Double Blind $T$-Private Information Retrieval

Abstract: Double blind $T$-private information retrieval (DB-TPIR) enables two users, each of whom specifies an index ($\theta_1, \theta_2$, resp.), to efficiently retrieve a message $W(\theta_1,\theta_2)$ labeled by the two indices, from a set of $N$ servers that store all messages $W(k_1,k_2), k_1\in{1,2,\cdots,K_1}, k_2\in{1,2,\cdots,K_2}$, such that the two users' indices are kept private from any set of up to $T_1,T_2$ colluding servers, respectively, as well as from each other. A DB-TPIR scheme based on cross-subspace alignment is proposed in this paper, and shown to be capacity-achieving in the asymptotic setting of large number of messages and bounded latency. The scheme is then extended to $M$-way blind $X$-secure $T$-private information retrieval (MB-XS-TPIR) with multiple ($M$) indices, each belonging to a different user, arbitrary privacy levels for each index ($T_1, T_2,\cdots, T_M$), and arbitrary level of security ($X$) of data storage, so that the message $W(\theta_1,\theta_2,\cdots, \theta_M)$ can be efficiently retrieved while the stored data is held secure against collusion among up to $X$ colluding servers, the $m^{th}$ user's index is private against collusion among up to $T_m$ servers, and each user's index $\theta_m$ is private from all other users. The general scheme relies on a tensor-product based extension of cross-subspace alignment and retrieves $1-(X+T_1+\cdots+T_M)/N$ bits of desired message per bit of download.