RDD: Pareto Analysis of the Rate-Distortion-Distinguishability Trade-off

Extensive monitoring systems generate data that is usually compressed for network transmission. This compressed data might then be processed in the cloud for tasks such as anomaly detection. However, compression can potentially impair the detector's ability to distinguish between regular and irregular patterns due to information loss. Here we extend the information-theoretic framework introduced in [1] to simultaneously address the trade-off between the three features on which the effectiveness of the system depends: the effectiveness of compression, the amount of distortion it introduces, and the distinguishability between compressed normal signals and compressed anomalous signals. We leverage a Gaussian assumption to draw curves showing how moving on a Pareto surface helps administer such a trade-off better than simply relying on optimal rate-distortion compression and hoping that compressed signals can be distinguished from each other.