Deceptive Information Retrieval

TL;DR

This paper introduces deceptive information retrieval (DIR), a method extending private information retrieval (PIR) to include deception, by manipulating database predictions through real and dummy queries, especially in time-sensitive data scenarios.

Contribution

The paper proposes a novel DIR scheme that extends PIR by incorporating deception via dummy queries, achieving capacity when deception is zero.

Findings

The DIR scheme achieves capacity when deception is zero.

The scheme effectively manipulates database predictions using dummy queries.

It operates on time-sensitive, continuously updating data.

Abstract

We introduce the problem of deceptive information retrieval (DIR), in which a user wishes to download a required file out of multiple independent files stored in a system of databases while \emph{deceiving} the databases by making the databases' predictions on the user-required file index incorrect with high probability. Conceptually, DIR is an extension of private information retrieval (PIR). In PIR, a user downloads a required file without revealing its index to any of the databases. The metric of deception is defined as the probability of error of databases' prediction on the user-required file, minus the corresponding probability of error in PIR. The problem is defined on time-sensitive data that keeps updating from time to time. In the proposed scheme, the user deceives the databases by sending \emph{real} queries to download the required file at the time of the requirement and \emph{dummy} queries at multiple distinct future time instances to manipulate the probabilities of sending each query for each file requirement, using which the databases' make the predictions on the user-required file index. The proposed DIR scheme is based on a capacity achieving probabilistic PIR scheme, and achieves rates lower than the PIR capacity due to the additional downloads made to deceive the databases. When the required level of deception is zero, the proposed scheme achieves the PIR capacity.