# Proteus and ZK Email How Advanced Cryptography Derisks AI Harms | Aayush Gupta at Pragma Taipei 2025

- Speakers: [Aayush Gupta](https://streameth.org/speakers/aayush-gupta)
- Channel: [ETHGlobal](https://streameth.org/ethglobal)
- Date: 2025-10-09
- Duration: 21:00
- Topics: AI safety, deepfake detection, cryptographic provenance, zero-knowledge proofs, ZK email, digital signatures, perceptual hashing, MPC, FHE, blockchain verification, content authenticity, misinformation prevention, adversarial training, privacy-preserving tech, decentralized identity, image hashing, C2PA, neural hash, DINO hash, Ethereum, ZKPs
- Watch: https://streameth.org/watch/yt-ougx0taWhB0
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ougx0taWhB0

## Description

Aayush Gupta presents Proteus and ZK Email, exploring how advanced cryptography can mitigate AI harms like deepfakes and misinformation. Learn why digital signatures, zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs), and perceptual hashing are critical for verifying content authenticity in an AI-driven world. 

Discover how blockchain-based provenance systems can combat image forgery while preserving privacy through MPC (Multi-Party Computation) and FHE (Fully Homomorphic Encryption). If you're interested in AI safety, cryptographic identity, and decentralized verification, this talk offers cutting-edge insights into securing digital content.

00:00 - Introduction: Cryptography’s Role in the AI Era
00:50 - The Problem: Verifying Content Provenance
01:49 - Why Watermarking Fails Against Deepfakes
03:21 - Digital Signatures as a Robust Alternative
04:49 - Real-World Use Cases for ZK Email
05:48 - How ZK Email Works: Privacy-Preserving Proofs
06:16 - Practical Applications (Docs, Flights, GitHub)
07:36 - User Adoption & Proof Volume
08:01 - Why Image Metadata-Based Provenance Fails
09:37 - Flaws in C2PA & Timestamp Vulnerabilities
10:06 - Introducing Perceptual Hashing
11:34 - Proteus: Combining Signatures + Perceptual Hashing
12:29 - How Perceptual Hashing Resists Modifications
13:59 - DINO Hash: A Better Perceptual Hashing Model
14:28 - Building a Decentralized Provenance System
15:58 - Privacy Challenges in AI-Generated Content
16:28 - MPC/FHE for Private Provenance Lookups
17:51 - Backup AI Detection for Cold Start
18:16 - Benchmarking DINO Hash vs. Existing Solutions
19:14 - Adversarial Robustness in Perceptual Hashing
20:11 - Final Takeaways & Future Work
20:40 - Resources & How to Get Involved

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🇹🇼 *Pragma Taipei*
Pragma Taipei 2025 was held on April 3rd at POPOP in Taipei, Taiwan and was an in-person summit for builders and leaders in the web3 ecosystem. Watch the full Pragma Taipei YouTube Playlist here: 

ETHGlobal's Pragma series takes place in cities around the world, and is designed to be a different kind of event. Pragma is a one-stage conference with founders-only on stage, bringing together a small group of curated attendees and speakers to discuss the future of web3 and reflect on the past. 

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✅ Follow Aayush Gupta
X: https://x.com/yush_g

✅ Follow ZK Email
X: https://x.com/zkemail

✅ Follow Kartik Talwar
X: https://x.com/TheRealKartik

✅ Follow ETHGlobal
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Warpcast: https://warpcast.com/ethglobal
Website: https://ethglobal.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCfF9ZO8Ug4xk_AJd4aeT5HA 

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