When we named our company “Zero Trust Analytics,” we weren’t just picking cool words. We were committing to a specific security philosophy with deep roots in cryptography and systems design.
Let me explain what Zero Knowledge means and why it matters for your privacy.
The Original Zero Knowledge Proofs
The concept of “zero knowledge” comes from cryptography. In 1985, three MIT researchers—Goldwasser, Micali, and Rackoff—published a groundbreaking paper on “zero-knowledge proofs.”
The idea is beautifully simple: Prove you know something without revealing what you know.
Here’s the classic example:
Imagine you have a friend who is colorblind, and you want to prove that two balls are different colors (red and green) without telling them which is which. You could:
- Have them hide the balls behind their back
- Ask them to either swap the balls or keep them the same
- Tell them whether they swapped
If you can consistently tell whether they swapped (because the colors switched positions), you’ve proven the balls are different colors—without ever revealing which ball is red.
That’s zero knowledge: proving a fact without revealing the underlying information.
From Proofs to Systems: Zero Trust Architecture
The “Zero Trust” model in security emerged from a different but related concept. Traditional network security worked like a castle: strong walls on the outside, but once you’re inside, you’re trusted.
Zero Trust flips this: Never trust, always verify.
Every request, even from “inside” the network, must be authenticated and authorized. No implicit trust based on location or previous access. This model gained traction after high-profile breaches showed that perimeter security wasn’t enough.
Google pioneered this with their “BeyondCorp” initiative in the early 2010s, proving that zero trust could work at massive scale.
How We Apply Zero Trust to Analytics
We took these principles and applied them to website analytics. Traditional analytics tools trust themselves with your data—they collect everything and promise to handle it responsibly. We don’t trust ourselves.
Here’s our zero trust approach:
1. Never Trust That We Need Personal Data
Before collecting any data point, we ask: “Do we actually need this to provide analytics value?”
- IP address? No - A hash is sufficient for unique visitor counting
- Email address? No - We never need to identify individuals
- Browser fingerprint? No - Basic device info is enough
- Cookies? No - Session hashing works without them
2. Always Verify That No PII Leaks Through
Our code includes automated checks that block any record containing personal data patterns:
- Email address formats → blocked
- Raw IP addresses → blocked
- Phone number patterns → blocked
- Names in UTM parameters → blocked
Even if a bug tried to store personal data, our safety layer would catch it.
3. Never Store What We Don’t Need
Data we don’t have can’t be breached. Our retention principle is simple: store the minimum necessary for analytics, nothing more.
- Raw IPs are hashed immediately and discarded
- Daily salt rotation prevents long-term tracking
- Detailed records age out; aggregates persist
The Mathematics of Our Privacy
Our visitor hashing works like this:
visitor_hash = SHA256(IP + UserAgent + DailySalt)
This hash is:
- One-way: You cannot reverse it to get the IP
- Collision-resistant: Different inputs produce different outputs
- Time-limited: Tomorrow’s salt produces a completely different hash
Even if someone got our entire database, they couldn’t identify individual visitors. The math makes it impossible.
Why This Matters for You
When you use Zero Trust Analytics, you’re not trusting us with your visitors’ personal data. Because we never have it.
This isn’t security through policy (“we promise not to look”). It’s security through architecture (“we designed it so we can’t look even if we wanted to”).
The result:
- No data breach risk for personal information we don’t have
- No compliance headaches for data we never collected
- No ethical dilemmas about data usage
The Philosophy Behind the Code
Zero Knowledge isn’t just a technical approach—it’s a way of thinking about technology’s relationship with users.
The default approach in tech has been: “Collect everything, figure out privacy later.” We believe the default should be: “Collect nothing unless absolutely necessary.”
This philosophy led us to build analytics differently. Not because privacy regulations forced us to, but because we believe it’s the right way to build technology.
Your visitors deserve better than being tracked across the web. Your business deserves analytics without liability. Zero Knowledge principles make both possible.
Analytics built on Zero Trust principles. See how it works or start your free trial.