News
Computer Security group news
Marten van Dijk in New Scientist article on solving privacy problems
Marten van Dijk, head of CWI’s Computer Security group, was quoted in the international edition of New Scientist on ‘An extreme form of encryption could solve big data's privacy problem’.
IEEE Fellowship for security research Marten van Dijk
Marten van Dijk (CWI) has received the IEEE Fellowship for his contributions to security, especially secure processor design and encrypted computation. His security work is used worldwide: both in applications like Intel chips and in education.
Start of ACCSS - new association of cybersecurity academics
Last month, members of the ACCSS association celebrated that ACCSS (ACademic Cyber Security Society) is now a formal association. Marten van Dijk, head of CWI’s Computer Security research group, is one of its Board Members.
Dutch Secure Autonomous Cloud: Nederlands initiatief voor veilige cloud
In een interview met AG Connect schetst Marten van Dijk (CWI) samen met Herbert Bos (VU) en Cees de Laat (UvA) plannen voor zijn initiatief om een Dutch Secure Autonomous Cloud (DUSAC) op te zetten. "Wij willen een eigen vertical stack bouwen, specifiek gericht op het veilig gebruiken en verwerken van data. En dat levert Nederland meer op dan alleen maar een veilige cloud".
Workshop on Dutch Secure Autonomous Cloud
A consortium of CWI and other academic partners have joined forces to create the Dutch Secure Autonomous Cloud. This is a transparent, national cloud with security guarantees for the processing and storage of confidential information.
Sung-Shik Jonkmans: Programmeren voor multicore kan makkelijker
Het ontwikkelen van multicore software is complex en ook werken veel ontwikkelaars nog met oude programmeertechnieken. Sung-Shik Jongmans betoogt in AG Connect dat typesystemen die zijn toegespitst op data én interacties een goede oplossing kunnen bieden.
CWI introduces Computer Security research group
To make society, with its digital and physical infrastructures, a safer place, CWI introduces a new research group: Computer Security. Group leader is Marten van Dijk, who is very experienced in security research in both academia and industry.
CWI works on Next Generation Internet
The Next Generation Internet POINTER fund has awarded CWI a grant to work on architectural renovation for the next generation Internet to replace BSD-style socket technology. The results will make a new generation of privacy-respecting, trustworthy and reliable Internet applications possible.
CWI introduces new design methodology for reliable and trustworthy software
To make the development process of software quick, efficient, reliable and automated, researcher Vlad-Nicolae Şerbănescu (CWI and LIACS) studied how to unify modelling and programming languages for reliable and trustworthy software.
Better parallel programming with help of ABS language
Current programming languages cannot use the full potential power of manycore chips. Keyvan Azadbakht studied the formal programming language ABS and extended the programming model and analysis techniques. He defended his PhD thesis on 11 December.
Grant for CWI to improve Next Generation Internet
NLnet Foundation awarded CWI with a grant to develop a replacement for a decades-old application programming technique for communication on the internet. This might result in an alternative to deep packet inspection for network operators that better protects privacy for users.
Symposium celebrating life and achievements of Farhad Arbab
On Friday 25 May 2018 CWI organizes a farewell symposium on the occasion of the retirement of Farhad Arbab, ‘It's All About Coordination’. Farhad Arbab has been a researcher at CWI for 28 years and a professor at Leiden University since 2004. He is most known for his work on coordination languages in software engineering, particularly Reo, and in concurrency and software composition.
CWI unveils real nature of Eilenberg-type correspondences
After almost forty years, a well-known theorem in algebra about 'Eilenberg-type correspondences' is finally fully understood. Julian Salamanca, PhD student at CWI in Amsterdam, made a unified theory that explained their real nature. He defends his thesis 'Coequations and Eilenberg-type correspondences' on 24 April 2018 at Radboud University in Nijmegen.
CWI develops software that can manage itself
The increase of cloud technology has put a strain on developers and IT administrators to manually manage cloud software services and hardware infrastructure. Nikolaos Bezirgiannis (CWI) explored letting cloud software ‘manage itself’. He defends his PhD thesis 'Abstract Behavioral Specification: unifying modeling and programming' on 17 April 2018.
Commit2Data grant for better, faster and real-time adaptable big data analysis
To improve parallel processing of big data, NWO granted the project ‘Evolutionary changes in Distributed Analysis’ (ECiDA) within their Commit2Data programme. The research partners in this project – CWI being one of them – will develop a platform to support 'evolving data-intensive application pipelines’, making big data analysis safer, better, faster and adaptable in real-time.
Best Paper Award for Training DevOps engineers
Researchers from CWI's Formal Methods group won the Best Paper Award in the 6th European Conference on Service-Oriented and Cloud Computing (ESSOC) in September 2017. They were awarded the prize for their work on 'Human-in-the-Loop Simulation of Cloud Services'. The researchers are one of the first to carry out live, interactive simulation of DevOps engineers inside simulated cloud environments.
Sung-Shik Jongmans wins IPA Dissertation Award 2016
Research school IPA awarded Sung-Shik Jongmans with the IPA Dissertation Award 2016. The jury wrote: “The thesis contains theoretical contributions, novel ideas, and practical implementation results. The results have been impactful and are deemed to be of high quality and significance.”
EATCS Presburger Award 2017 for Alexandra Silva
The 2017 Presburger Committee has unanimously selected Alexandra Silva, a Senior Lecturer at University College London as recipient of the prestigious 2017 EATCS Presburger Award for young scientists. She received the award for a large part of her PhD research, which she carried out in the Formal Methods research group at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) in Amsterdam.
Farhad Arbab honoured by Sharif University of Technology
CWI researcher Farhad Arbab was honoured by Sharif University of Technology in Iran as one of its fifty most outstanding alumni over the past fifty years. The alumni were selected for both their technical achievements and service to the society.
Cum laude for new method making parallel programming easier
Due to the increase of multicore processors used in smart phones, game consoles and other computers, parallel programming has become increasingly important. To prevent software errors, concurrent calculations must always exactly be executed in the correct order. This is not easy, because existing programming techniques for enforcing such orders - interaction protocols - are very hard to use. PhD student Sung-Shik Jongmans of Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica and Leiden University investigated a new programming method to simplify this.
FACS Best Paper Award for Formal Methods researchers
During the FACS2015 conference three researchers associated with the CWI Formal Methods research group were awarded the Best Paper Award for their article ‘Composing Constraint Automata, State-by-State’. The conference was held in Niterói, Brazil, from 14-16 October 2015.
Cum laude for PhD student Jurriaan Rot
Infinite data structures can be studied with a simplified technique, thanks to research done by PhD student Jurriaan Rot. He received his PhD degree with honours (cum laude) for his thesis ‘Enhanced Coinduction’ at Leiden University on 15 October 2015. This thesis belongs to the 5% best dissertations in the field of computer science.
TCS journal honours Jan Rutten
Jan Rutten from CWI’s Formal Methods research group was recently awarded by the journal Theoretical Computer Science (TCS) for his much cited article Universal Coalgebra – a theory of systems, on the occasion of the journal’s 40th anniversary.
Java Bug Fixed with Formal Methods CWI
Researchers from CWI fixed a bug in the widely used object-oriented programming language Java in February 2015. They found an error in a broadly applied sorting algorithm, TimSort, which could crash programs.
Minder fouten in features door delta modelling
Bij het programmeren van nieuwe features in software worden makkelijk veel fouten gemaakt. De code van meerdere features grijpt vaak in op dezelfde plek, en zo kan de code van de ene feature soms ongemerkt die van een andere overschrijven.
Fewer errors in software features by using delta modelling
When new features are being written into software code, errors can easily be made. This is due to the fact that feature code often interacts in many different places in the software.
CWI en SDL bundelen krachten om cloud-gebaseerde marketing te verbeteren
Het Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) en SDL zijn onlangs een publiek-privaat-partnership project gestart om cloud-gebaseerde software voor marketing doeleinden te verbeteren.
CWI and SDL join forces to improve cloud-based marketing
Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) and SDL recently started a public-private partnership project to improve cloud-based software for marketing purposes. In this joint project both CWI and SDL contribute to the research budget.
Joost Winter verdedigt proefschrift over coalgebra en automatentheorie
CWI-onderzoeker Joost Winter promoveerde op 1 juli 2014 met een proefschrift waarin connecties tussen de coalgebra en de automatenthorie centraal staan. Coalgebra is een abstract raamwerk voor beschrijvingen en formele redenaties van systemen die zich in verschillende toestanden kunnen bevinden. Het kan onder andere gebruikt worden om te bewijzen dat systemen aan bepaalde eisen voldoen, zoals de correctheid van een complex softwaresysteem.
New technique detects bugs in object-oriented languages
CWI researcher Stijn de Gouw has developed a new technique for the detection of bugs in software written in object-oriented languages like Java. In a first test case, the technique was able to determine the correctness of complex software of marketing software company SDL Fredhopper.