Convinced Without Being Told: Zero-Knowledge Proofs, SNARKs and STARKs

Deep End Era. Engineering with Sankalp · Oct 28, 2026 · 1h 3m

LNG compliance lead Thandiwe Mokoena must convince a buyer that every cargo's methane intensity is below a threshold, without handing over operational data. Her colleague Felix says: we could prove it without showing anything. In episode one hundred and twenty three we find out how. We start with Goldwasser, Micali and Rackoff's 1985 idea of a proof that teaches nothing, Peggy and Victor's cave, sticky-note map colouring and the Schnorr protocol hiding in every Ed25519 signature. Fiat and Shamir turn conversations into certificates, and Frozen Heart shows what happens when the hash forgets…