If you are looking for a subject for a master thesis (afstudeeropdracht) or Research 1, 2, 3 project, you can contact me for any of my research topics. I might be interested in some other topics as well.
Some examples:
Secure protocols for RFID devices: cryptography on the top of a needle
The emergence of pervasive computing devices such as RFID tags raises numerous privacy issues. Cryptographic techniques are commonly used to enable tag-to-server authentication while protecting privacy. Unfortunately, these algorithms and their corresponding implementations are difficult to adapt to the extreme conditions implied by the use of RFID. The extremely limited budget for energy and area do not allow the use of traditional cryptography. Many lightweight protocols have been proposed so far that are founded on both, private- and public-key cryptosystems. The goal of this project is to analyze and evaluate existing protocols with respect to security and feasibility.
Advances in side-channel analysis (with Riscure):
Power analysis attacks facilitate the extraction of secret keys by using some unintentional i.e. side-channel information. The goal of this project is to investigate advanced techniques e.g. from from signal processing in order to develop new attacks and countermeasures. Other options include attacks when the information is available from more than one side-channel.
Side-channel attacks on embedded devices (with Riscure):
Side-channel attacks are commonly performed on smart cards. The goal of this project is to investigate and execute the attacks on other platforms such as USB tokens, RFID tags etc .
Security for embedded devices (with Riscure):
Due to the extreme limitations in costs, area, memory, power etc. security and privacy for pervasive devices is often at stake. Extreme examples are RFID tags and sensor nodes but various issues arose with automobiles and medical devices. This research can focus on one or the other and various directions are possible.
RFID identification on the physical layer (with Riscure):
Researchers from ETH, Zurich (see here and here) have recently shown how RFID tags can be identified on the basis of certain physical-layer properties. In this way, a sort of fingerprints from tags can be extracted and the results have many implications on security i.e. counterfeiting as well as privacy. The goal of this project is to investigate this concept of physical-layer RFID security. The research you do can be more theoretical and/or more practical.
Traitor tracing codes (with Irdeto):
Dit zijn codes die gebruikt worden bij het watermerken van audio/video. Het algemene doel is om als piraten een aantal verschillend gewatermerkte kopieen krijgen, en daaruit een nieuwe versie destilleren, toch nog minstens een van de piraten te kunnen identificeren. Op dit gebied zijn al optimale codes bekend (zie het werk van Tardos) voor asymptotisch veel piraten. Waar wij met name in geinteresseerd zouden zijn is om te kijken hoe optimaal deze codes/constructies zijn, bij "realistische" aantallen van piraten.
Multiparty computations (with Irdeto):
Hierbij kun je bv. denken aan een recommender systeem, waarbij gebruikers data (bv. ratings van films) naar een centrale server sturen, die dan aanbevelingen uitrekent voor elke gebruiker. Dit system houdt (nog) geen rekening met privacy eisen van gebruikers. Het zou voor ons dan ook interessant zijn om te kijken hoe we een protocol kunnen ontwikkelen waarbij (idealiter) de gebruikers alleen hun eigen aanbeveling te weten komen, zonder dat de server iets leert. Misschien moeten we het zelfs helemaal zonder server doen, als dit tenminste efficient genoeg te maken is.