Private Internet Search Is Still Finding Its Way

Private Internet Search Is Still Finding Its Way

May 1, 2024 at 07:43PM

Private internet search technology like queryable encryption and generative AI with secure enclaves offer promising solutions for balancing speed and security. Companies like MongoDB, Fortanix, and Duality are developing advanced search capabilities, allowing encrypted queries and secure retrieval of data, addressing the critical need for data privacy in today’s regulatory environment.

From the meeting notes, it is clear that the focus was on various companies and their efforts to develop and advance private, secure search technologies. Here are the key takeaways:

1. Private Search Technologies:
– Companies are working to create a truly private Internet search, allowing databases to be queried while preserving search term and result privacy. The challenge lies in balancing speed and security.
– Efforts are being directed towards integrating encryption and secure enclaves to ensure that no data is exposed during the querying, retrieval, and transit process.

2. MongoDB & Queryable Encryption:
– MongoDB has introduced queryable encryption in its latest version, MongoDB 7.0, enabling exact match and range searches while keeping the database completely encrypted.

3. Fortanix & Generative AI:
– Fortanix is focusing on secure search offerings using generative AI, aiming to protect the AI query prompts and the augmented retrieval process. Their technology is based on confidential computing, ensuring the secure transportation and processing of data within hardware-based secure enclaves.

4. Duality & Lattice-Based Encryption:
– Duality is developing a security layer based on lattice-based encryption, enabling computation on encrypted data and providing a performance advantage over widely used AES.

5. Private Search Challenges:
– While encryption and data privacy algorithms are vital, the challenge lies in how data is processed and exposed during search query computation.
– The complexity of modern computing stack, including CPUs, GPUs, and memory, poses challenges in ensuring truly private Internet search implementations.

The meeting notes emphasize the different approaches and technologies being developed to achieve truly private Internet search, with a focus on encryption, secure enclaves, and confidential computing. The challenge of proving and implementing truly private search in practice was also acknowledged.

Full Article