Better Differentially Private Approximate Histograms and Heavy Hitters using the Misra-Gries Sketch

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Lebeda, Christian Janos, Tětek, Jakub
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Lebeda, Christian Janos
Tětek, Jakub
author_facet Lebeda, Christian Janos
Tětek, Jakub
contents We consider the problem of computing differentially private approximate histograms and heavy hitters in a stream of elements. In the non-private setting, this is often done using the sketch of Misra and Gries [Science of Computer Programming, 1982]. Chan, Li, Shi, and Xu [PETS 2012] describe a differentially private version of the Misra-Gries sketch, but the amount of noise it adds can be large and scales linearly with the size of the sketch; the more accurate the sketch is, the more noise this approach has to add. We present a better mechanism for releasing a Misra-Gries sketch under $(\varepsilon,δ)$-differential privacy. It adds noise with magnitude independent of the size of the sketch; in fact, the maximum error coming from the noise is the same as the best known in the private non-streaming setting, up to a constant factor. Our mechanism is simple and likely to be practical. We also give a simple post-processing step of the Misra-Gries sketch that does not increase the worst-case error guarantee. It is sufficient to add noise to this new sketch with less than twice the magnitude of the non-streaming setting. This improves on the previous result for $\varepsilon$-differential privacy where the noise scales linearly to the size of the sketch. Finally, we consider a general setting where users can contribute multiple distinct elements. We present a new sketch with maximum error matching the Misra-Gries sketch. For many parameters in this setting our sketch can be released with less noise under $(\varepsilon, δ)$-differential privacy.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2301_02457
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Better Differentially Private Approximate Histograms and Heavy Hitters using the Misra-Gries Sketch
Lebeda, Christian Janos
Tětek, Jakub
Data Structures and Algorithms
Cryptography and Security
Information Retrieval
We consider the problem of computing differentially private approximate histograms and heavy hitters in a stream of elements. In the non-private setting, this is often done using the sketch of Misra and Gries [Science of Computer Programming, 1982]. Chan, Li, Shi, and Xu [PETS 2012] describe a differentially private version of the Misra-Gries sketch, but the amount of noise it adds can be large and scales linearly with the size of the sketch; the more accurate the sketch is, the more noise this approach has to add. We present a better mechanism for releasing a Misra-Gries sketch under $(\varepsilon,δ)$-differential privacy. It adds noise with magnitude independent of the size of the sketch; in fact, the maximum error coming from the noise is the same as the best known in the private non-streaming setting, up to a constant factor. Our mechanism is simple and likely to be practical. We also give a simple post-processing step of the Misra-Gries sketch that does not increase the worst-case error guarantee. It is sufficient to add noise to this new sketch with less than twice the magnitude of the non-streaming setting. This improves on the previous result for $\varepsilon$-differential privacy where the noise scales linearly to the size of the sketch. Finally, we consider a general setting where users can contribute multiple distinct elements. We present a new sketch with maximum error matching the Misra-Gries sketch. For many parameters in this setting our sketch can be released with less noise under $(\varepsilon, δ)$-differential privacy.
title Better Differentially Private Approximate Histograms and Heavy Hitters using the Misra-Gries Sketch
topic Data Structures and Algorithms
Cryptography and Security
Information Retrieval
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.02457