On the Capacity and Straggler-Robustness of Distributed Secure Matrix Multiplication

Computationally efficient matrix multiplication is a fundamental requirement in various fields, including and particularly in data analytics. To do so, the computation task of large-scale matrix multiplication is typically outsourced to multiple servers. However, due to data misusage at the servers, security is typical of concern. In this paper, we first study the two-sided secure matrix multiplication problem, where a user is interested in the matrix product AB of two finite field private matrices A and B from an information-theoretic perspective. In this problem, the user exploits the computational resources of N servers to compute the matrix product but simultaneously tries to conceal the private matrices from the servers. Our goal is twofold: (i) to maximize the downlink communication rate, and (ii) to minimize the effective number of server observations needed to determine AB, while preserving security, where we allow for up to ℓ ≤ N servers to collude. To this end, we propose two schemes - an aligned secret sharing scheme (A3S) and a secure cross subspace alignment (SCSA) scheme. For A3S, we optimize the partitioning of matrices A and B in order to either optimize objective (i) or (ii) as a function of the system parameters (e.g., N and ℓ). A proposed inductive approach gives us analytical, close-to-optimal solutions for both (i) and (ii). The SCSA, on the other hand, is shown to be (rate) capacity-optimal for the general J-sided distributed secure matrix multiplication problem Π
_j=1
^J
M
_j
. We show this by developing a recursive information-theoretic upper bound (converse) on the downlink rate for the J-sided secure matrix multiplication problem. With respect to (i), both A3S and SCSA, significantly outperform the state-of-the-art in terms of (a) communication rate, (b) maximum tolerable number of colluding servers, and (c) computational complexity. Overall SCSA (A3S) is the preferred choice when the focus is on the downlink (uplink).