Secure and Efficient Electronic Auctions. For the first time in history electronic commerce promises the possibility of auctions to decide the correct market price for a widespread variety of everyday goods and services. Security and efficiency are critical factors in making this a reality, but almost all the many protocols for secure auctions proposed to date suffer from extreme computational requirements. This project will develop efficient and secure auction protocols using innovative approac ....Secure and Efficient Electronic Auctions. For the first time in history electronic commerce promises the possibility of auctions to decide the correct market price for a widespread variety of everyday goods and services. Security and efficiency are critical factors in making this a reality, but almost all the many protocols for secure auctions proposed to date suffer from extreme computational requirements. This project will develop efficient and secure auction protocols using innovative approaches based on advanced cryptographic techniques. In particular we will pioneer the exploration of secure microauctions suitable for negotiating the price of small value goods and utilities in almost real time.Read moreRead less
Privacy in Genetic Databases. With the recent advances in genetic and computer technology enormous databases containing genetic information have become available for research and other purposes. An example of such databases is the Icelandic Health Database containing health and genetic records about the total population of Iceland. This has raised many privacy and ethical questions both among health professionals and the general public. Many agree that genetic information bears more ethical and ....Privacy in Genetic Databases. With the recent advances in genetic and computer technology enormous databases containing genetic information have become available for research and other purposes. An example of such databases is the Icelandic Health Database containing health and genetic records about the total population of Iceland. This has raised many privacy and ethical questions both among health professionals and the general public. Many agree that genetic information bears more ethical and privacy concerns than other health databases. In this project we shall investigate privacy and ethical issues connected to genetic information and we develop techniques to prevent a disclosure of individual values through statistical analysis.Read moreRead less
Cryptographic Protocols: Proofs and Designs. Cryptographic protocols are the foundation for protection of the critical electronic communications infrastructure on which much of commerce and industry rely. They will increasingly be required in emerging technologies such as ad-hoc wireless networks and sensor networks. This project will provide the ability to design new and efficient protocols with a mathematical guarantee of security. The resulting practical protocols will benefit all users of el ....Cryptographic Protocols: Proofs and Designs. Cryptographic protocols are the foundation for protection of the critical electronic communications infrastructure on which much of commerce and industry rely. They will increasingly be required in emerging technologies such as ad-hoc wireless networks and sensor networks. This project will provide the ability to design new and efficient protocols with a mathematical guarantee of security. The resulting practical protocols will benefit all users of electronic communications who require security for their information. This includes the financial industries, government, commerce and domestic users.Read moreRead less
Cryptographic Protocols from Pairings: Proofs and Designs. Modern society has become critically dependent on information and communications infrastructures. At the same time, the development of e-commerce is being slowed by lack of confidence in its security. By providing increased assurance and enhanced cryptographic security protocols this research will improve the dependability of the nation's information and communications infrastructure, as well as encourage the growth of e-commerce. Throu ....Cryptographic Protocols from Pairings: Proofs and Designs. Modern society has become critically dependent on information and communications infrastructures. At the same time, the development of e-commerce is being slowed by lack of confidence in its security. By providing increased assurance and enhanced cryptographic security protocols this research will improve the dependability of the nation's information and communications infrastructure, as well as encourage the growth of e-commerce. Through the expertise and experience gained with this project, Australia's excellence in information security research will be reinforced. The training of PhD and Honours students will provide a much needed source of highly trained information security professionals.Read moreRead less
Deep Learning Attacks and Active Defences: A Cybersecurity Perspective. The belief that deep learning technology is imperative for economic development, military control, and strategic competitiveness has accelerated its development across the globe. However, experience has revealed the disappointing fact that deep learning models are vulnerable to a range of security attacks. Hence, a series of methodologies and defence strategies will be devised that make deep learning systems robust to these ....Deep Learning Attacks and Active Defences: A Cybersecurity Perspective. The belief that deep learning technology is imperative for economic development, military control, and strategic competitiveness has accelerated its development across the globe. However, experience has revealed the disappointing fact that deep learning models are vulnerable to a range of security attacks. Hence, a series of methodologies and defence strategies will be devised that make deep learning systems robust to these attacks. The methodologies require analysing attack lifecycles to identify them in their early stages. With this knowledge, active defence methods and forensic strategies can be developed to ensure efficient defences and prevent further attacks. Moreover, the outputs will be generalisable to most deep learning services.Read moreRead less
Balance and reinforcement: privacy and fairness in high intelligence models. The aim of this project is to develop a series of privacy preservation methods to achieve a new balance between privacy and fairness in highly accurate intelligence models. The main issue in achieving this goal is that high-accuracy intelligence technologies have resulted in significant privacy violations and are very vulnerable to issues of unfairness. This project will analyse the privacy risks associated with intelli ....Balance and reinforcement: privacy and fairness in high intelligence models. The aim of this project is to develop a series of privacy preservation methods to achieve a new balance between privacy and fairness in highly accurate intelligence models. The main issue in achieving this goal is that high-accuracy intelligence technologies have resulted in significant privacy violations and are very vulnerable to issues of unfairness. This project will analyse the privacy risks associated with intelligent systems and devise mechanisms to mutually reinforce both privacy and fairness based on the theoretical foundations laid by our analysis. These outcomes will enable model owners to effectively protect their intellectual property and offer services to users in a private, fair, and accurate manner.Read moreRead less
Security for Wireless Mobile Ad hoc Networks. Mobile ad hoc networks, a new emerging wireless networking paradigm, poses challenging problems in security, due to its dynamic nature and lack of centralised infrastructure, for which no adequate solutions exist today. This research addresses theory and design of secure mobile ad hoc networks. It achieves conceptual advances in terms of new security models for distributed location management, mobile authentication and multicasting; it proposes nove ....Security for Wireless Mobile Ad hoc Networks. Mobile ad hoc networks, a new emerging wireless networking paradigm, poses challenging problems in security, due to its dynamic nature and lack of centralised infrastructure, for which no adequate solutions exist today. This research addresses theory and design of secure mobile ad hoc networks. It achieves conceptual advances in terms of new security models for distributed location management, mobile authentication and multicasting; it proposes novel dynamic group key management and denial of service protection schemes, develops new security mechanisms for ad hoc routing, provides new insights into formal reasoning of security and demonstrates and evaluates practical secure wireless mobile applications.Read moreRead less
Algebraic Models of Stream Ciphers. The project investigates communication security in the mobile environment where both confidentiality and authenticity are of a prime concern. Stream ciphers are a natural choice in mobile environments as they provide an efficient cryptographic protection using a limited computing resources. We treat stream ciphers as algebraic objects whose properties fully determine their cryptographic strength. We first analyse existing stream ciphers showing their algebraic ....Algebraic Models of Stream Ciphers. The project investigates communication security in the mobile environment where both confidentiality and authenticity are of a prime concern. Stream ciphers are a natural choice in mobile environments as they provide an efficient cryptographic protection using a limited computing resources. We treat stream ciphers as algebraic objects whose properties fully determine their cryptographic strength. We first analyse existing stream ciphers showing their algebraic properties and later we derive a design methodology for provably secure stream ciphers. The project leads to new secure and efficient designs for stream ciphers that are the preferred cryptographic tools used in Australian industry.Read moreRead less
Algebraic Analysis of Cryptosystems. This project studies an (new) algebraic approach to cryptanalysis of modern block ciphers. The approach works for all cryptosystems that use either small S-boxes, or their algebraic structure can be described by a system of overdefined quadratic equations. The cryptosystems that are potentially breakable using this approach are Rijndael and Serpent - the two top finalists of the Advanced Encryption Standard contest. The project also explores how this approach ....Algebraic Analysis of Cryptosystems. This project studies an (new) algebraic approach to cryptanalysis of modern block ciphers. The approach works for all cryptosystems that use either small S-boxes, or their algebraic structure can be described by a system of overdefined quadratic equations. The cryptosystems that are potentially breakable using this approach are Rijndael and Serpent - the two top finalists of the Advanced Encryption Standard contest. The project also explores how this approach can be applied to design new and more powerful factoring algorithms. The project has an explosive potential to redefine the theory and practice of modern cryptography.Read moreRead less
Security Services for Stream-Oriented and Multicast-Based Communication. Multicast communication over lossy networks is becoming the basic for a growing number of aplications. It is therefore critical to provide sound security mechanisms for multicast communication. Yet, existing security protocols for multicast offer only partial solutions. This project is concerned with two major security problems of multicast communications: authentication and secrecy. The goal of this project is to: (1) deve ....Security Services for Stream-Oriented and Multicast-Based Communication. Multicast communication over lossy networks is becoming the basic for a growing number of aplications. It is therefore critical to provide sound security mechanisms for multicast communication. Yet, existing security protocols for multicast offer only partial solutions. This project is concerned with two major security problems of multicast communications: authentication and secrecy. The goal of this project is to: (1) develop a framework for analysis and evaluation of security services for multicast communication; (2) design efficient algorithms and protocols for securing emerging applications that are multicast-based and/or stream-oriented.
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