IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2206.06493.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A novel reconstruction attack on foreign-trade official statistics, with a Brazilian case study

Author

Listed:
  • Danilo Fabrino Favato
  • Gabriel Coutinho
  • M'ario S. Alvim
  • Natasha Fernandes

Abstract

In this paper we describe, formalize, implement, and experimentally evaluate a novel transaction re-identification attack against official foreign-trade statistics releases in Brazil. The attack's goal is to re-identify the importers of foreign-trade transactions (by revealing the identity of the company performing that transaction), which consequently violates those importers' fiscal secrecy (by revealing sensitive information: the value and volume of traded goods). We provide a mathematical formalization of this fiscal secrecy problem using principles from the framework of quantitative information flow (QIF), then carefully identify the main sources of imprecision in the official data releases used as auxiliary information in the attack, and model transaction re-construction as a linear optimization problem solvable through integer linear programming (ILP). We show that this problem is NP-complete, and provide a methodology to identify tractable instances. We exemplify the feasibility of our attack by performing 2,003 transaction re-identifications that in total amount to more than \$137M, and affect 348 Brazilian companies. Further, since similar statistics are produced by other statistical agencies, our attack is of broader concern.

Suggested Citation

  • Danilo Fabrino Favato & Gabriel Coutinho & M'ario S. Alvim & Natasha Fernandes, 2022. "A novel reconstruction attack on foreign-trade official statistics, with a Brazilian case study," Papers 2206.06493, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2206.06493
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2206.06493
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Karl–Gustaf Lofgren & Torsten Persson & Jorgen W. Weibull, 2002. "Markets with Asymmetric Information: The Contributions of George Akerlof, Michael Spence and Joseph Stiglitz," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 104(2), pages 195-211, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. John M. Abowd & Tamara Adams & Robert Ashmead & David Darais & Sourya Dey & Simson L. Garfinkel & Nathan Goldschlag & Daniel Kifer & Philip Leclerc & Ethan Lew & Scott Moore & Rolando A. Rodríguez & R, 2023. "The 2010 Census Confidentiality Protections Failed, Here’s How and Why," Working Papers 23-63, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Apergis, Nicholas & Fafaliou, Irene & Stefanitsis, Marinos, 2016. "Asymmetric information and employment: evidence from the U.S. banking sector," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 14(PB), pages 199-210.
    2. Timothy Perri, 2016. "Does signalling solve the lemons problem?," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(4), pages 227-229, March.
    3. Gunay, Samet, 2020. "Seeking causality between liquidity risk and credit risk: TED-OIS spreads and CDS indexes," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    4. Perri, Timothy, 2016. "Lemons & Loons," Review of Behavioral Economics, now publishers, vol. 3(2), pages 173-188, July.
    5. Reuer, Jeffrey J. & Ragozzino, Roberto, 2008. "Adverse selection and M&A design: The roles of alliances and IPOs," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 195-212, May.
    6. Klaus Friesenbichler & George Clarke & Michael Wong, 2014. "Price competition and market transparency: evidence from a random response technique," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 41(1), pages 5-21, February.
    7. Bąk Sylwia, 2020. "The problem of uncertainty and risk as a subject of research of the Nobel Prize Laureates in Economic Sciences," Journal of Economics and Management, Sciendo, vol. 39(1), pages 21-40, March.
    8. Jingoo Kang & Andy Y. Han Kim, 2017. "The Relationship Between CEO Media Appearances and Compensation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(3), pages 379-394, June.
    9. Alma Cohen & Peter Siegelman, 2010. "Testing for Adverse Selection in Insurance Markets," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 77(1), pages 39-84, March.
    10. Nicolau, Juan L., 2011. "The decision to raise firm value through a sports-business exchange: How much are Real Madrid's goals worth to its president's company's goals?," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 215(1), pages 281-288, November.
    11. Martin POLÍVKA & David MARTINČÍK, 2014. "Measures ensuring the food quality on retail markets: experimental perspective," Agricultural Economics, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 60(8), pages 343-352.
    12. Kjell Hausken, 2006. "A General Equilibrium Model of Signaling and Exchange," Levine's Working Paper Archive 618897000000001035, David K. Levine.
    13. Curtiss, Jarmila, 2012. "Determinants of Financial Capital Use: Review of theories and implications for rural businesses," Factor Markets Working Papers 123, Centre for European Policy Studies.
    14. Demetri Tsanacas, 2022. "Valuation Challenges in High Tech Platform Based Corporations," International Journal of Economics & Business Administration (IJEBA), International Journal of Economics & Business Administration (IJEBA), vol. 0(1), pages 89-100.
    15. Karsten Mause, 2009. "Too Much Competition in Higher Education? Some Conceptual Remarks on the Excessive‐Signaling Hypothesis," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(5), pages 1107-1133, November.
    16. de C. Griebeler, Marcelo & F. Damo, Alexandre, 2021. "Serving three masters: optimal monetary and regulatory policies when central bankers have career concerns," Revista Brasileira de Economia - RBE, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil), vol. 75(3), December.
    17. Zein, Nicole & Simons, Dirk, 2008. "Kosten aus einer asymmetrischen Informationsverteilung zwischen Abschlussprüfer und Mandant," Papers 08-34, Sonderforschungsbreich 504.
    18. Juan Carlos Villalba Cuellar, 2011. "Los contratos de consumo en el derecho colombiano y el derecho comparado," Revista Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Universidad Militar Nueva Granada, December.
    19. Sedef Akgungor & Andrea Groppel-Klein & Joerg Koenigstorfer & Yaprak Gulcan & Yesim Kustepeli, 2016. "The Impact of Nutrition Labels on Food Sales: An In-Store Experiment in a Turkish Supermarket," Economia agro-alimentare, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 18(2), pages 207-228.
    20. Nicolau, Juan Luis & Sellers, Ricardo, 2010. "The quality of quality awards: Diminishing information asymmetries in a hotel chain," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 63(8), pages 832-839, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2206.06493. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.