Practical techniques for searches on encrypted data

• DOI: 10.1109/secpri.2000.848445
• Publication Date: 2002-11-07T16:22:24Z
• Authors: Dawn Xiaoding Song; D. Wagner; A. Perrig
• Keywords: 0202 electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering; 02 engineering and technology

It is desirable to store data on storage servers such as mail and file in encrypted form reduce security privacy risks. But this usually implies that one has sacrifice functionality for security. For example, if a client wishes retrieve only documents containing certain words, it was not previously known how let the server perform search answer query, without loss of confidentiality. We describe our cryptographic schemes problem searching provide proofs resulting crypto systems. Our techniques have number crucial advantages. They are provably secure: they provable secrecy encryption, sense untrusted cannot learn anything about plaintext when given ciphertext; query isolation searches, meaning more than result; controlled searching, so an arbitrary word user's authorization; also support hidden queries, user may ask secret revealing server. The algorithms presented simple, fast (for document length n, encryption need O(n) stream cipher block operations), introduce almost no space communication overhead, hence practical use today.