String data are often disseminated to support applications such as location-based service provision or DNA sequence analysis. This dissemination, however, may expose sensitive patterns that model confidential knowledge (e.g., trips to mental health clinics from a string representing a user’s location history). In this paper, we consider the problem of sanitizing a string by concealing the occurrences of sensitive patterns, while maintaining data utility. First, we propose a time-optimal algorithm, TFS-ALGO, to construct the shortest string preserving the order of appearance and the frequency of all non-sensitive patterns. Such a string allows accurately performing tasks based on the sequential nature and pattern frequencies of the string. Second, we propose a time-optimal algorithm, PFS-ALGO, which preserves a partial order of appearance of non-sensitive patterns but produces a much shorter string that can be analyzed more efficiently. The strings produced by either of these algorithms may reveal the location of sensitive patterns. In response, we propose a heuristic, MCSR-ALGO, which replaces letters in these strings with carefully selected letters, so that sensitive patterns are not reinstated and occurrences of spurious patterns are prevented. We implemented our sanitization approach that applies TFS-ALGO, PFS-ALGO and then MCSR-ALGO and experimentally show that it is effective and efficient.

Bernardini, G., Chen, H., Conte, A., Grossi, R., Loukides, G., Pisanti, N., et al. (2020). String Sanitization: A Combinatorial Approach. In Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics) (pp.627-644). Springer [10.1007/978-3-030-46150-8_37].

String Sanitization: A Combinatorial Approach

Bernardini G.
Primo
;
2020

Abstract

String data are often disseminated to support applications such as location-based service provision or DNA sequence analysis. This dissemination, however, may expose sensitive patterns that model confidential knowledge (e.g., trips to mental health clinics from a string representing a user’s location history). In this paper, we consider the problem of sanitizing a string by concealing the occurrences of sensitive patterns, while maintaining data utility. First, we propose a time-optimal algorithm, TFS-ALGO, to construct the shortest string preserving the order of appearance and the frequency of all non-sensitive patterns. Such a string allows accurately performing tasks based on the sequential nature and pattern frequencies of the string. Second, we propose a time-optimal algorithm, PFS-ALGO, which preserves a partial order of appearance of non-sensitive patterns but produces a much shorter string that can be analyzed more efficiently. The strings produced by either of these algorithms may reveal the location of sensitive patterns. In response, we propose a heuristic, MCSR-ALGO, which replaces letters in these strings with carefully selected letters, so that sensitive patterns are not reinstated and occurrences of spurious patterns are prevented. We implemented our sanitization approach that applies TFS-ALGO, PFS-ALGO and then MCSR-ALGO and experimentally show that it is effective and efficient.
paper
string sanitization, combinatorial algorithms
English
European Conference on Machine Learning and Principles and Practice of Knowledge Discovery in Databases, ECML PKDD 2019
2019
Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
9783030461492
2020
11906
627
644
none
Bernardini, G., Chen, H., Conte, A., Grossi, R., Loukides, G., Pisanti, N., et al. (2020). String Sanitization: A Combinatorial Approach. In Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics) (pp.627-644). Springer [10.1007/978-3-030-46150-8_37].
File in questo prodotto:
Non ci sono file associati a questo prodotto.

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/10281/277035
Citazioni
  • Scopus 9
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? 0
Social impact