TC: Small: Collaborative Research: Privacy-Constrained Searching

该项目的目标是使数据库搜索在隐私约束的方式：一个私人数据库提供商只允许适当授权的搜索由客户端，在不透露搜索标准的方式，但强制执行的要求，客户端只学习什么是授权的搜索。最初的重点将放在精确匹配的情况下的技术，后来扩展到更困难的近似匹配的情况下。如果找到多个匹配，则返回所有匹配，或者返回在适当定义的质量概念下的“最佳”匹配的子集;在近似匹配中，存在质量的自然概念，即，具有到查询指定的搜索目标的较小距离。技术挑战包括核实搜索请求的有效性，然后以执行搜索的授权标准而不泄露这些标准的方式进行搜索。 该项目有望大大改善目前在私人和敏感数据库上进行搜索的极不令人满意的“做法现状”，这种做法不必要地泄露了太多信息，并由于担心敏感信息泄露而妨碍进行有益的合作。协议的最小公开特征也将使事实上的“深度防御”成为可能，因为受损的服务器将不再自动暗示所有客户端与该服务器的交互的危害。

The goal of this project is to make possible database searching in a privacy-constrained manner: A private database provider allows only properly authorized searches by clients, in a manner that does not reveal the search criteria yet enforces the requirement that the client learns only what is authorized by the search. The initial focus will be on techniques for the case of exact matches, later extended to the much more difficult case of approximate matching. If multiple matches are found, either all of them are returned, or a subset of the "best" of them, under appropriately defined notions of quality, is returned; in approximate matching there is a natural notion of quality, namely, having smaller distance to the target of the search as specified by the query. The technical challenges include verification of the validity of a search request, and then carrying out the search, in manner that enforces the search's authorized criteria without revealing them. The project holds the promise of leading to substantial improvements in the highly unsatisfactory current "state of the practice" for searches carried out on private and sensitive databases, that unnecessarily reveal too much information and prevent useful collaborations from taking place due to concerns over the leakage of sensitive information. The minimal-disclosure feature of the protocols will also make possible a de facto "defense in depth", in that a compromised server will no longer automatically imply the compromise of all the clients' interactions with that server.