# Dependencies in the LLM API Reseller Ecosystem > Source: > Published: 2026-08-26 02:07:06+00:00 # Computer Science > Cryptography and Security [Submitted on 21 Aug 2026] # Title:Uncovering and Understanding Hidden Dependencies in the LLM API Reseller Ecosystem via Prefix-Cache Side Channels [View PDF](/pdf/2608.20732) Abstract:LLM API resellers have become an important access layer to modern LLM services. However, multi-level resale creates an opaque supply chain: a user's request may traverse undisclosed upstream resellers, each of which can inspect or modify prompts and responses, inducing ecosystem-level confidentiality and integrity risks. Existing studies audit individual resellers, but provide little visibility into hidden dependencies across resellers. We present CacheTracer, the first API-only measurement of such hidden dependencies. Our key insight is to exploit prefix-cache reuse as a side channel to measure dependency via cache-reach relations. CacheTracer operationalizes this insight with two primitives: Flood populates fresh cache state through one endpoint, and Prove probes whether another can reuse it while excluding probe-created hits. We then conduct a real-world measurement study with CacheTracer on 39 reseller endpoints, sending 1.1 million API requests across 636 endpoint pairs. Our measurements reveal a deep, concentrated cache-reach structure: 37.1% of measured pairs exhibit shared cache reach, the containment order spans seven layers, and one cache reach is contained within at least 31 of other nodes. We further find that the recovered structure is model-specific. We also evaluate the validity of CacheTracer through both real-world consistency checks and controlled experiments. The results show its high reliability and accuracy. These findings reveal substantial hidden dependencies among seemingly independent API resellers. Such deep and concentrated dependencies can create a large potential blast radius, where a confidentiality or integrity failure along a common upstream path may affect users across multiple downstream resellers. ### References & Citations Loading... # Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer *(*[What is the Explorer?](https://info.arxiv.org/labs/showcase.html#arxiv-bibliographic-explorer)) Connected Papers *(*[What is Connected Papers?](https://www.connectedpapers.com/about)) Litmaps *(*[What is Litmaps?](https://www.litmaps.co/)) scite Smart Citations *(*[What are Smart Citations?](https://www.scite.ai/))# Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv *(*[What is alphaXiv?](https://alphaxiv.org/)) CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers *(*[What is CatalyzeX?](https://www.catalyzex.com)) DagsHub *(*[What is DagsHub?](https://dagshub.com/)) Gotit.pub *(*[What is GotitPub?](http://gotit.pub/faq)) Hugging Face *(*[What is Huggingface?](https://huggingface.co/huggingface)) ScienceCast *(*[What is ScienceCast?](https://sciencecast.org/welcome))# Demos # Recommenders and Search Tools Influence Flower *(*[What are Influence Flowers?](https://influencemap.cmlab.dev/)) CORE Recommender *(*[What is CORE?](https://core.ac.uk/services/recommender))# arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? [ Learn more about arXivLabs](https://info.arxiv.org/labs/index.html).