In data publishing, the owner delegates the role of satisfying user queries to a third-party publisher. As the servers of the publisher may be untrusted or susceptible to attacks, we cannot assume that they would always process queries correctly, hence there is a need for users to authenticate their query answers.
This book introduces various notions that the research community has studied for defining the correctness of a query answer. In particular, it is important to guarantee the completeness, authenticity and minimality of the answer, as well as its freshness. We present authentication mechanisms for a wide variety of queries in the context of relational and spatial databases, text retrieval, and data streams. We also explain the cryptographic protocols from which the authentication mechanisms derive their security properties.
Table of Contents: Introduction / Cryptography Foundation / Relational Queries / Spatial Queries / Text Search Queries / Data Streams / Conclusion
Table of Contents
Introduction
Cryptography Foundation
Relational Queries
Spatial Queries
Text Search Queries
Data Streams
Conclusion
About the Author(s)
HweeHwa Pang, Singapore Management University
Tan Kian-Lee, National University of Singapore
Reviews
Query response authentication focuses on defining the correctness of a query’s answer. It considers the query response in terms of completeness and authenticity, among other things. For example, a query response about the research of a particular climate scientist should provide a complete listing of the scientist’s work, and the response should be similar to what would be given by the scientist himself.
Pang and Tan have put together a sound and thorough discussion of query response authentication. The book is well organized and flows nicely. I found it easy to follow.
To a large degree, the authors bring a quality management focus to query processing and authentication, highlighting several emerging trends that are worth pursuing. Query execution assurance, queries with encrypted data, and data publishing models are examined…the authors have provided an excellent bibliography on the topic. Their diagrams are easy to follow and appropriately placed. This is a good publication for researchers and teachers of database management and query techniques.
Robert M. Lynch – ACM Computing Reviews
