CASED is funded by
Melanie Volkamer becomes assistant professor for Usability
TU Darmstadt appoints young CASED researcher
The Technische Universität Darmstadt has appointed Dr. Melanie Volkamer Junior professor at the Computer Science Department. With her research group “Security, Usability and Society (SecUso)“ the thirty-one-year-old computer scientist investigates the usability of IT Security mechanisms. Her research concentrates on different fields of applications, such as eCommerce, email encryption and verifiable, electronic voting systems.
Mark Manulis becomes Senior Lecturer at University of Surrey
Following a successful intermediate evaluation of his Junior Professorship Mark Manulis takes over a new position in the Department of Computing der University of Surrey (UK) from February 2012. Appointed as Senior Lecturer he will be building up a research group on applied cryptography and security.
Mark Manulis will remain connected to TU Darmstadt through his roles as PI in CASED and EC-SPRIDE and as Head of the Cryptographic Protocols Group (CRYPO).
SPIE’2011 Best Paper Award for robust audio watermarking
CASED scientists Martin Steinebach, Sascha Zmudzinski and Stefan Nürnberger have been awarded with the Best Paper Award from SPIE’2011 Media Watermarking, Security, and Forensics conference for their paper „Re-Synchronizing audio watermarking after non-linear time stretching“.
The prize is endowed with 1.500 US Dollar and will be awarded at the IS&T/SPIE Electronic Imaging conference 2012 in San Francisco, USA.
Abstract
Digital audio watermarking today is robust to many common attacks, including lossy compression and digital-to-analogue conversion. One robustness and security challenge, still, is time-stretching. This operation speeds up or slows down the playback speed while preserving the tone pitch.
Although inaudible for an uninformed listener if smoothly applied, time-stretching can be confusing for a blind watermark detection algorithm. We introduce a non-blind approach for reconstructing the original timing based on dynamic time warping. Our experiments show that the approach is successful even if non-linear stretching was applied. Our solution can significantly increase the robustness and security of every audio watermarking scheme that is dependent on precise timing conditions at detection time.
Just launched: Master programmes in ICT Innovation
Deadline for applications: February 15th
The EIT ICT Labs Master School now offers two year programmes where you can choose two universities in two different European countries to build a curriculum of your choice based on your skills and interest.
They offer double degrees, which combine technical competence with a set of skills in Innovation and Entrepreneurship. While you get an excellent theoretical education, you also get the opportunity to work with European top research institutes and leading business partners.
- Deadline for applications: February 15th
- Security and Privacy Major
TU Darmstadt and CASED are partners of the European Institute for Innovation and Technology (EIT) within the Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC) called Information and Communication (ICT) Labs.
New Software-Campus started by BMBF
Development program for master's and doctoral students
The Software Campus is an elite development program for master's and doctoral students with excellent qualifications and a creative entrepreneurial spirit who are in the final phase of their master's program (before the master's thesis) or at the beginning of the doctoral program in computer science. It also welcomes participants from related disciplines such as mathematics or physics or applied fields such as engineering, medical technology, linguistics, etc., if they have a strong interest in IT and the necessary basic skills.
The goal of the Software Campus is to promote managerial talent in the IT sector. This goal is achieved by implementing publicly funded small research projects (“micro-projects”) which are proposed by the students themselves. The students receive in-depth mentoring from their academic and industrial partners. This innovative concept is the core of the Software Campus.
Each year, approximately 80 to 100 students will be accepted into the Software Campus and their micro-projects will be funded with up to 100,000€ over two years.
The findings of the research projects undertaken as part of the Software Campus are made public within the academic process of publishing doctoral and master’s theses, and will be presented at the annual Summit conference in front of the other participants and the academic and industrial partners.
Dr. Xuebing Zhou
Young CASED researchers excell at CAST-Awards
Awards for best Ph. D. thesis and best master theses
Dr. Xuebing Zhou reached at yesterday’s presentation of the PhD award 2011 the first place for her work titled “Privacy and Security Assessment of Biometric Template Protection.” The awardee is determined by 26 IT security experts from all over Germany and receives a price money of 4.000 €.
Anika Pflug and Sebastian Abt from the Universitiy of Applied Sciences Darmstadt received the first and second prize in the category of master- and diploma theses.
- Anika Pflug convinced with her master thesis “Finger Vein Recognition“.
- Sebastian Abt gets the second place for his work titled “Assessing Semantic Conformance of Minutiae-based Feature Extractors”.
The ranking is decided through a secret ballot from all CAST-Members attending the ceremony.
For further information and abstracts from the PhD-Award (Promotionspreis) and the CAST-Award (Förderpreis).
Think about IT Security from the very beginning
The BMBF competence center “EC SPRIDE” launches program for the promotion of young talent
The “European Center for Security and Privacy by Design – EC SPRIDE” at the TU Darmstadt has started its work with the launch of the Claude Shannon Program for promoting young talent. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) will support the competence center with funding of around 8 million euros over the next four years. This center for IT security supplements the strong basic research activities performed at the TU Darmstadt and further develops the results of the university in an application-oriented manner. “The launch of the new competence center EC SPRIDE shows that we are not only investing in scientific progress, but also Germany as a location for top researchers”, said Annette Schavan, the Federal Minister of Education and Research.
Read press release at www.ec-spride.de
Study on the Usability of Graphical Passwords open for registration
Online study started by SecUSo research group
The SecUSo - IT-Security, Usability and Society - research group wants to provide a broad comparative usability study of several graphical password systems and textual passwords, all configured to meet the same security level. Participation is highly appreciated!
Further information and registration
http://passwortstudie.cased.de/en/
Despite widely known drawbacks, the most common means of authentication are alphanumeric passwords. An alternative is graphical authentication. The diversity of the proposed approaches is tremendous. Yet, the lack of a common standard for testing methodologies and settings in the related studies renders an objective comparison very difficult.
Michael Waidner new Director of CASED
Johannes Buchmann continues as Vice Director
Darmstadt, November 17, 2011 – Starting from November 21, 2011, Prof. Dr. Michael Waidner becomes new Director at the Center for Advanced Security Research Darmstadt (CASED). The 49-year old scientist switched positions with founder Prof. Dr. Johannes Buchmann, who becomes Vice Director at CASED.
Since 2010, Michael Waidner is Director of the Fraunhofer-Institute for Secure Information technology SIT and Professor of Computer Science at TU Darmstadt. Since October 2010, he has also been Vice Director of CASED. In Oktober 2011 he took the overall lead of the new BMBF competency center EC SPRIDE at TU Darmstadt.
He received his PhD from the University of Karlsruhe (now known as KIT) in 1991. In 1994 he joined the IBM Zurich Research Lab in Rüschlikon, Switzerland, where he was responsible for the research activities in the areas of IT security and privacy.
He was one of the initiators of the Zurich Information Security Center (ZISC) at the ETH Zurich. In 2006 he moved to IBM in New York. Until 2010 he was an IBM Distinguished Engineer and the Chief Technology Officer for Security, responsible for the technical security strategy and architecture of the IBM Corporation. In 2010 he left IBM and came to Darmstadt.
German IT Security Prize 2012 – call for participation
Horst Görtz-Foundation awards 200.000 to applied IT Security solutions
The Horst Görtz-Foundation calls for participation in the competition for the 4th German IT Security Prize. The prestigious award is endowed with the highest prize money for applied IT security solutions in Germany: a total of 200.000 Euro is distributed between three winners, chosen from ten nominees. The Jury is looking for ideas and concepts from the areas of IT security, cryptography, system and network security and cyber defense.
Developers or scientists from companies and research institutes are invited to participate; the leading applicant has to be working or studying in Germany. CASED is organizing the competition and hosting the award ceremony on November 29th, 2012 in Darmstadt.
Registration deadline: February 14th, 2012
Deadline for short proposal: February 29th, 2012
Further information (in German only) at: www.horst-goertz.de/it_preis.html
Joint Security Research - Intel and TU Darmstadt
At the Research@Intel Europe event in Leixlip, Ireland (October 12) Intel Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner announced the creation of the new Intel - TU Darmstadt Security Institute.
The new center will conduct security research for mobile and embedded systems. It will support industry and scientific research to improve the reliability of mobile and embedded devices as well as the ecosystem around them in collaboration with the Center for Advanced Security Research Darmstadt (CASED).
The long term goal is to gain insight into the infrastructure required to introduce new technologies. The new Intel - TU Darmstadt Security Institute will be jointly operated by Intel Labs and CASED and seek new collaborators in the European university landscape.
In order to kick off operations in 2012 the team led by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ahmad-Reza Sadeghi (Director of Research) is currently looking for highly skilled scientific personnel in the field of mobile and embedded security. Potential candidates should check the career section of the System Security Lab at TU Darmstadt.
CASED-Team among best student hardware hackers and ID Protectors
Students Win Trips to Compete in NYU-Poly Cyber Security Awareness Week
New York, October 3, 2011 – PRNewswire/ -- Student finalists have been announced in a contest involving one of the fastest-growing cyber security frontiers: hardware supply chain safety. A record 37 international teams of students accepted the annual challenge issued by students of Polytechnic Institute of New York University (NYU-Poly) to compete in the 2011 Cyber Security Awareness Week (CSAW) Embedded Systems Challenge. Top-scoring teams came from universities across the United States and Europe.
The Team from TU Darmstadt_CASED is among the top eight teams in the Physical Unclonable Functions (PUF) Design Challenge.
BizzTrust for Android splits one smartphone into 2 virtual phones
Fraunhofer with Showcase at IT SA
Currently researchers at Fraunhofer and CASED have developed software that permits the creation of 2 virtual good phones during a single device providing security for corporations whereas letting employees install their own apps.
Online Privacy:
Towards Informational Self-Determination on the Internet
Manifesto of the Dagstuhl Perspectives Workshop is now published online
Edited by
Simone Fischer-Hübner, Chris Hoofnagle, Ioannis Krontiris,
Kai Rannenberg, and Michael Waidner
Abstract
While the collection and monetization of user data has become a main source for funding “free” services like search engines, online social networks, news sites and blogs, neither privacy-enhancing technologies nor its regulations have kept up with user needs and privacy preferences.
The aim of this Manifesto is to raise awareness for the actual state of the art of online privacy, especially in the international research community and in ongoing efforts to improve the respective legal frameworks, and to provide concrete recommendations to industry, regulators, and research agencies for improving online privacy.
In particular we examine how the basic principle of informational self-determination, as promoted by European legal doctrines, could be applied to infrastructures like the internet, Web 2.0 and mobile telecommunication networks.
MONA makes the new personal ID card mobile
Researchers at the TU Darmstadt are turning mobile phones into card readers with the help of an innovative application
Darmstadt, August 5, 2011 – Scientists at the TU Darmstadt in the Center for Advanced Security Research Darmstadt (CASED) have developed the first mobile eID application, which is called “MONA”, for the new personal ID cards. Instead of a computer and card reader, users with the new personal ID cards will only need a modern smartphone in future for providing secure electronic identification. The scientists are hoping to release the first version of this software, which was developed within the scope of a project initiated by Deutsche Telekom Laboratories in cooperation with T-Systems and the company media transfer AG, over the next few months during the course of an open source project. They then want to further develop the application for different kinds of smartphones, such as Android mobiles, together with programmers who interested in getting involved.
MONA, which stands for “Mobile Authentication with the new personal ID card (german: Ausweis)”, is a Java ME application for mobile devices. The first version of the application runs on the Nokia model 6212 and can be adapted simply for use with other models. Moritz Horsch, who developed the software together with Dr. Alexander Wiesmaier and Johannes Braun in a workgroup of Prof. Dr. Johannes Buchmann, wants to simplify utilization of the ID card: “The eID function provided by the new personal ID cards can make a lot of Internet services, which currently only request a user name and password for authentication purposes, more secure and more transparent. Online purchases for example. Soon all users with suitable smartphones will be able to make use of our application, no matter where they are, at home or on the go”, according to Horsch.
Smartphone replaces computer and card reader
Until now, anyone who wanted to use the eID function needed a computer, on which the eID software had been installed, and an appropriate card reader. The so-called Near Field Communication (NFC) technology enables modern mobile phones to communicate with the contactless chip in the new personal ID cards. NFC-capable smartphones can therefore take over the role of computer and card reader, thereby enabling the personal ID cards to be used while on the go. As an application, MONA allows the individual components on the smartphone to communicate with one another and enables the user to interact. This means the decision, as to which data may be transmitted, can be made separately for each individual service. The researchers have, however, not only focused on the users: “MONA also makes electronic identification more interesting for the providers of Internet services, because smartphones, in contrast to card readers, are more common everyday devices”, explained Wiesmaier.