Aleo — project overview
Aleo is the world’s first full-featured (zero-knowledge) private application development platform that is fast, consistent, and scalable.
Today it is difficult to imagine the life of a modern person without interacting with various web services, such as social networks, instant messengers, services for ordering goods and services, exchanges and brokers. The fee for using them is our personal data. We share our data with various services and do not understand how our personal data can be used. Often, they are used to show us ads for which web services receive money from advertisers. We all know the situation when we should ask about something and immediately we are inundated with an advertisement for a product or service in which we may have shown a random interest.
But this is an even better use of our personal data. Our data can be stolen due to a hacker attack or even sold to intruders. We all remember the major scandals that occurred with major web services, when personal data was sold or stolen, used for political purposes.
Therefore, there is a need for a technology that would allow you to protect user data in order to make the Internet more private. So, for example, the zero-knowledge proof method allows you to do this.
What is Zero Knowledge Proof (ZKP)?
Zero-knowledge proofs are cryptographic techniques that allow one party (the prover) to prove to another party (the verifier) that a statement about some hidden information is true without revealing anything about that information other than the truth of the statement itself.
The project Aleo took this method as a basis for building its platform. Users using applications built on Aleo will be able to maintain a certain amount of privacy, which will allow developers to build completely different web services than the existing ones. Now users are not required to give up control over their data, and web services can offer users privacy technologies to protect them.
This technology can fundamentally change the way you handle personal data on the Internet. Online services will no longer need to store sensitive data, neither the user nor the service provider will know more than they should, and control over personal data will remain with the user. Unlike today’s web technologies, zero-knowledge cryptography represents a secure, interoperable, and fair foundation for the Internet.
The user can no longer risk losing their password but hash his password on the device and not send his password to any web service. This not only allows user data to be stored on the device, but also reduces the overhead of access control and eases the legal responsibility that web services must bear today.
If you are an exchange user, you should understand that it knows all your actions and there are no guarantees that this will not be used against you. You can only hope that the exchange is acting honestly. In the event that the exchange is deprived of data on the actions of the user, the user is protected from actions against him, such as receiving an unfair price or refusing service.
Leo — Aleo programming language
To create an application on Aleo, the Leo programming language was developed. It makes it intuitive and easy for developers to write zero-knowledge applications and ensures that user data is private by default and surfs the web seamlessly.
Aleo defines a new standard for the Internet. The project takes a radical new approach to security, privacy and data ownership. Users no longer have to sacrifice information they can never get back, and web services no longer have to risk compromising their users’ data.