With all of the hacking scandals that have plagued us in the past several years, we will see an increase in popularity of something called “zero-knowledge proofs,” which allow one side to verify data without conveying any additional information (such as how or why something is true).

It’s a mind-bending approach to security, allowing you to verify your identity without revealing who you actually are. In essence, this eliminates the need for a company to store private identity data during the verification process.

Zero-knowledge proofs aren’t new, but they’re becoming more popular as a method to protect our credit cards and online identities. JPMorgan Chase is using zero-knowledge proofs for its enterprise blockchain system, while cryptocurrency startup Ethereum uses zero-knowledge for authentication.

Irish startup Sedicii now has zero-proof software in the marketplace, and researchers at Microsoft and Princeton University are working on a zero-knowledge proof that would let inspectors identify something as a nuclear weapon without requiring them to take it apart, which risks spreading information about how to build one.