Non-Interactive Multi-Client Searchable Encryption: Realization and Implementation

• Published in: IEEE transactions on dependable and secure computing Vol. 19; no. 1; pp. 452 - 467
• Main Authors: Sun, Shi-Feng, Zuo, Cong, Liu, Joseph K., Sakzad, Amin, Steinfeld, Ron, Yuen, Tsz Hon, Yuan, Xingliang, Gu, Dawu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington IEEE 01.01.2022; IEEE Computer Society
• Subjects: Boolean algebra; Clients; constrained PRF; Data outsourcing; data privacy; Encryption; multi-client; non-interaction; Protocol; Protocols; Queries; searchable encryption; Servers; Sun
• DOI: 10.1109/TDSC.2020.2973633
• ISSN: 1545-5971

In this article, we introduce a new mechanism for constructing multi-client searchable encryption (SE). By tactfully leveraging the RSA-function, we propose the first multi-client SE protocol that successfully avoids per-query interaction between data owner and client. Therefore, our approach significantly reduces the communication cost by eliminating the need for data owner to authorize client queries at all times. To be compatible with the RSA-based approach, we also present a deterministic and memory-efficient 'keyword to prime' hash function, which may be of independent interest. Further, to improve efficiency, we put forward a more generic construction from set-constrained PRFs. The construction not only inherits the merits of our first protocol, but also achieves an enhanced security (against untrusted clients), where colluding attack among clients is also taken into account. Both protocols are instantiated via the recent representative SE protocol by Cash et al. with the support of boolean queries. At last, we implement our proposed protocols and comprehensively evaluate their performance to demonstrate their practicability and scalability.