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Title: Privacy Leakage in Discrete-Time Updating Systems
A source generates time-stamped update packets that are sent to a server and then forwarded to a monitor. This occurs in the presence of an adversary that can infer information about the source by observing the output process of the server. The server wishes to release updates in a timely way to the monitor but also wishes to minimize the information leaked to the adversary. We analyze the trade-off between the age of information (AoI) and the maximal leakage for systems in which the source generates updates as a Bernoulli process. For a time slotted system in which sending an update requires one slot, we consider three server policies: (1) Memoryless with Bernoulli Thinning (MBT): arriving updates are queued with some probability and head-of-line update is released after a geometric holding time; (2) Deterministic Accumulate-and-Dump (DAD): the most recently generated update (if any) is released after a fixed time; (3) Random Accumulate-and-Dump (RAD): the most recently generated update (if any) is released after a geometric waiting time. We show that for the same maximal leakage rate, the DAD policy achieves lower age compared to the other two policies but is restricted to discrete age-leakage operating points.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1909468 2148104
PAR ID:
10389923
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
2022 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT)
Page Range / eLocation ID:
2076 to 2081
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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