Fast and Private Online Search is Now Possible

Programmers have developed an algorithm for secure information search on the Internet. Even the server hosting the database cannot find out what the user is looking for.

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Workers at MIT Developed it

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have unveiled a search method that protects query data from third-party observers and users from unnecessary advertising and data leaks. The proposed algorithm works 30 times faster than analogs. Searching the web leads to the disclosure of information that users would prefer to keep private. For example, when someone searches online for medical symptoms or the name of a disease, health data is shared with the search engine, hundreds of advertisers and corporate partners. To prevent data disclosure, MIT has proposed using a new search method. It creates a query in such a way that even the server where the database resides doesn't know what the user is searching for.

The problem is that when there are millions or even billions of records in the database, this will take a significant amount of time. The proposed search technology is based on the Simple PIR protocol. In this case, the pre-processing step creates a data structure containing compressed information about the contents of the database, which the client loads before sending the request. This structure is a clue to the client about what is in the database. After that, you can execute queries on all elements of one of the segments of the structure. Programmers have shown that by using this approach multiple times (i.e., creating a compressed hint for a clue, etc.), the significant network overhead associated with transmitting the "hint" from the server to the user can be avoided and still ensure anonymity. At the same time, search speed was increased by a factor of 30 compared to other private search solutions.