Probabilistic Set Membership via Partial Prefix Matching
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Solution Overview
Problem
Data breaches expose user credentials, and existing methods to check if credentials have been compromised may lead to additional breaches or leaks, raising privacy concerns and the risk of false positives.
Innovation Solution
A method that allows users to generate a cryptographic hash of their credentials, which can be compared with a database of hashes, providing a probabilistic determination of set membership by querying a portion of the hash, thereby minimizing data exposure and reducing false positives through prefix matching.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If users provide credentials to check for breaches, then credential verification is improved, but user privacy and security are worsened due to additional exposure risk
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the necessary portion (prefix) of the cryptographic hash for comparison with breach databases, rather than submitting or storing the full credential or complete hash. This extraction approach verifies credential compromise status while minimizing the amount of user data that could be exposed in any potential breach of the verification system.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces cryptographic hash functions as an intermediary mechanism between user credentials and breach databases. Instead of directly comparing plain text credentials with breach data, the system transforms credentials into hash values and further into prefix representations, creating layers of abstraction that protect user privacy while enabling verification functionality.
2Measurement precision
If complete cryptographic hashes are stored and compared, then verification accuracy is improved, but data exposure and false positives are worsened
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies partial action by using only a portion (prefix) of the cryptographic hash for database comparison rather than the complete hash value. This partial matching approach reduces the search space and minimizes false positives while maintaining sufficient verification accuracy for breach detection purposes.
3Reliability
If full credentials are submitted for verification, then detection completeness is improved, but privacy protection is worsened
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts and processes only the essential identifying portion of credential data through cryptographic hashing and prefix selection, discarding or protecting the remainder. This allows the system to maintain detection completeness for breach identification while minimizing the retention and transmission of sensitive user information.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses cryptographic hash copies of credentials instead of the actual credential data itself. These hash representations serve as proxies that enable verification functionality while preventing direct exposure of sensitive user information like passwords or personal identifiers.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for user credential location using prefix matching is described. In one embodiment, the method may include enabling a user to generate remotely a cryptographic hash of a user credential of the user, receiving a portion of the cryptographic hash from the user, comparing the portion of the cryptographic hash with a plurality of cryptographic hashes of user credentials stored at a database, determining whether a match exists between the portion of the cryptographic hash and at least one of the plurality of cryptographic hashes, and transmitting a notification to the user indicating whether the user credential is stored at the database based at least in part on a result of the comparing.