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Link to original content: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10207-007-0030-1
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Protecting data privacy through hard-to-reverse negative databases

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Abstract

A set DB of data elements can be represented in terms of its complement set, known as a negative database. That is, all of the elements not in DB are represented, and DB itself is not explicitly stored. This method of representing data has certain properties that are relevant for privacy enhancing applications. The paper reviews the negative database (NDB) representation scheme for storing a negative image compactly, and proposes using a collection of NDBs to represent a single DB, that is, one NDB is assigned for each record in DB. This method has the advantage of producing negative databases that are hard to reverse in practice, i.e., from which it is hard to obtain DB. This result is obtained by adapting a technique for generating hard-to-solve 3-SAT formulas. Finally we suggest potential avenues of application.

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Abbreviations

s, y, v::

Binary strings

l::

The number of positions in a string

DB::

A set of binary strings, referred to as a positive database

NDB::

A set of strings over {0,1,*}, referred to as a negative database

NDB (s)::

A negative database for the string s. When a specific string is alluded to, its numeric decimal value is used in its place

NDB A ::

A negative database belonging to agent A

\(\Upsilon\) ::

A set of integers indicating bit positions in a string

m::

The number of records in a negative database

r::

The ratio of records to string length in a negative database

k::

Number of specified positions (non “*” symbols) in a string

c::

The number of bits appended to a string. The code length

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 06520-8285, USA

    Fernando Esponda

  2. Department of Computer Science, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 87131-1386, USA

    Elena S. Ackley, Paul Helman, Haixia Jia & Stephanie Forrest

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  1. Fernando Esponda
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  2. Elena S. Ackley
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  3. Paul Helman
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  4. Haixia Jia
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  5. Stephanie Forrest
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Correspondence to Fernando Esponda.

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Esponda, F., Ackley, E.S., Helman, P. et al. Protecting data privacy through hard-to-reverse negative databases. Int. J. Inf. Secur. 6, 403–415 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10207-007-0030-1

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