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Programmable Cryptography (Part 1)

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by gubsheep. Thanks to Justin Glibert, Barry Whitehat, Vitalik Buterin, Yan Zhang, Alex Allain, Dan Boneh, Elaine Shi, Nicholas Brysiewicz, and Albert Ni for discussion and review. Cryptography is undergoing a generational transition, from special-purpose cryptography to programmable cryptography. By “special-purpose cryptography,” we mean protocols that allow us to perform a single operation with cryptographic guarantees. Public-key encryption and signature schemes are examples of special-purpose cryptography: for example, a signature scheme allows me to prove to you that I know a unique cryptographic key. More complex examples of special-purpose cryptography include group signatures, a special type of signature scheme which enables one person to sign anonymously on behalf of a group, or range proofs, which enable you to prove that a secret number is within some range, without revealing the number. In each of these cases, cryptographers have designed a special-purpose protocol, someti

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