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We introduce the problem of deceptive information retrieval (DIR), in which a user wishes to download a required file out of multiple independent files stored in a system of databases while \emph{deceiving} the databases by making the…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2023-07-11 Sajani Vithana , Sennur Ulukus

In the classical private information retrieval (PIR) setup, a user wants to retrieve a file from a database or a distributed storage system (DSS) without revealing the file identity to the servers holding the data. In the quantum PIR (QPIR)…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2020-08-10 Matteo Allaix , Lukas Holzbaur , Tefjol Pllaha , Camilla Hollanti

In the conventional robust $T$-colluding private information retrieval (PIR) system, the user needs to retrieve one of the possible messages while keeping the identity of the requested message private from any $T$ colluding servers.…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2021-12-13 Ruida Zhou , Chao Tian , Hua Sun , James Plank

In recent years, the Multi-message Private Information Retrieval (MPIR) problem has received significant attention from the research community. In this problem, a user wants to privately retrieve $D$ messages out of $K$ messages whose…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2022-08-30 Ningze Wang , Anoosheh Heidarzadeh , Alex Sprintson

We introduce the problem of private computation, comprised of $N$ distributed and non-colluding servers, $K$ independent datasets, and a user who wants to compute a function of the datasets privately, i.e., without revealing which function…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2017-11-28 Hua Sun , Syed A. Jafar

In the classical private information retrieval (PIR) setup, a user wants to retrieve a file from a database or a distributed storage system (DSS) without revealing the file identity to the servers holding the data. In the quantum PIR (QPIR)…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2021-05-11 Matteo Allaix , Lukas Holzbaur , Tefjol Pllaha , Camilla Hollanti

This paper introduces a generalization of the Private Information Retrieval with Side Information (PIR-SI) problem called Popularity-Aware PIR-SI (PA-PIR-SI). The PA-PIR-SI problem includes one or more remote servers storing copies of a…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2022-05-17 Alejandro Gomez-Leos , Anoosheh Heidarzadeh

We rethink the definition of privacy in multi-server, graph-replicated private information retrieval (PIR) systems, and introduce a novel setting where the user's privacy is governed by the servers' storage structure. In particular, while…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2026-05-12 Shreya Meel , Mohamed Nomeir , Sennur Ulukus

Private information retrieval (PIR) is a protocol that guarantees the privacy of a user who is in communication with databases. The user wants to download one of the messages stored in the databases while hiding the identity of the desired…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2021-05-19 Jun-Woo Tak , Sang-Hyo Kim , Yongjune Kim , Jong-Seon No

We study the symmetric private information retrieval (SPIR) problem under arbitrary collusion and eavesdropping patterns for replicated databases. We find its capacity, which is the same as the capacity of the original SPIR problem with the…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2020-10-19 Jiale Cheng , Nan Liu , Wei Kang

We consider the problem of designing a Private Information Retrieval (PIR) scheme on $m$ files replicated on $k$ servers that can collude or, even worse, can return incorrect answers. Our goal is to correctly retrieve a specific message…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2023-05-08 Stanislav Kruglik , Son Hoang Dau , Han Mao Kiah , Huaxiong Wang

Suppose there are $N$ distributed databases each storing a full set of $M$ independent files. A user wants to retrieve $r$ out of the $M$ files without revealing the identity of the $r$ files. When $r=1$ it is the classic problem of private…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2017-04-12 Zhifang Zhang , Jingke Xu

We study the problem of semantic private information retrieval (Sem-PIR) with $T$ colluding servers (Sem-TPIR), i.e., servers that collectively share user queries. In Sem-TPIR, the message sizes are different, and message retrieval…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2025-07-22 Mohamed Nomeir , Alptug Aytekin , Sennur Ulukus

A private information retrieval (PIR) scheme is a protocol that allows a user to retrieve a file from a database without revealing the identity of the desired file to a curious database. Given a distributed data storage system, efficient…

Information Retrieval · Computer Science 2025-08-08 Camilla Hollanti , Neehar Verma

In many applications, content accessed by users (movies, videos, news articles, etc.) can leak sensitive latent attributes, such as religious and political views, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, and others. To prevent such…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2020-05-15 Islam Samy , Mohamed A. Attia , Ravi Tandon , Loukas Lazos

Multi-server single-message private information retrieval is studied in the presence of side information. In this problem, $K$ independent messages are replicatively stored at $N$ non-colluding servers. The user wants to privately download…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2024-09-10 Su Li , Michael Gastpar

In the problem of cache-aided multiuser private information retrieval (MuPIR), a set of $K_{\rm u}$ cache-equipped users wish to privately download a set of messages from $N$ distributed databases each holding a library of $K$ messages. The…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2021-02-05 Xiang Zhang , Kai Wan , Hua Sun , Mingyue Ji , Giuseppe Caire

This work introduces the \emph{Secure and Private Structured-Subset Retrieval (SPSSR)} problem. In SPSSR, a user wishes to retrieve one subset from an arbitrary family of size-$D$ subsets from $K$ messages replicated across $N$…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2026-05-13 Maha Issa , Anoosheh Heidarzadeh

Private information retrieval (PIR) protocols allow a user to retrieve a data item from a database without revealing any information about the identity of the item being retrieved. Specifically, in information-theoretic $k$-server PIR, the…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2015-05-26 Arman Fazeli , Alexander Vardy , Eitan Yaakobi

We consider the storage problem in an asymmetric $X$-secure private information retrieval (A-XPIR) setting. The A-XPIR setting considers the $X$-secure PIR problem (XPIR) when a given arbitrary set of servers is communicating. We focus on…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2026-01-21 Mohamed Nomeir , Sennur Ulukus