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Security-control methods for statistical databases: a comparative study
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Source ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR) archive
Volume 21 ,  Issue 4  (December 1989) table of contents
Pages: 515 - 556  
Year of Publication: 1989
ISSN:0360-0300
Authors
Nabil R. Adam  Rutgers Univ., Newark, NJ
John C. Worthmann  Eindhoven Univ. of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Publisher
ACM  New York, NY, USA
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Downloads (6 Weeks): 50,   Downloads (12 Months): 517,   Citation Count: 135
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ABSTRACT

This paper considers the problem of providing security to statistical databases against disclosure of confidential information. Security-control methods suggested in the literature are classified into four general approaches: conceptual, query restriction, data perturbation, and output perturbation. Criteria for evaluating the performance of the various security-control methods are identified. Security-control methods that are based on each of the four approaches are discussed, together with their performance with respect to the identified evaluation criteria. A detailed comparative analysis of the most promising methods for protecting dynamic-online statistical databases is also presented. To date no single security-control method prevents both exact and partial disclosures. There are, however, a few perturbation-based methods that prevent exact disclosure and enable the database administrator to exercise "statistical disclosure control." Some of these methods, however introduce bias into query responses or suffer from the 0/1 query-set-size problem (i.e., partial disclosure is possible in case of null query set or a query set of size 1). We recommend directing future research efforts toward developing new methods that prevent exact disclosure and provide statistical-disclosure control, while at the same time do not suffer from the bias problem and the 0/1 query-set-size problem. Furthermore, efforts directed toward developing a bias-correction mechanism and solving the general problem of small query-set-size would help salvage a few of the current perturbation-based methods.


REFERENCES

Note: OCR errors may be found in this Reference List extracted from the full text article. ACM has opted to expose the complete List rather than only correct and linked references.

 
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CITED BY  135


REVIEW

"Mary McLeish : Reviewer"

A statistical database (SDB) is any traditional database system in which queries are restricted to statistical aggregates (such as sample mean and count); an example is the US Census Bureau database. It is often required that the system be sec  more...

Collaborative Colleagues:
Nabil R. Adam: colleagues
John C. Worthmann: colleagues