Cryptology ePrint Archive: Report 2010/471

Privacy-preserving Sharing of Sensitive Information

Emiliano De Cristofaro and Yanbin Lu and Gene Tsudik

Abstract: The need for controlled sharing of sensitive information occurs in many realistic everyday scenarios, ranging from critical (e.g., national security) to mundane (e.g., social networks). A typical scenario involves two parties, at least one of which seeks some information from the other. The latter is either willing, or compelled, to share information. This poses two challenges: (1) how to enable this type of sharing such that parties learn no (or minimal) information beyond what they are entitled to, and (2) how to do so efficiently, in real-world practical terms.

In this paper, we discuss the concept of Privacy-preserving Sharing of Sensitive Information (PSSI) and provide an efficient database system implementation. The PSSI system functions as a privacy shield to protect parties from disclosing their respective sensitive information. Although seemingly simple, the design and deployment of PSSI prompts a number of new and interesting practical challenges, that are addressed in this paper. We present extensive experimental results that attest to the practicality of attained privacy features.

Category / Keywords: cryptographic protocols /

Date: received 6 Sep 2010, last revised 9 Nov 2010, withdrawn 7 Mar 2011

Contact author: edecrist at uci edu

Available formats: (-- withdrawn --)

Version: 20110307:085619 (All versions of this report)

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