Secure computation has applications for everything from sharing contacts to sharing medical info
A research team led by the University of Virginia has been awarded a $3M NSF grant to build apps designed to let people work on computations together without sharing sensitive data.
Secure computation would, for example, enable two smartphone users to let their devices figure out which contacts in the users’ address books are common but wouldn’t actually show each user the other’s contact database. U Va., researchers actually have developed an Android app at www.mightbeevil.com that you can check out.statement.
“The way we can do that with secure computation is that we can execute a protocol where the two devices can talk to each other, using cryptography to compute a function on encrypted data. The output of that function is the intersection of all the people they know in common. Both people learn this result, but can’t learn anything else about the address books because this information is encrypted for the entire computation,” says David Evans, an associate professor of computer science in teh School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Virginia, in a
Evans says the “main theoretical ideas” are in place to develop applications that will address more complicated data sharing challenges.
Another practical application for secure computation might be enabling a person with a disease to compare his or her DNA with other patients of the same disease who are undergoing treatments using various drugs. The individual could get a feel for how drugs are affecting others with the same disease, but without revealing his or her identity in association with the DNA.
“Increasingly, people will be able to have their genomes sequenced,” Evans said. “Such data must be kept secure, but if it cannot also be used without compromising privacy, much of its value is lost.”
For more on Network Research follow our Alpha Doggs Facebook page
