[NCR#1 Request] zkEmail

[Savio-Sou]

Note: Noir Community Research (NCR) has been renamed to Noir Research Grants (NRG)

Overview

The advancement in Programmable Cryptography and Zero-Knowledge Proofs has been gradually unlocking new potentials to break data out of silos. Their potential for trustlessly and privately proving information, such as emails that a user possesses, enables innovative use cases unachievable until now.

Aztec Labs has been a strong believer in the vision, and particularly the frontiers in privacy-first and provable emails the ZK Email team has been leading charge in exploring. In turn, the Aztec Labs is looking to fund 2 teams * 2 months of research to explore ways Noir (and Aztec) can be leveraged to augment this work and the broader vision.

Strong preference of the NCR#1 request would go towards proposals focused on building end-user oriented projects, including if they are MVPs. Meanwhile, proposals focused on building developer tooling, technical/cryptography research, etc. are also welcome as long as their relevance to zkEmail is clear.

Note: Proposals should take into account that certain primitives to create proofs of emails could be missing or under-optimized in Noir (e.g. Quoted-printable encoding, ASN decoding, Regex). Implementing and open-sourcing these should be considered in-scope.

Read further for technical resources and project inspirations.

Submission

Format

To ensure consistency and facilitate the review process, please adhere to the following submission format:

• Title: A concise, descriptive title for your proposal
• Summary: A high-level summary of your proposal (≤200 words)
• Methodology: Explain the research approach and design details
• Timeline and Deliverables: Describe project milestones and what is expected to be achieved when
• Team: List team member(s) that will work on the initiative, relevant experience and contacts
• Start Date: Specify preferred start date (e.g. 6 September 2024)
• Questions: List outstanding questions, if any

Procedure

Submit a proposal by creating a new post in this category per the format above:
https://github.com/orgs/noir-lang/discussions/new?category=-ncr-1-zkemail

Deadline

Submission is open until and including 25 August 2024.

Selected proposals will be announced here on GitHub Discussions no later than 5 September 2024.

Requirements

Implementations of proposals should observe the following requirements. If your proposal could not meet all requirements, please highlight missing requirements accordingly.

• Final implementation MUST contain components written in Noir
• Final implementation CAN contain components written with Aztec.nr
• Final implementation MUST be thoroughly tested and documented
• Final implementation MUST be open sourced under a permissive license (e.g. MIT)

Grants

Each selected proposal would be supported with $40,000:

• $20,000 on publishing first month’s progress report
• $20,000 on publishing second month’s final report

Up to a total of 2 proposals will be selected for this NCR.

Audits

To ensure the quality and security of applying the research outcomes of this NCR, we are onboarding audit partners to sponsor and provide auditing for the final implementations of the selected proposals.

The 4 audit partners onboarded for NCR#1 are:

• ConsenSys Diligence
• Nethermind Security
• OpenZeppelin
• Veridise

Read more about the partners in the full announcement: https://github.com/orgs/noir-lang/discussions/5863

Resources

• [Docs] Noir: https://noir-lang.org/docs/
• [Resource Registry] Awesome Noir: https://github.com/noir-lang/awesome-noir/
• [Article] ZK Email: https://prove.email/blog/zkemail
• [Article] ZK Regex: https://prove.email/blog/zkregex
• [Inspirations] Project Ideas: https://github.com/zkemail#project-ideas
• [GitHub] ZK Email: https://github.com/zkemail
• [GitHub] Noir BigNum: https://github.com/noir-lang/noir-bignum
• [GitHub] Noir RSA: https://github.com/noir-lang/noir_rsa
• [GitHub] Noir Base64: https://github.com/noir-lang/noir_base64
• [GitHub] Noir String Search: https://github.com/noir-lang/noir_string_search

Noir's Discord for technical problems and general discussions: https://discord.gg/JtqzkdeQ6G

FAQ

Q1. How will a proposal be chosen?

Proposals will be evaluated based on their adherence to the requirements, innovativeness, quality, feasibility and vision to build with Noir long term.

Aztec Labs sponsorship specifics:

• Proposals with clear visions towards end-user adoption will receive preferential consideration
• Proposals with clear visions of building on Aztec long term will receive preferential consideration
• The selection committee will consist of representatives from Aztec Labs, ZK Email and possibly other teams

Q2. Who can submit proposals?

Researchers, developers, and technology enthusiasts with an interest in Noir research are encouraged to submit their proposals.

Q3. Can I submit more than one proposal?

Yes, you can submit multiple proposals if you have different ideas.

Q4. Can I update my proposal after submission?

Yes, edits are welcome up to the submission deadline.

Q5. Why should I submit a proposal early?

Team members and the community could share early feedback on your proposal that you can incorporate before the submission deadline.

Q6. What if my proposal does not fully meet the requirements?

You are welcome and encouraged to submit your proposal and participate in the discussion still, as your ideas could contribute valuable insights and help shape further research.

Q7. What should I do if I have a question in addition to the above?

Please comment with your questions in this NCR Request.

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Aztec Labs for sponsoring grants for selected proposals.

Thank you to ZK Email for advising and supporting the initiative.

DISCLAIMER

The information set out herein is for discussion purposes only and does not represent any binding indication or commitment by Aztec Labs and its employees to take any action whatsoever, including relating to the structure, any potential operation and/or features of the Aztec protocol, the protocol roadmap or the Noir language. In particular: (i) nothing in these posts is intended to create any contractual or other form of legal relationship with Aztec Labs or third parties who engage with such posts (including, without limitation, by submitting a proposal or responding to posts), (ii) by engaging with any post, the relevant persons are consenting to Aztec Labs’ use and publication of such engagement and related information on an open-source basis (and agree that Aztec Labs will not treat such engagement and related information as confidential), and (iii) Aztec Labs is not under any duty to consider any or all engagements, and that consideration of such engagements and any decision to award grants or other rewards for any such engagement is entirely at Aztec Labs’ sole discretion. Please do not rely on any information on this forum for any purpose - the development, release, and timing of any products, features or functionality remains subject to change and is currently entirely hypothetical. Nothing on this forum should be treated as an offer to sell any security or any other asset by Aztec Labs or its affiliates, and you should not rely on any forum posts or content for advice of any kind, including legal, investment, financial, tax or other professional advice.

[Savio-Sou]

Sample submission for reference: https://github.com/orgs/noir-lang/discussions/5755

[Savio-Sou]

Four audit partners are now onboarded for NCR#1 to support the to-be-selected project teams:

• ConsenSys Diligence
• Nethermind Security
• OpenZeppelin
• Veridise

Read more about the partners in the audit partner announcement: https://github.com/orgs/noir-lang/discussions/5863