities. New protocols built with technologies like zero-knowledge proofs (ZK) and fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) are just the beginning.
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