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Almost Optimal Private Information Retrieval

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Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PET 2002)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 2482))

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Abstract

A private information retrieval (PIR) protocol allows a user to retrieve one of N records from a database while hiding the identity of the record from the database server.

With the initially proposed PIR protocols to process a query, the server has to process the entire database, resulting in an unacceptable response time for large databases. Later solutions make use of some preprocessing and offline communication, such that only O(1) online computation and communication are performed to execute a query. The major drawback of these solutions is offline communication, comparable to the size of the entire database.

Using a secure coprocessor we construct a PIR scheme that eliminates both drawbacks. Our protocol requires O(1) online computation and communication, periodical preprocessing, and zero offline communication. The protocol is almost optimal. The only parameter left to improve is the server’s preprocessing complexity - the least important one.

This research was supported by the German Research Society, Berlin-Brandenburg Graduate School in Distributed Information Systems (DFG grant no. GRK 316.)

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 10099, Berlin, Germany

    Dmitri Asonov & Johann-Christoph Freytag

Authors
  1. Dmitri Asonov
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  2. Johann-Christoph Freytag
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. The Free Haven Project, 144 Lake St., Arlington, MA, 02474, USA

    Roger Dingledine

  2. Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, 20375, USA

    Paul Syverson

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© 2003 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Asonov, D., Freytag, JC. (2003). Almost Optimal Private Information Retrieval. In: Dingledine, R., Syverson, P. (eds) Privacy Enhancing Technologies. PET 2002. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2482. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-36467-6_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-36467-6_16

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-00565-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-36467-2

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