Privacy tradeoffs found in dna data retrieval from multiple servers
Sequential Random Sampling PIR with Multiple Colluding Servers in DNA-Based Data Storage
Information Theory
Summary
DNA data storage is a new way to save information by encoding it in DNA molecules. The authors studied how to keep a person's data requests private when retrieving information from several servers that store DNA data. They figured out how much data needs to be downloaded to protect privacy and how much privacy can be lost if less data is downloaded. They also created methods that reach the best possible balance when each server holds two data files.
What this means in practice
- •For data storage engineers: Improve privacy during DNA data retrieval by applying efficient private information retrieval schemes for multiple server setups.
- •For cloud storage providers: Design secure DNA-based storage services that prevent data request leaks even when servers might collaborate.
Authors
Chen Wang, Natalia Silberstein, Eitan Yaakobi
Abstract
As DNA-based data storage evolves, protecting user privacy during data retrieval has become increasingly important. We study sequential random sampling DNA private information retrieval (SRS DNA PIR) with multiple colluding random sampling servers, where the database is partitioned into servers of equal size. We investigate the tradeoff between the download cost, defined as the expected number of queries, and the privacy leakage, measured by mutual information. We derive lower bounds on this tradeoff, including a bound given by an optimization problem. This bound is tight when each server stores two files, and we construct schemes that attain it. For servers of any size, we construct schemes that apply a single-server scheme to a randomly selected subset of servers.