QEDIT awarded $2 m. in funding, part of $12.6 m. Dept. of Defense contract

The company specializes in fraud detection between insurance competitors as well as intelligence-sharing among banks to identify financial fraud.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
QEDIT Joins Forces with Galois as Part of US Government-Funded Initiative to Advance Zero-Knowledge Proof Cryptography (photo credit: Courtesy)
QEDIT Joins Forces with Galois as Part of US Government-Funded Initiative to Advance Zero-Knowledge Proof Cryptography
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Israeli privacy-enhancing technology provider QEDIT will be participating in a $12.6 million government-funded research project, focusing on "harnessing advanced cryptography to preserve the integrity of complex software programs," the company announced on Wednesday.
The contract, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), was specifically awarded to R&D specialist firm Galois to lead the project, QEDIT was awarded $2 million of that allocation.
QEDIT specializes in fraud detection between insurance competitors as well as intelligence-sharing among banks to identify financial fraud.
The project itself, Project Fromager, will be one of 12 funded among DARPA’s Securing Information for Encrypted Verification and Evaluation (SIEVE) program.
SIEVE will use Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs) to "enable the verification of capabilities relevant" to the Department of Defense, while keeping the project classified as not to reveal those capabilities. The aim is also to advance the performance and efficiency of ZKPs, to broaden the accessibility of ZKP technology to up and coming platform developers.
"QEDIT is delighted to partner with Galois and other esteemed academic institutions as part of this landmark research project on behalf of DARPA," said CEO and co-founder of QEDIT Jonathan Rouach. "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."
The project is expected to run through 2024, and will use ZKPs to ensure that code has not been compromised.
"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," said Galois's principal researcher, Dr. Alex Malozemoff.
"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," he said. "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."
"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," said QEDIT chief scientist and co-founder Avi Zohar.
"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," he said.
"QEDIT’s team of seasoned cryptographers and advisors has broad theoretical and practical experience when it comes to developing efficient ZKP systems – and we can’t wait to get started."