Oblivious algebraic data types

Abstract

Secure computation allows multiple parties to compute joint functions over private data without leaking any sensitive data, typically using powerful cryptographic techniques. Writing secure applications using these techniques directly can be challenging, resulting in the development of several programming languages and compilers that aim to make secure computation accessible. Unfortunately, many of these languages either lack or have limited support for rich recursive data structures, like trees. In this paper, we propose a novel representation of structured data types, which we call oblivious algebraic data types, and a language for writing secure computations using them. This language combines dependent types with constructs for oblivious computation, and provides a security-type system which ensures that adversaries can learn nothing more than the result of a computation. Using this language, authors can write a single function over private data, and then easily build an equivalent secure computation according to a desired public view of their data.