Querying Databases Privately: A New Approach to Private Information Retrieval: 3128 (Lecture Notes in Computer Science) - Softcover

Reseña del editor

The Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW) play an increasingly imp- tant role in our today's activities. More and more we use the Web to buy goods and to inform ourselves about cultural, political, economical, medical, and scienti?c developments. For example, accessing ?ight schedules, me- cal data, or retrieving stock information become common practice in today's world. Many people assume that there is no one who "watches" them when accessing this data. However,sensitive userswho accesselectronic shops(e-shops) might have observedthat this assumptionoften isnot true. In many cases,E-shopstrack the users'"accessbehavior"when browsingthe Web pagesof the e-shopthus deriving "accesspatterns" for individual shoppers. Therefore,this knowledge on access behavior and access patters allows the system to tailor access to Webpagesforthatusertohis/herspeci?cneedsinthefuture.Thistrackingof usersmightbeconsideredharmlessand"acceptable"inmanycases.However, in cases when this information is used to harm a person - for example about the person's health problems - or to violate his/her privacy (for example ?nding out about his/her ?nancial situation), he/she would like to be sure that such tracking is impossible to protect the user's rights.

Reseña del editor

The Internet and the worldwide web play an increasingly important role in our private and professional activities, for example in accessing information about cultural, political, economical, medical or scientific information. Many people assume that they can access such information privately.

This book addresses the topic of querying information privately in a systematic and comprehensive way, developing practical solutions in the context of database systems. Based on thorough theoretical analyses, the author develops concepts for solutions of real-world settings, in particular for scalable database systems.