I'll just explain the searchable part. I'm an amateur cryto enthusiast, though. Basically, you'd think to search through an encrypted database, you'd have to d

I'll just explain the searchable part. I'm an amateur cryto enthusiast, though. Basically, you'd think to search through an encrypted database, you'd have to decrypt it first. That's a pain in the ass if your DB is in some place outside of your complete control. You can't give them your key and tell them to decrypt it, because your DB host will decrypt and know all your secret information. The other way is to download the entire DB, which is impossible for obvious reasons. Even if you controlled your own DB, with traditional encryption you'd have to decrypt each entry and figure out if your thing matches the entry. (You could compare ciphertext, though, which I don't know why this isn't the accepted standard) Basically this scheme is proposing a way to do it even on DB's controlled by a hostile actor. Pretty neat.