HopSkipJumpAttack: A Query-Efficient Decision-Based Attack

The goal of a decision-based adversarial attack on a trained model is to generate adversarial examples based solely on observing output labels returned by the targeted model. We develop HopSkipJumpAttack, a family of algorithms based on a novel estimate of the gradient direction using binary information at the decision boundary. The proposed family includes both untargeted and targeted attacks optimized for $\ell_2$ and $\ell_\infty$ similarity metrics respectively. Theoretical analysis is provided for the proposed algorithms and the gradient direction estimate. Experiments show HopSkipJumpAttack requires significantly fewer model queries than Boundary Attack. It also achieves competitive performance in attacking several widely-used defense mechanisms. (HopSkipJumpAttack was named Boundary Attack++ in a previous version of the preprint.

"Estimating the Impact of Whaling on Global Whale Watching"

After the commercial whaling moratorium was enacted in 1986, whale watching became one of the fastest growing tourism industries worldwide. As whaling was regarded as an activity incompatible with whale watching, the possible resumption of commercial whaling caused an urgent need to investigate the potential negative effects of whaling on the whale-watching industry. We examine the potential impacts of whaling on the global whale-watching tourism industry using unbalanced panel data model. The empirical results indicate that the resumption of commercial whaling has the potential for a negative effect on the global whale-watching industry, especially for nations that are engaged in whaling.

Estimating the Impact of Whaling on Global Whale Watching

After a commercial whaling moratorium was enacted in 1986, whale watching became one of the fastest growing tourism industries worldwide. As whaling is regarded as an activity that is incompatible with whale watching, the possible resumption of commercial whaling has caused an urgent need to investigate the potential negative effects of whaling on the whale-watching industry. We examine the potential impacts of whaling on the global whale-watching tourism industry using an unbalanced panel data model. The empirical results indicate that the resumption of commercial whaling has the potential for a negative effect on the global whale-watching industry, especially for nations that are engaged in whaling.Global whale watching; Commercial whaling; Delay-difference equation model; Unbalanced panel data model