Path privacy preservation using threshold secret sharing via distributed obfuscators in directions search

Abstract

On directions search, a frequently used mobile service, the path queries of a user may reveal the user private information, e.g., heath status, to service provider. In this paper, we propose a path privacy preservation mechanism utilizing K-threshold secret sharing through distributed obfuscators against directions search provider. A user randomly selects a set of K obfuscators in a pool of obfuscators. The obfuscators have a role in generating obfuscated path queries and querying them to a search server. They sign the query results with their partial secret and return them to the user. The user can verify the signed results and filter the results of the real query. Our proposed mechanism addresses the problem of one point of failure for an obfuscator and collusion attacks. Processing overhead can be controlled by managing the K value of partial secret share or the number of obfuscated queries, or clustering the obfuscated queries.