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Swift Homomorphic Encryption

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Re: Swift Homomorphic Encryption

#11

Post by tedunangst »

colmmacc wrote: post #10
tedunangst wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It includes both numbers? That wasn't clear. It sounded like they're just looking up the calling number for fancy caller id. How does the recipient affect the query?

The lookup has to come from your phone, which implicitly discloses you. Encrypting the caller-id symmetrically or asymmetrically wouldn't get privacy, because the receiver would have the decryption key. Hashing it, even with a seed, would be dumb because it's enumerable as you pointed out. But encrypting the entire query does work, because it becomes on a homomorphic search on uniform looking data. So the receiver ha…

Okay, I figure if Apple wanted, they could simply query every number and see which disk blocks get read. But now maybe I'm confused. They read the whole database on every query?

Re: Swift Homomorphic Encryption

#12

Post by MBCook »

bluedevilzn wrote: post #2

This must be the first real world use case of HE. It has generally been considered too slow to do anything useful but this is an excellent use case.

I tried to look homomorphic encryption up casually earlier this year. I saw references that it was being used, but I don’t think they said where.

This is one topic I have a very hard time with, I just don’t know enough math to really grok it.

It just seems crazy a system could operate on encrypted data (which is effectively random noise from the server’s point of view) and return a result that is correctly calculated and encrypted for the client, despite never understanding the data at any point.

I sort of understand the theory (at a very simple level) but my brain doesn’t want to agree.

Re: Swift Homomorphic Encryption

#13

Post by osaariki »

bluedevilzn wrote: post #2

This must be the first real world use case of HE. It has generally been considered too slow to do anything useful but this is an excellent use case.

Edge's Password Monitor feature uses homomorphic encryption to match passwords against a database of leaks without revealing anything about those passwords: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/password-monit... So not the first, but definitely cool to see more adoption!

Re: Swift Homomorphic Encryption

#14

Post by colmmacc »

tedunangst wrote: post #11
colmmacc wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lookup has to come from your phone, which implicitly discloses you. Encrypting the caller-id symmetrically or asymmetrically wouldn't get privacy, because the receiver would have the decryption key. Hashing it, even with a seed, would be dumb because it's enumerable as you pointed out. But encrypting the entire query does work, because it becomes on a homomorphic search on uniform looking data. So the receiver ha…

Okay, I figure if Apple wanted, they could simply query every number and see which disk blocks get read. But now maybe I'm confused. They read the whole database on every query?

My understanding of encrypted search in FHE is that there can be multiple copies of the same search key, and that search keys aren't simply in-place encrypted versions of themselves - as encrypted fields in a database are - but are mappings embedded in a higher dimensional space that is encrypted.

That reads like sci-fi nonsense, but the "on the metal" result is that a search key will translate to a set of memory locations that are combined to determine the match, and a separate query for the same search key will translate to a different (but potentially overlapping) set of memory locations that produce the same result.

Re: Swift Homomorphic Encryption

#15

Post by [deleted] »

MBCook wrote: post #12
bluedevilzn wrote: post #2

This must be the first real world use case of HE. It has generally been considered too slow to do anything useful but this is an excellent use case.

I tried to look homomorphic encryption up casually earlier this year. I saw references that it was being used, but I don’t think they said where. This is one topic I have a very hard time with, I just don’t know enough math to really grok it. It just seems crazy a system could operate on encrypted data (which is effectively random noise from the server’s point of view) and return a result that is correctly calculated…

[deleted]

Re: Swift Homomorphic Encryption

#16

Post by 7e »

bluedevilzn wrote: post #2

This must be the first real world use case of HE. It has generally been considered too slow to do anything useful but this is an excellent use case.

A TEE would be a cheaper and more straightforward solution, though.

Re: Swift Homomorphic Encryption

#18

Post by shortstuffsushi »

gumby wrote: post #5

The name is hilarious because HME is anything but speedy -- by many orders of magnitude. I think the real fix is secure enclaves, and those have proven to be difficult as well.

I think Swift in this case is just referring to the programming language, Swift, and not a characteristic of the encryption library itself

Re: Swift Homomorphic Encryption

#20

Post by dagmx »

osaariki wrote: post #13
bluedevilzn wrote: post #2

This must be the first real world use case of HE. It has generally been considered too slow to do anything useful but this is an excellent use case.

Edge's Password Monitor feature uses homomorphic encryption to match passwords against a database of leaks without revealing anything about those passwords: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/password-monit... So not the first, but definitely cool to see more adoption!

I believe Safari does the same as well, so not even technically the first at Apple if I’m correct?
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