The Capacity of Single-Server Weakly-Private Information Retrieval

• Weakly-private information retrieval (WPIR) is a variant of the private information retrieval problem in which a user wants to efficiently retrieve a file stored across a set of servers while tolerating some information leakage on the identity of the requested file to the servers. In this paper, we consider WPIR from a single-server database where the information leakage is measured in terms of the mutual information (MI) or maximal leakage (MaxL) privacy metrics. In particular, we establish a connection between the WPIR problem and rate-distortion theory, and fully characterize the optimal tradeoff between the download cost and the allowed information leakage under the MI and MaxL metrics, settling the single-server WPIR capacity.

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Elektroteknik och elektronik -- Telekommunikation (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering -- Telecommunications (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap -- Biblioteks- och informationsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Media and Communications -- Information Studies (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Elektroteknik och elektronik -- Kommunikationssystem (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering -- Communication Systems (hsv//eng)

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