> authenticate a vulnerability, without the hacker revealing the vulnerability itself In principle, with standalone software that can be run under emulation, i

> authenticate a vulnerability, without the hacker revealing the vulnerability itself In principle, with standalone software that can be run under emulation, including OSes and device software, it's possible to publish a verifiable, zero-knowledge proof of execution of the exploit leading to some state (e.g. root access or changing a file) without revealing how it's done. The principle is similar to public key crypto: Everyone can verify the proof, only those with knowledge of the secret input can produce the proof. The proof does not contain the actual execution steps because that would reveal the secret input, but it may contain before and after states for the verifier to convince themselves an exploit took place between them, along with a cryptography-style proof that the after state is reachable under this emulator using secret input known by the hacker.