Locally Decodable Codes and Private Information Retrieval Schemes

Locally decodable codes (LDCs) are codes that simultaneously provide efficient random access retrieval and high noise resilience by allowing reliable reconstruction of an arbitrary bit of a message by looking at only a small number of randomly chosen codeword bits. Local decodability comes with a certain loss in terms of efficiency – specifically, locally decodable codes require longer codeword lengths than their classical counterparts. Private information retrieval (PIR) schemes are cryptograph