Theses

The project concept “AI-based analysis and utilization of physical signal parameters for securing smart home systems” involves researching and prototypically developing the so-called “Physical-Guards” approach. This contributes to the research area of “Physical Layer Security” by adapting and further developing the state of science and technology from the fields of IT security and data science/machine learning. The foundation for the research approach is the exploitation of physical parameters (e.g., local signal strength) of wireless communication in smart homes to a) detect attacks on the smart home infrastructure, b) secure the integrity of signals, and c) ensure the confidentiality of security-critical information. Compared to or in conjunction with other IT security measures, Physical-Guards technology promises the following advantages: the physical properties of communication signals are subject to laws of nature. Considering these properties through security infrastructure makes many attack strategies impossible or significantly more difficult. Additionally, security concepts based on the physical layer have the advantage that in smart homes, the large heterogeneity of standards and communication protocols at higher layers does not limit the deployability of security technology due to technical incompatibilities with IoT devices. The project consortium consisting of the University of Mannheim (specifically the two research groups Dependable Systems Engineering (IT security) and Institute for Enterprise Systems (AI/Machine Learning)) as well as the medium-sized industrial technology partners M2M Germany and osapiens.

Goals or topics of a possible thesis could be:

1. detect attacks on the smart home infrastructure,
2. secure the integrity of signals, and/or
3. ensure the confidentiality of security-critical information.

As these areas are rather broad, a potential thesis topic will be a subset of the above stated.

For further details, questions and/or proposals of your own ideas connected with the descripted project, please feel free to contact Yves T. Staudenmaier.

Description:
CrypTool 2 is an open-source program that allows you to try out various cryptographic methods. CrypTool 2 provides a visual programming interface which easily can be used to integrate and manipulate cryptographic functions into workflows. More specifically, the individual cryptographic methods are implemented by so-called plug-ins, which are represented by individual graphical objects. These can be combined with drag & drop on the graphical user interface. This approach makes it easy to visualise complex processes and thus to understand them better.

Goal: 
Several existing cryptographic methods are to be implemented so that they can be officially recorded in CrypTool 2. This also includes the creation of documentation, the clean structuring and commenting of the source code, etc. The exact selection of the topics to be implemented is discussed with the student and the CrypTool 2 team.

Contact person: Frederik Armknecht

Privacy-Preserving Record-Linkage (PPRL) techniques have been developed to link persons  without violating their privacy. However, Graph Matching Attacks allow the re-identification of individuals in the encoded database. These Graph Matching Attacks are currently seen as the most serious threat to many PPRL schemes. In your thesis, you may work on one of the following topics:

• Development of new and improved (Graph Matching) Attacks against PPRL.
• Development of countermeasures to protect PPRL schemes against existing attacks.

Contact person: Jochen Schäfer

After agreeing on a topic, we discuss the expected content and agree on a preliminary structure, usually in the form of a table of contents. This may serve you as a guide while writing your thesis.

Before you can start working on your thesis, we need additional information for the official thesis registration. The required information consists of

• Your full name
• Your matriculation number
• Your address
• Your pursued degree
• Your study program
• The language of writing (i.e. English or German)

The deadline for submitting your thesis is set with registration and depends on the type of thesis and your examination regulations – usually, you have three months for working on a Bachelor's thesis and six months for a Master's thesis.

Unlike other assessments, a thesis can be started flexibly during a semester irrespective of lecture or examination periods.

It is your responsibility to organize and manage the time available for writing your thesis. Formally, you are not required to keep your supervisor(s) up to date. However, we recommend contacting your supervisor(s) regularly as it helps you to stay on track and to tackle potentially emerging problems early on. Discuss your preferred style of supervision with your supervisor(s).

You have to submit your thesis no later than the deadline as defined by the registration. As per most examination regulations, you are required to hand in two printed copies including a signed affidavit (cf. your examination regulation for the exact wording), and a digital copy, preferably as a PDF file. You should send the digital version directly to your supervisor(s). Consider using duplex printing for the two hard copies with a binding of your choice.

Depending on your examination regulations, you may have to present your thesis in form of a talk. However, even if you are not obliged to, we encourage everyone to seize this opportunity as you can strengthen your presentation skills, especially when presenting scientific work to an academic and diverse audience. Such a talk should take about 30 minutes and include five minutes for questions from the audience. Please note that any voluntarily given talk will not be graded.