Uniform search system and method for selectively sharing distributed access-controlled documents

• US 7,711,727 B2
• Filed: 04/03/2008
• Issued: 05/04/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/08/2003
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Bawa, Mayank, Agrawal, Rakesh, Bayardo, Roberto J.
• Primary Examiner(s): LEWIS, CHERYL RENEA
• Application Number:
  US12/061,698
• Publication Number:
  US 20080183703A1
• Time in Patent Office: 761 Days
• Field of Search: 707/3, 707/10, 707/102, 707/104.1, 707/100, 715/200
• US Class Current: 707/711
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/335 Filtering based on additional data, e.g. user or group profiles filtering in web context G06F16/9535, G06F16/9536
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/337 Profile generation, learning or modification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9538 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6245 Protecting personal data, e.g. for financial or medical purposes
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

A privacy-preserving index system addresses the problem of providing a privacy-preserving search over distributed access-controlled content. Indexed documents can be readily reconstructed from inverted indexes used in the search. The privacy-preserving index system builds a centralized privacy-preserving index in conjunction with a distributed access-control enforcing search protocol. The privacy-preserving index utilizes a randomized algorithm for constructing a privacy-preserving index. The privacy-preserving index is strongly resilient to privacy breaches. The privacy-preserving index system allows content providers to maintain complete control in defining access groups and ensuring its compliance, and further allows system implementors to retain tunable knobs to balance privacy and efficiency concerns for their particular domains.

Claims

1. A computer program product having a plurality of executable instruction codes stored on a computer readable medium, for selectively sharing a plurality of distributed access-controlled documents, comprising:

a plurality of content providers comprising a set of instruction codes for cooperating to create a privacy-preserving index structure;

a set of instruction codes for grouping the content providers into a plurality of privacy groups;

a set of instruction codes for passing a content vector from a first content provider in a privacy group of the plurality of privacy groups to a second content provider in the privacy group of the plurality of privacy groups;

a set of instruction codes for enabling the first and second content providers to operate on the content vector with a randomized algorithm;

a set of instruction codes for sending a plurality of content vectors to a designated host, each content vector of the plurality of content vectors corresponding to a respective privacy group of the plurality of privacy groups;

a set of instruction codes for aggregating the plurality of content vectors into a materialized index comprising the privacy-preserving index structure;

the privacy-preserving index structure comprising a set of instruction codes for mapping a plurality of keywords representing a content to be shared to the plurality of content providers; and

a set of instruction codes for returning a list of the content providers having a subset of the content to be shared of the access-controlled documents that comprise a set of the keywords that satisfy a query.

2. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the content providers comprise a set of instruction codes for receiving the query and for authenticating a searcher.

3. The computer program product of claim 2, further comprising the searcher submitting the query containing at least one of the keywords to the privacy-preserving index structure.

4. A processor-implemented system for selectively sharing a plurality of distributed access-controlled documents, comprising:

a plurality of content providers that cooperate to create a privacy-preserving index structure;

means for grouping the content providers into a plurality of privacy groups;

means for passing a content vector from a first content provider in a privacy group of the plurality of privacy groups to a second content provider in the privacy group of the plurality of privacy groups;

means for enabling the first and second content providers to operate on the content vector with a randomized algorithm;

means for sending a plurality of content vectors to a designated host, each content vector of the plurality of content vectors corresponding to a respective privacy group of the plurality of privacy groups;

means for aggregating the plurality of content vectors into a materialized index comprising the privacy-preserving index structure;

means for the privacy-preserving index structure mapping a plurality of keywords representing a content to be shared to the plurality of content providers; and

means for returning a list of the content providers having a subset of the content to be shared of the access-controlled documents that comprise a set of the keywords that satisfy a query.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the content providers comprise a provider specific search interface for receiving the query and for authenticating a searcher.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the searcher submits the query containing at least one of the keywords to the privacy-preserving index structure.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein on receiving the query, at least some of the content providers return a list of filtered documents.