Using Secret Sharing for Searching in Encrypted Data

When outsourcing data to an untrusted database server, the data should be encrypted. When using thin clients or low-bandwidth networks it is best to perform most of the work at the server. In this paper we present a method, inspired by secure multi-party computation, to search efficiently in encrypted data. XML elements are translated to polynomials. A polynomial is split into two parts: a random polynomial for the client and the difference between the original polynomial and the client polynomial for the server. Since the client polynomials are generated by a random sequence generator only the seed has to be stored on the client. In a combined effort of both the server and the client a query can be evaluated without traversing the whole tree and without the server learning anything about the data or the query.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: SDMW
• Authors: Richard Brinkman, Jeroen Doumen, Willem Jonker
• Keywords: Client Polynomials, Polynomials, SDMW 2004, Untrusted Database Server