Concepts inMore efficient oblivious transfer and extensions for faster secure computation

Secure multi-party computation

Secure multi-party computation (also known as secure computation or multi-party computation) is a sub field of cryptography. The goal of methods for secure multi-party computation is to enable parties to jointly compute a function over their inputs, while at the same time keeping these inputs private. For example, two millionaires can compute which one is richer, but without revealing their net worth. In fact, this very example was initially suggested by Andrew C. Yao in a 1982 paper.  more from Wikipedia

Oblivious transfer

In cryptography, an oblivious transfer protocol (often abbreviated OT) is a type of protocol in which a sender transfers one of potentially many pieces of information to a receiver, but remains oblivious as to what piece (if any) has been transferred. The first form of oblivious transfer was introduced in 1981 by Michael O. Rabin.  more from Wikipedia

Symmetric-key algorithm

Symmetric-key algorithms are a class of algorithms for cryptography that use the same cryptographic keys for both encryption of plaintext and decryption of ciphertext. The keys may be identical or there may be a simple transformation to go between the two keys. The keys, in practice, represent a shared secret between two or more parties that can be used to maintain a private information link.  more from Wikipedia

Communication complexity

The notion of communication complexity was introduced by Yao in 1979, who investigated the following problem involving two separated parties. Alice receives an n-bit string x and Bob another n-bit string y, and the goal is for one of them (say Bob) to compute a certain function f(x,y) with the least amount of communication between them. Note that here we are not concerned about the number of computational steps, or the size of the computer memory used.  more from Wikipedia

Public-key cryptography

Public-key cryptography refers to a cryptographic system requiring two separate keys, one to lock or encrypt the plaintext, and one to unlock or decrypt the cyphertext. Neither key will do both functions. One of these keys is published or public and the other is kept private. If the lock/encryption key is the one published then the system enables private communication from the public to the unlocking key's owner.  more from Wikipedia

Communications protocol

A communications protocol is a system of digital message formats and rules for exchanging those messages in or between computing systems and in telecommunications. A protocol may have a formal description. Protocols may include signaling, authentication and error detection and correction capabilities. A protocol definition defines the syntax, semantics, and synchronization of communication; the specified behavior is typically independent of how it is to be implemented.  more from Wikipedia

Levenshtein distance

In information theory and computer science, the Levenshtein distance is a string metric for measuring the amount of difference between two sequences. The term edit distance is often used to refer specifically to Levenshtein distance. The Levenshtein distance between two strings is defined as the minimum number of edits needed to transform one string into the other, with the allowable edit operations being insertion, deletion, or substitution of a single character.  more from Wikipedia

Scalability

In electronics scalability is the ability of a system, network, or process, to handle growing amount of work in a capable manner or its ability to be enlarged to accommodate that growth. For example, it can refer to the capability of a system to increase total throughput under an increased load when resources (typically hardware) are added.  more from Wikipedia