Communication Optimal Unbalanced Private Set Union

Abstract

We consider the private set union (PSU) problem, where two parties each hold a private set of elements, and they want one of the parties (the receiver) to learn the union of the two sets and nothing else. Our protocols are targeted for the unbalanced case where the receiver's set size is larger than the sender's set size, with the goal of minimizing the costs for the sender both in terms of communication volume and local computation time. This setting is motivated by applications where the receiver has significantly more data (input set size) and computational resources than the sender which might be realized on a small, low-power device. Asymptotically, we achieve communication cost linear in the sender's (smaller) set size, and computation costs for sender and receiver which are nearly-linear in their respective set sizes. To our knowledge, ours is the first algorithm to achieve nearly-linear communication and computation for PSU in this unbalanced setting. Our protocols utilize fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) and, optionally, linearly homomorphic encryption (LHE) to perform the necessary computations while preserving privacy. The underlying computations are based on univariate polynomial arithmetic realized within homomorphic encryption, namely fast multiplication, modular reduction, and multi-point evaluation. These asymptotically fast HE polynomial arithmetic algorithms may be of independent interest.