Secure collaboration using Slepian-Wolf codes

The problem of secure collaboration between two agents, A and B, with limited mutual trust is considered. Specifically, we consider a formulation wherein agent A would like to share information with agent B but only if B has correlated information. Our solution is based on the principles of source coding with decoder-only side information. The key idea is that agent A can encode its information by using a Slepian-Wolf code at a rate which enables agent B to correctly decode only if the information which B has satisfies a conditional entropy constraint. Furthermore, our solution allows the two agents to interact and negotiate the rate on the fly. It is shown that such interaction not only reduces the transmission rate, but also allows secure collaboration to be established even when neither agent knows the joint statistics of their information. Finally, we demonstrate the utility of our solution in a simple medical imaging application.