QEDIT Joins Forces with Galois as Part of US Government-Funded Initiative to Advance Zero-Knowledge Proof Cryptography

TEL AVIV, Israel, Sept. 16, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- QEDIT, a Privacy-Enhancing Technology provider, has announced its participation in a $12.6 million USD government-funded research project, geared towards harnessing advanced cryptography to preserve the integrity of complex software programs.

Funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the $12.6 million contract was awarded to R&D specialist firm Galois to lead Project Fromager, with QEDIT being awarded $2 million of the funding allocation. Project Fromager is one of 12 projects being funded in conjunction with DARPA's Securing Information for Encrypted Verification and Evaluation (SIEVE) program, which aims to use Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs) to enable the verification of capabilities relevant to the Department of Defense without revealing the sensitive details associated with those capabilities.

The SIEVE program also seeks to advance the performance and efficiency of ZKPs and broaden the accessibility of ZKP technology to new swathes of platform-agnostic developers.

Jonathan Rouach, CEO and Co-Founder of QEDIT, said, "QEDIT is delighted to partner with Galois and other esteemed academic institutions as part of this landmark research project on behalf of DARPA. This project underlines the pronounced value of ZKP cryptography as a means of delivering a new, more powerful standard of privacy at the highest levels of industry and government. We are proud to accelerate the global deployment of ZKPs for practical applications."

Project Fromager is expected to run through to 2024, and aims to use ZKPs to swiftly test the integrity of complex software programs to ensure that the code has not been compromised. It will be spearheaded by Galois, and will also leverage the academic resources of Denmark's Aarhus University, New York's Columbia University, and Belgium's Ku Leuven University.

Dr. Alex Malozemoff, Principal Researcher at Galois, said, "We at Galois are constantly striving to close the gap between research and real-world deployment. The current state of Zero-Knowledge Proof technology is right at this point. While Zero-Knowledge Proofs have seen wide deployment in cryptocurrencies, more general approaches are just now beginning to be seen as viable in commercial and governmental settings. We are excited to team up with QEDIT: their industry experience, alongside being leaders in the standardization effort around zero-knowledge, is invaluable to the maturation of these technologies."

QEDIT offers a suite of enterprise solutions based on ZKP cryptography and other privacy-enhancing techniques to help businesses mitigate risk and stay competitive through privacy-compliant, cross-organizational data collaboration. The company provides a platform that facilitates fraud detection between insurance competitors, intelligence-sharing among banks to identify financial crime, as well as more streamlined and efficient identity and certification management processes.

Aviv Zohar, QEDIT Chief Scientist and Co-Founder said, "Research is deeply ingrained in the fabric of QEDIT's DNA and our ongoing work with the global ZKProof standardization initiative is a measure of this. Project Fromager represents a tremendous opportunity to bolster our credentials as the standard-setter for ZKP solutions, but it's also a platform to explore the potential use of QEDIT's zkInterface, which is currently under review for standardization at ZKProof, to facilitate interoperability between solutions developed by various SIEVE teams. QEDIT's team of seasoned cryptographers and advisors have broad theoretical and practical experience when it comes to developing efficient ZKP systems and we can't wait to get started."

For more information, visit https://qed-it.com/

About QEDIT

QEDIT helps enterprises leverage third-party data through the use of privacy-enhancing technologies (PET). Founded by a world-class team of accomplished entrepreneurs, researchers, and developers, QEDIT empowers businesses by enabling them to safely share intelligence, without relinquishing data ownership and without violating local data privacy regulations. Through the use of Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP) cryptography and other cutting-edge, cryptographically-secure techniques, QEDIT's suite of enterprise solutions removes data-driven barriers to industry-wide privacy challenges in the fields of finance, supply chain, insurance, and human resources. For more information, visit https://qed-it.com.

This material is based upon work supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) under Contract No. HR001120C0085.  Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Distribution Statement "A" (Approved for Public Release, Distribution Unlimited)

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