Abstract
We investigate the problem whether two ALC knowledge bases are indistinguishable by queries over a given vocabulary. We give model-theoretic criteria and prove that this problem is undecidable for conjunctive queries (CQs) but decidable in 2E XP T IME for unions of rooted CQs. We also consider the problem whether two ALC TBoxes give the same answers to any query in a given vocabulary over all ABoxes, and show that for CQs this problem is undecidable, too, but becomes decidable and 2E XP T IME-complete in Horn-ALC, and even E XP T IME-complete in Horn-ALC when restricted to (unions of) rooted CQs.