Private computation in a distributed storage system (DSS) is a generalization of the private information retrieval (PIR) problem. In such setting a user wishes to compute a function of $f$ messages stored in $n$ noncolluding coded databases, i.e., databases storing data encoded with an $[n,k]$ linear storage code, while revealing no information about the desired function to the databases. We consider the problem of private polynomial computation (PPC). In PPC, a user wishes to compute a multivariate polynomial of degree at most $g$ over $f$ variables (or messages) stored in multiple databases. First, we consider the private computation of polynomials of degree $g=1$, i.e., private linear computation (PLC) for coded databases. In PLC, a user wishes to compute a linear combination over the $f$ messages while keeping the coefficients of the desired linear combination hidden from the database. For a linearly encoded DSS, we present a capacity-achieving PLC scheme and show that the PLC capacity, which is the ratio of the desired amount of information and the total amount of downloaded information, matches the maximum distance separable coded capacity of PIR for a large class of linear storage codes. Then, we consider private computation of higher degree polynomials, i.e., $g>1$. For this setup, we construct two novel PPC schemes. In the first scheme, we consider Reed-Solomon coded databases with Lagrange encoding, which leverages ideas from recently proposed star-product PIR and Lagrange coded computation. The second scheme considers the special case of coded databases with systematic Lagrange encoding. Both schemes yield improved rates, while asymptotically, as $f\rightarrow \infty$, the systematic scheme gives a significantly better computation retrieval rate compared to all known schemes up to some storage code rate that depends on the maximum degree of the candidate polynomials.
We consider private polynomial computation (PPC) over noncolluding coded databases. In such a setting a user wishes to compute a multivariate polynomial of degree at most $g$ over $f$ variables (or messages) stored in multiple databases while revealing no information about the desired polynomial to the databases. We construct two novel PPC schemes, where the first is a generalization of our previous work in private linear computation for coded databases. In this scheme we consider Reed-Solomon coded databases with Lagrange encoding, which leverages ideas from recently proposed star-product pri…
We consider private information retrieval (PIR) for distributed storage systems (DSSs) with noncolluding nodes where data is stored using a non maximum distance separable (MDS) linear code. It was recently shown that if data is stored using a particular class of non-MDS linear codes, the MDS-PIR capacity, i.e., the maximum possible PIR rate for MDS-coded DSSs, can be achieved. For this class of codes, we prove that the PIR capacity is indeed equal to the MDS-PIR capacity, giving the first family of non-MDS codes for which the PIR capacity is known. For other codes, we provide asymmetric PIR pr…
We consider the problem of private linear computation (PLC) in a distributed storage system. In PLC, a user wishes to compute a linear combination of $f$ messages stored in noncolluding databases while revealing no information about the coefficients of the desired linear combination to the databases. In extension of our previous work we employ linear codes to encode the information on the databases. We show that the PLC capacity, which is the ratio of the desired linear function size and the total amount of downloaded information, matches the maximum distance separable (MDS) coded capacity of …
We introduce a variation of coded computation that ensures data security and master's privacy against workers, which is referred to as private secure coded computation. In private secure coded computation, the master needs to compute a function of its own dataset and one of the datasets in a library exclusively shared by external workers. After recovering the desired function, the workers must not be able to know which dataset in the library was desired by the master or obtain any information about the master's own data. We propose a private secure coded computation scheme for matrix multiplic…
We formulate a new variant of the private information retrieval (PIR) problem where the user is pliable, i.e., interested in any message from a desired subset of the available dataset, denoted as pliable private information retrieval (PPIR). We consider a setup where a dataset consisting of $f$ messages is replicated in $n$ noncolluding databases and classified into $Γ$ classes. For this setup, the user wishes to retrieve any $λ\geq 1$ messages from multiple desired classes, i.e., $η\geq 1$, while revealing no information about the identity of the desired classes to the databases. We term this…
In a distributed computing system for the master-worker framework, an erasure code can mitigate the effects of slow workers, also called stragglers. The distributed computing system combined with coding is referred to as coded computation. We introduce a variation of coded computation that protects the master's privacy from the workers, which is referred to as private coded computation. In private coded computation, the master needs to compute a function of its own dataset and one of the datasets in a library exclusively shared by the external workers. After the master recovers the result of t…
In this work, we consider private monomial computation (PMC) for replicated noncolluding databases. In PMC, a user wishes to privately retrieve an arbitrary multivariate monomial from a candidate set of monomials in $f$ messages over a finite field $\mathbb F_q$, where $q=p^k$ is a power of a prime $p$ and $k \ge 1$, replicated over $n$ databases. We derive the PMC capacity under a technical condition on $p$ and for asymptotically large $q$. The condition on $p$ is satisfied, e.g., for large enough $p$. Also, we present a novel PMC scheme for arbitrary $q$ that is capacity-achieving in the asy…
Recently Hachem et al. formulated a multiaccess coded caching model which consists of a central server connected to $K$ users via an error-free shared link, and $K$ cache-nodes. Each cache-node is equipped with a local cache and each user can access $L$ neighbouring cache-nodes with a cyclic wrap-around fashion. In this paper, we take the privacy of the users' demands into consideration, i.e., each user can only get its required file and can not get any information about the demands of other users. By storing some private keys at the cache-nodes, we propose a novel transformation approach to t…
We consider the problem of designing PIR scheme on coded data when certain nodes are unresponsive. We provide the construction of $ν$-robust PIR schemes that can tolerate up to $ν$ unresponsive nodes. These schemes are adaptive and universally optimal in the sense of achieving (asymptotically) optimal download cost for any number of unresponsive nodes up to $ν$.
We study the problem of private function retrieval (PFR) in a distributed storage system. In PFR the user wishes to retrieve a linear combination of $M$ messages stored in non-colluding $(N,K)$ MDS coded databases while revealing no information about the coefficients of the intended linear combination to any of the individual databases. We present an achievable scheme for MDS coded PFR with a rate that matches the capacity for coded private information retrieval derived recently, $R=(1+R_c+R_c^2+\dots+R_c^{M-1})^{-1}=\frac{1-R_c}{1-R_c^M}$, where $R_c=\frac{K}{N}$ is the rate of the MDS code. …
The problem of private information retrieval gets renewed attentions in recent years due to its information-theoretic reformulation and applications in distributed storage systems. PIR capacity is the maximal number of bits privately retrieved per one bit of downloaded bit. The capacity has been fully solved for some degenerating cases. For a general case where the database is both coded and colluded, the exact capacity remains unknown. We build a general private information retrieval scheme for MDS coded databases with colluding servers. Our scheme achieves the rate $(1+R+R^2+\cdots+R^{M-1})$…
The distributed coded caching problem has been studied extensively in the recent past. While the known coded caching schemes achieve an improved transmission rate, they violate the privacy of the users since in these schemes the demand of one user is revealed to others in the delivery phase. In this paper, we consider the coded caching problem under the constraint that the demands of the other users remain information theoretically secret from each user. We first show that the memory-rate pair $(M,\min \{N,K\}(1-M/N))$ is achievable under information theoretic demand privacy, while using broad…
Coded Caching is an efficient technique to reduce peak hour network traffic. One limitation of known coded caching schemes is that the demands of all users are revealed to their peers in the delivery phase. Schemes that assure privacy for user demands are studied in recent past. Assuming that the users are equipped with caches of small memory sizes, the achievable rate under demand privacy constraints is investigated in this work. We present an MDS code based demand private coded caching scheme with $K$ users and $N$ files that achieves a memory rate pair $\left(\frac{1}{K(N-1)+1},N\left(1-\fr…
We consider the coded caching problem with an additional privacy constraint that a user should not get any information about the demands of the other users. We first show that a demand-private scheme for $N$ files and $K$ users can be obtained from a non-private scheme that serves only a subset of the demands for the $N$ files and $NK$ users problem. We further use this fact to construct a demand-private scheme for $N$ files and $K$ users from a particular known non-private scheme for $N$ files and $NK-K+1$ users. It is then demonstrated that, the memory-rate pair $(M,\min \{N,K\}(1-M/N))$, wh…
We present a general framework for Private Information Retrieval (PIR) from arbitrary coded databases, that allows one to adjust the rate of the scheme according to the suspected number of colluding servers. If the storage code is a generalized Reed-Solomon code of length n and dimension k, we design PIR schemes which simultaneously protect against t colluding servers and provide PIR rate 1-(k+t-1)/n, for all t between 1 and n-k. This interpolates between the previously studied cases of t=1 and k=1 and asymptotically achieves the known capacity bounds in both of these cases, as the size of the…
The demand private coded caching problem in a multi-access network with $K$ users and $K$ caches, where each user has access to $L$ neighbouring caches in a cyclic wrap-around manner, is studied. The additional constraint imposed is that one user should not get any information regarding the demands of the remaining users. A lifting construction of demand private multi-access coded caching scheme from conventional, non-private multi-access scheme is introduced. The demand-privacy for a user is ensured by placing some additional \textit{keys} in a set of caches called the \textit{private set} of…
We propose three private information retrieval (PIR) protocols for distributed storage systems (DSSs) where data is stored using an arbitrary linear code. The first two protocols, named Protocol 1 and Protocol 2, achieve privacy for the scenario with noncolluding nodes. Protocol 1 requires a file size that is exponential in the number of files in the system, while Protocol 2 requires a file size that is independent of the number of files and is hence simpler. We prove that, for certain linear codes, Protocol 1 achieves the maximum distance separable (MDS) PIR capacity, i.e., the maximum PIR ra…
We study the problem of single-server single-message Private Information Retrieval with Private Coded Side Information (PIR-PCSI). In this problem, there is a server that stores a database, and a user who knows a random linear combination of a random subset of messages in the database. The number of messages contributing to the user's side information is known to the server a priori, whereas their indices and coefficients are unknown to the server a priori. The user wants to retrieve a message from the server (with minimum download cost), while protecting the identities of both the demand and …
Private information retrieval scheme for coded data storage is considered in this paper. We focus on the case where the size of each data record is large and hence only the download cost (but not the upload cost for transmitting retrieval queries) is of interest. We prove that the tradeoff between storage cost and retrieval/download cost depends on the number of data records in the system. We also propose a fairly general class of linear storage codes and retrieval schemes and derive conditions under which our retrieval schemes are error-free and private. Tradeoffs between the storage cost and…
In private information delivery (PID) problem, there are $K$ messages stored across $N$ servers, each capable of storing $M$ messages and a user. Servers want to convey one of the $K$ messages to the user without revealing the identity (index) of the message conveyed. The capacity of PID problem is defined as maximum number of bits of the desired message that can be conveyed privately, per bit of total communication, to the user. For the restricted case of replicated systems, where coded messages or splitting one message into several servers is not allowed, the capacity of PID has been charact…
The problem of Private Information Retrieval (PIR) from coded storage systems with colluding, byzantine, and unresponsive servers is considered. An explicit scheme using an $[n,k]$ Reed-Solomon storage code is designed, protecting against $t$-collusion and handling up to $b$ byzantine and $r$ unresponsive servers, when $n>k+t+2b+r-1$. This scheme achieves a PIR rate of $\frac{n-r-(k+2b+t-1)}{n-r}$. In the case where the capacity is known, namely when $k=1$, it is asymptotically capacity-achieving as the number of files grows. Lastly, the scheme is adapted to symmetric PIR.
The work by Maddah-Ali and Niesen demonstrated the benefits in reducing the transmission rate in a noiseless broadcast network by joint design of caching and delivery schemes. In their setup, each user learns the demands of all other users in the delivery phase. In this paper, we introduce the problem of demand private coded caching where we impose a privacy requirement that no user learns any information about the demands of other users. We provide an achievable scheme and compare its performance using the existing lower bounds on the achievable rates under no privacy setting. For this settin…
In Private Information Retrieval (PIR), one wants to download a file from a database without revealing to the database which file is being downloaded. Much attention has been paid to the case of the database being encoded across several servers, subsets of which can collude to attempt to deduce the requested file. With the goal of studying the achievable PIR rates in realistic scenarios, we generalize results for coded data from the case of all subsets of servers of size $t$ colluding, to arbitrary subsets of the servers. We investigate the effectiveness of previous strategies in this new scen…
Recent work by Maddah-Ali and Niesen introduced coded caching which demonstrated the benefits of joint design of storage and transmission policies in content delivery networks. They studied a setup where a server communicates with a set of users, each equipped with a local cache, over a shared error-free link and proposed an order-optimal caching and delivery scheme. In this paper, we introduce the problem of secretive coded caching where we impose the additional constraint that a user should not be able to learn anything, from either the content stored in its cache or the server transmissions…
A private information retrieval (PIR) scheme on coded storage systems with colluding, byzantine, and non-responsive servers is presented. Furthermore, the scheme can also be used for symmetric PIR in the same setting. An explicit scheme using an $[n,k]$ generalized Reed-Solomon storage code is designed, protecting against $t$-collusion and handling up to $b$ byzantine and $r$ non-responsive servers, when $n\geq n'= (ν+1) k+t+2b+r-1$, for some integer $ν\geq 1$. This scheme achieves a PIR rate of $1-\frac{k+2b+t+r-1}{n'}$. In the case where the capacity is known, namely when $k=1$, it is asympt…
Private information retrieval (PIR) gets renewed attentions due to its information-theoretic reformulation and its application in distributed storage system (DSS). The general PIR model considers a coded database containing $N$ servers storing $M$ files. Each file is stored independently via the same arbitrary $(N,K)$-MDS code. A user wants to retrieve a specific file from the database privately against an arbitrary set of $T$ colluding servers. A key problem is to analyze the PIR capacity, defined as the maximal number of bits privately retrieved per one downloaded bit. Several extensions for…
In a distributed storage system, private information retrieval (PIR) guarantees that a user retrieves one file from the system without revealing any information about the identity of its interested file to any individual server. In this paper, we investigate $(N,K,M)$ coded sever model of PIR, where each of $M$ files is distributed to the $N$ servers in the form of $(N,K)$ maximum distance separable (MDS) code for some $N>K$ and $M>1$. As a result, we propose a new capacity-achieving $(N,K,M)$ coded linear PIR scheme such that it can be implemented with file length $\frac{K(N-K)}{\gcd(N,K)}$, …
Caching is an efficient way to reduce network traffic congestion during peak hours by storing some content at the user's local cache memory without knowledge of later demands. For the shared-link caching model, Maddah-Ali and Niesen (MAN) proposed a two-phase (placement and delivery) coded caching strategy, which is order optimal within a constant factor. However, in the MAN coded caching scheme, each user can obtain the information about the demands of other users, i.e., the MAN coded caching scheme is inherently prone to tampering and spying the activity/demands of other users. In this paper…
Edge computing is emerging as a new paradigm to allow processing data near the edge of the network, where the data is typically generated and collected. This enables critical computations at the edge in applications such as Internet of Things (IoT), in which an increasing number of devices (sensors, cameras, health monitoring devices, etc.) collect data that needs to be processed through computationally intensive algorithms with stringent reliability, security and latency constraints. Our key tool is the theory of coded computation, which advocates mixing data in computationally intensive task…
The problem of $X$-secure $T$-private information retrieval from MDS coded storage is studied in this paper, where the user wishes to privately retrieve one out of $K$ independent messages that are distributed over $N$ servers according to an MDS code. It is guaranteed that any group of up to $X$ colluding servers learn nothing about the messages and that any group of up to $T$ colluding servers learn nothing about the identity of desired message. A lower bound of achievable rates is proved by presenting a novel scheme based on \emph{cross-subspace alignment} and a successive decoding with int…
This work investigates a system where each user aims to retrieve a scalar linear function of the files of a library, which are Maximum Distance Separable coded and stored at multiple distributed servers. The system needs to guarantee robust decoding in the sense that each user must decode its demanded function with signals received from any subset of servers whose cardinality exceeds a threshold. In addition, (a) the content of the library must be kept secure from a wiretapper who obtains all the signals from the servers;(b) any subset of users together can not obtain any information about the…
In this work, two practical concepts related to private information retrieval (PIR) are introduced and coined full support-rank PIR and strongly linear PIR. Being of full support-rank is a technical, yet natural condition required to prove a converse result for a capacity expression and satisfied by almost all currently known capacity-achieving schemes, while strong linearity is a practical requirement enabling implementation over small finite fields with low subpacketization degree. Then, the capacity of MDS-coded, linear, full support-rank PIR in the presence of colluding servers is derived,…
We consider constructing capacity-achieving linear codes with minimum message size for private information retrieval (PIR) from $N$ non-colluding databases, where each message is coded using maximum distance separable (MDS) codes, such that it can be recovered from accessing the contents of any $T$ databases. It is shown that the minimum message size (sometimes also referred to as the sub-packetization factor) is significantly, in fact exponentially, lower than previously believed. More precisely, when $K>T/\textbf{gcd}(N,T)$ where $K$ is the total number of messages in the system and $\textbf…
This paper considers the problem of single-server single-message private information retrieval with coded side information (PIR-CSI). In this problem, there is a server storing a database, and a user which knows a linear combination of a subset of messages in the database as a side information. The number of messages contributing to the side information is known to the server, but the indices and the coefficients of these messages are unknown to the server. The user wishes to download a message from the server privately, i.e., without revealing which message it is requesting, while minimizing …
Private information retrieval (PIR) is the problem of privately retrieving one out of $M$ original files from $N$ severs, i.e., each individual server learns nothing about the file that the user is requesting. Usually, the $M$ files are replicated or encoded by a maximum distance separable (MDS) code and then stored across the $N$ servers. Compared to mere replication, MDS coded servers can significantly reduce the storage overhead. Particularly, PIR from minimum storage regenerating (MSR) coded servers can simultaneously reduce the repair bandwidth when repairing failed servers. Existing PIR …
We study private information retrieval (PIR) on coded data with possibly colluding servers. Devising PIR schemes with optimal download rate in the case of collusion and coded data is still open in general. We provide a lifting operation that can transform what we call one-shot PIR schemes for two messages into schemes for any number of messages. We apply this lifting operation on existing PIR schemes and describe two immediate implications. First, we obtain novel PIR schemes with improved download rate in the case of MDS coded data and server collusion. Second, we provide a simplified descript…
Improved Characterization of the Memory-Rate Tradeoff for Demand-Private Coded Caching With Multiple Demands
School of Information Science and Engineering, Southeast University（东南大学信息科学与工程学院）；National Mobile Communications Research Laboratory, Southeast University（东南大学移动通信国家重点实验室）
In this paper, we consider the multi-server setting of Private Information Retrieval with Private Coded Side Information (PIR-PCSI) problem. In this problem, there is a database of $K$ messages whose copies are replicated across $N$ servers, and there is a user who knows a random linear combination of a random subset of $M$ messages in the database as side information. The user wishes to download one message from the servers, while protecting the identities of both the demand message and the messages forming the side information. We assume that the servers know the number of messages forming t…
In this paper, we study the problem of \emph{private and secure distributed matrix multiplication (PSDMM)}, where a user having a private matrix $A$ and $N$ non-colluding servers sharing a library of $L$ ($L>1$) matrices $B^{(0)}, B^{(1)},\ldots,B^{(L-1)}$, for which the user wishes to compute $AB^{(θ)}$ for some $θ\in [0, L)$ without revealing any information of the matrix $A$ to the servers, and keeping the index $θ$ private to the servers. Previous work is limited to the case that the shared library (\textit{i.e.,} the matrices $B^{(0)}, B^{(1)},\ldots,B^{(L-1)}$) is stored across the serve…
We study two problems of private matrix multiplication, over a distributed computing system consisting of a master node, and multiple servers that collectively store a family of public matrices using Maximum-Distance-Separable (MDS) codes. In the first problem of Private and Secure Matrix Multiplication (PSMM) from colluding servers, the master intends to compute the product of its confidential matrix $\mathbf{A}$ with a target matrix stored on the servers, without revealing any information about $\mathbf{A}$ and the index of target matrix to some colluding servers. In the second problem of Fu…
The problem of symmetric private information retrieval (SPIR) from a coded database which is distributively stored among colluding servers is studied. Specifically, the database comprises $K$ files, which are stored among $N$ servers using an $(N,M)$-MDS storage code. A user wants to retrieve one file from the database by communicating with the $N$ servers, without revealing the identity of the desired file to any server. Furthermore, the user shall learn nothing about the other $K-1$ files in the database. In the $T$-colluding SPIR problem (hence called TSPIR), any $T$ out of $N$ servers may …
The problem of Multi-user Blind $X$-secure $T$-colluding Symmetric Private Information Retrieval from Maximum Distance Separable (MDS) coded storage system with $B$ Byzantine and $U$ unresponsive servers (U-B-MDS-MB-XTSPIR) is studied in this paper. Specifically, a database consisting of multiple files, each labeled by $M$ indices, is stored at the distributed system with $N$ servers according to $(N,K+X)$ MDS codes over $\mathbb{F}_q$ such that any group of up to $X$ colluding servers learn nothing about the data files. There are $M$ users, in which each user $m,m=1,\ldots,M$ privately select…
The problem of providing privacy, in the private information retrieval (PIR) sense, to users requesting data from a distributed storage system (DSS), is considered. The DSS is coded by an $(n,k,d)$ Maximum Distance Separable (MDS) code to store the data reliably on unreliable storage nodes. Some of these nodes can be spies which report to a third party, such as an oppressive regime, which data is being requested by the user. An information theoretic PIR scheme ensures that a user can satisfy its request while revealing, to the spy nodes, no information on which data is being requested. A user …
Tensor operations, such as matrix multiplication, are central to large-scale machine learning applications. For user-driven tasks these operations can be carried out on a distributed computing platform with a master server at the user side and multiple workers in the cloud operating in parallel. For distributed platforms, it has been recently shown that coding over the input data matrices can reduce the computational delay, yielding a trade-off between recovery threshold and communication load. In this paper we impose an additional security constraint on the data matrices and assume that worke…
In the coded caching problem, as originally formulated by Maddah-Ali and Niesen, a server communicates via a noiseless shared broadcast link to multiple users that have local storage capability. In order for a user to decode its demanded file from the coded multicast transmission, the demands of all the users must be globally known, which may violate the privacy of the users. To overcome this privacy problem, Wan and Caire recently proposed several schemes that attain coded multicasting gain while simultaneously guarantee information theoretic privacy of the users' demands. In Device-to-Device…
Centralized coded caching problem is studied for the two-user scenario, considering heterogeneous cache capacities at the users and private channels from the server to the users, in addition to a shared channel. Optimal caching and delivery strategies that minimize the worst-case delivery latency are presented for an arbitrary number of files. The converse proof follows from the sufficiency of file-index-symmetric caching and delivery codes, while the achievability is obtained through memory-sharing among a number of special memory capacity pairs. The optimal scheme is shown to exploit the pri…
Private Information Retrieval from Joint Systematic MDS-Coded with Non-Colluding Servers: Bounds and Constructions
School of Information Science and Engineering, Shandong Agricultural University（山东农业大学信息科学与工程学院）；State Key Laboratory of Cryptography and Digital Economy Security, Shandong University（山东大学密码与数字经济安全国家重点实验室）；Key Laboratory of Cryptologic Technology and Information Security, Ministry of Education, Shandong University（山东大学教育部密码技术与信息安全重点实验室）；School of Cyber Science and Technology, Shandong University（山东大学网络空间安全学院）
