Graz Security Week

September 26-30 | 16:00 | online

This fourth summer school of its kind targets graduate students interested in security and correctness aspects of computing devices.

Julian Parsert
Neural Termination Analysis

September 28th, 2022, | 9:00 am
Place: Inffeldgasse 16a, IFEG042

We introduce a novel approach to the automated termination analysis of computer programs: we train neural networks to behave as ranking functions. Ranking functions map program states to values that are bounded from below and decrease as the program runs. The existence of a ranking function proves that the program terminates. We learn ranking functions from execution traces by training a neural network so that its output decreases along the sampled executions; then, we use symbolic reasoning to formally verify that it generalises to all possible executions. We demonstrate that, thanks to the ability of neural networks to represent highly complex functions, our method succeeds over programs that are beyond the reach of state-of-the-art tools. This includes programs that use loop guards with disjunctions and programs that exhibit nonlinear behaviour.

Your Future in Computer Science / Biomedical Engineering

September 30 | 16:00 / 17:00 | online

Are you considering a master’s degree in Computer Science or Biomedical Engineering? Join our Online Info Session and listen to lecturers and students introducing our broad range of different programmes. We are also going to provide you with some information about studying in Graz as an International Student. Info: Computer Science 4pm. Info: Biomedical Engineering 5pm.

Massimo Marchiori:
The Joy of Data

September 30 | 4 pm | Inffeldgasse 13, 6 OG.

We live in a world full of data: data pervade our society and our world, and are increasingly considered like a precious commodity, the gold of our modern times.
In this talk we will take a trip into the world of data, and focus on a few novel research examples tackling significant data scenarios.
Starting from "classical" data sources like the Web we will go on with quite more unusual examples, touching on various intriguing aspects of our society (and beyond).
The talk will be expository in nature: no prior specialistic knowledge is required.

Waffles & Wireframes
Announcement of Topics for Bachelor and Master Theses in Winter Term 2022/23

October 5 | 9-12 a.m.

With the new semester coming up, the Institute of Computer Graphics and Knowledge Visualisation & Fraunhofer Austria are announcing current topics for Bachelor and Master theses in the areas of Computer Graphics, Geometry Processing and Visual Analytics.

•    They have published the slides and videos on the topics, as offered from our supervisors.
•    They will also host a live presentation with fresh waffles in the seminar room (Inffeldgasse 16c/II, SR CGV ID02104)

The topics can be accessed (only from the TU Graz LAN/VPN) here.

ICG:
OpenLabNight 2022

October 6th, 2022, | 6:00 pm
Place: HS i11 "SIEMENS Hörsaal" & Inffeldgasse 16, 2nd floor



For all students and those interested in research, there is OpenLabNight from the Institute of Computer Graphics and Vision on Thursday, October 6.
The event starts at 18:00 with information about project courses in HS i11. At 18:30 there will be pizza and drinks as well as live demos of current research.
Come join us and secure your scientific work!

Academic Advising for incoming students

We offer a special academic advising unit, given by Christian Gütl (CS studies) and Gerhard Sommer (BME). They will explain how things work in our department, and offer to discuss your personal learning agreement in order to achieve all scheduled ECTS credits.

Date, Place:
Academic Adving CS: September 23rd, 14:00; HS i12
Academic Advising BME: September 26th, 14:00; HS BMT (Stremayrgasse 16, EG)

Gunther Helms:
Membranes in MRI - overlooked, but not invisible

July 07^th, 2022, | 4:00 pm
Place: Stremayrgasse 16, 3. Stock (BMT03094)

Gunther Helms, Senior lecturer at Lund University (Sweden) is visiting us due to the doctoral examination of Lukas Pirpamer. Helms talks about "Membranes in MRI - overlooked, but not invisible".

Maßnahmen zur Erhöhung des Frauenanteils an der Fakultät CSBME

July 13^th, 2022, | 4-6 pm
Place: HS FSI 2 - Inffeldgasse 11
in German

Anna Napetschnig presents her Master Thesis “Frauen@TUG – Do IT! Successful approaches to improve the qualitative and quantitative situation of female students of computer science at Graz University of Technology” and we will discuss her recommendations.
In her Master thesis “Frauen@TUG – Do IT” Anna Napetschnig has developed a catalog of measures for the qualitative and quantitative improvement of the situation of female computer science students at the TU Graz. The first part of the thesis is an inventory of projects for the promotion of young female computer science students at Graz University of Technology and at comparable universities. The second part consists of qualitative and quantitative surveys of female TU Graz students on these measures. This results in a catalog of measures with individual recommendations for the TU Graz, which have the potential to increase the proportion of female computer science students and to reduce the drop out.

She won the Mind the Gap Diversity Award 2021.
You can watch her presentation >here<.

Verleihung Silberne Diplome Telematik
& Summer Party (internal)

July 05^th, 2022, | 5:00 pm
Place: Inffeldgasse 10
► Registration required

In the course of the awarding of the Telematics silver diplomas, there will be a department-wide summer party afterwards. All employees of the Department of Computer Science and Biomedical Engineering are invited to attend. Please register here.

Oliver Deussen:
Visualizing Graph Structures

July 05^th, 2022, | 1:00 pm
Place: SR CGV

Inevitably, the projection of most graph structures on two-dimensional screens will create errors and therefore visually wrong impressions. In the past, two types of methods have been developed to minimize projection errors and distribute them in a visually pleasing way. The first group of methods, force-directed layouts, interpret the links of a graph as physical springs, while stress-based methods minimize an energy function, which aims to map graph distances faithfully. A unified description of both method types allows to create optimal parameters for both and even to specify new, better methods for most graphs. The addition of vector-based constraints enable systems to render graphs with different layouts and under varying perspectives. Finally, I will show that deviating from all kinds of physical metaphors is a good idea to create even better projection methods.

CSBME goes Dragon Boat Racing @ Graz Riverdays

July 02^th, 2022, | 14:00 | Augartenbucht

Besides 3 other TU Graz boats, our faculty also competes with its own boat at this year's Dragon Boat University Cup. Watch us and cheer for us! Fun guaranteed!

Startup Spritzer #81

June 23^th, 2022, | 5:00 pm
Place: Inffeldgasse 13, HS i9
► Registration required

This Startup Spritzer is all about startup offerings in Graz: As a young startup, you go through many stages towards success. If you are lucky, you don't have to go this way alone, but are supported by organizations like the Gründungsgarage, the Science Park or the entrepreneurship courses of the TU. Four startups report on their experiences with these programs and share their success stories. Afterwards, the aws will present its funding offers for young entrepreneurs.

CS Talks #9:
Eva Galperin: Who Deserves Cybersecurity?

June 07^th, 2022, | 5:30 pm
Place: Aula Alte Technik


 

We're all in cybersecurity, but who is cybersecurity for and what does cybersecurity protect? This talk will discuss some of the failures and blind spots of cybersecurity as it stands and discusses the ways in which cybersecurity can be reimagined to protect the marginalized.

Tech talk:
DevOps Theory vs. Practice

June 01^st, 2022, | 12:01 pm
Place: WebEx
 

There are a lot of simplified representations of DevOps, but practice shows that it is more difficult than that. Many tools need to mesh like gears, and humans have to interact with each other to provide functional applications to end users. This talk will show how DevOps can be implemented in a way that serves all stakeholders. Automation techniques like Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery will be introduced, and it will be described how test automatization can be used to reach the goal of a full Continuous Deployment process.

Presenter: Alexander Kalchauer - Alexander is an alumni of TU Graz in Software Engineering and Management and also an alumni of the Catrobat project :logo:. He has worked for 8 years as a technical lead for Dr. Nagler & Company Austria. During this time he was a member of several large project teams working on market data, financial trade data and risk management for several national and international clients. Currently he is implementing DevOps processes for a large German investment company.

Carsten Baum:
Efficient Designated-Verifier Zero-Knowledge and Cheese Puns

May 19^th, 2022, | 4:00 pm
Place: IFEG042


 

Zero knowledge proofs are an important building block in many cryptographic applications. Unfortunately, when the proof statements become very large, existing zero-knowledge proof systems easily reach their limits: either the computational overhead, the memory footprint, or the required bandwidth exceed levels that would be tolerable in practice.

In this talk, I present a designated-verifier zero-knowledge proof system for boolean and arithmetic circuits, called Mac’n’Cheese (CRYPTO 2021), with a focus on supporting large circuits. The work follows the commit-and-prove paradigm instantiated using information-theoretic MACs based on vector oblivious linear evaluation to achieve high efficiency. It additionally allows to optimize disjunctions, with a general OR transformation for proving the disjunction of m
statements that has communication complexity proportional to the longest statement. These disjunctions can further be nested, allowing efficient proofs about complex statements with many levels of disjunctions. Mac’n’Cheese can be made non-interactive (after a preprocessing phase) using the Fiat-Shamir transform.

Additionally, I will present two other recent results which built upon the Mac’n’Cheese proof system. First, I will discuss how to efficiently convert between different proof systems with an approach called Appenzeller2Brie (CCS 2021). Moreover, I will show that a protocol similar to Mac’n’Cheese can be constructed to permit proofs over rings modulo 2^k. This protocol, called QuarkSilver, is the first such protocol to natively work over these rings.

Tech talk:
Development of hand-gesture (camera based) apps (guest lecture by Huawei)

May 18^th, 2022, | 12:00 am
Place: Webex
 

Huawei developers will showcase development of hand-gesture-controlled Android apps using Huawei's  AI/ML based computer vision API (supporting also Google Android, React Native, and iOS) under consideration of test-driven development.

Presenters:

Chia Leung Ho: As a passionate Developer Advocate, Chia Leung Ho is committed to bring the developers community together and provide guidance to the next generation. He specializes in the area of HarmonyOS - Wearable application development, Digital Advertising and Android development using Huawei Mobile Services (HMS). Currently based in Huawei Düsseldorf (Germany) and supporting developers from all over Europe.

Muhammed Şimşek: After graduating as a Computer Engineer, Muhammed Şimşek started working at Huawei at the R&D Center in Istanbul. There he started working on big data analysis of telecommunications data, but quickly switched to working with Android to extend the reach of the Huawei Mobile Services (HMS). Currently he works at Huawei Netherlands and supports developers in Germany and the Benelux.

Note: There will be high-tech swags sponsored by Huawei!

You are cordially invited to this talk!

Arranged through Prof. Slany's Catrobat team, winner of the Huawei Best App Europe award 2020.

Nils Götzen:
EU Horizon Project – SimInSitu

May 16^th, 2022, | 16:30 am
Place: BMT01046

SimInSitu is aiming to develop a sophisticated in-silico method to predict the short- and long-term behavior of in-situ tissue engineered heart valves by combing advanced tissue remodeling algorithms with a personalized virtual heart modelling approach. The method will be specifically developed to predict the complex transformation process of biodegradable heart valves from the initially synthetic scaffold into a fully remodeled & functional valve.

Jaan Raik:
HW-based monitoring and mitigation of cache SCAs

May 11^th, 2022, | 9:00 am
Place: IFEG02


 

Tyge Tiessen:
A formal analysis of boomerang probabilities

April 29^th, 2022, | 9:30 am
Place: IFEG042


 

In the past 20 years since their conception, boomerang attacks have become an important tool in the cryptanalysis of block ciphers. In the classical estimate of their success probability, assumptions are made about the independence of the underlying differential trails that are not well-founded. We underline the problems inherent in these independence assumptions by using them to prove that for any boomerang there exists a differential trail over the entire cipher with a higher probability than the boomerang.
We further provide a framework which allows us to formulate and prove rigorous statements about the probabilities involved in boomerang attacks without relying on independence assumptions of the trails.

Johanna Pirker @ 84^th Vienna Children's Lecture

March 27^th, 2022, | 11:00 am

What does a great game need?
The Vienna Children's Lectures at the Zoom Children's Museum give inquisitive children aged eight to twelve an insight into the world of science. This time, computer scientist Johanna Pirkner will talk about the various components of an exciting computer game in the lecture "Vom Spielen und Gamen" ("On Playing and Gaming") and will also address the ideas and suggestions of the young audience. Registration is required.

Information event on the Master's program Computational Social Systems

March 30^th, 2022, | 05:00 pm | University of Graz, Universitätsstraße 15, HS 15.14

The English-language Master's program deals with new challenges and opportunities of digitalization. Digitalization generates and stores more and more data about our society and our behavior. The master's program trains experts who can derive valuable knowledge from these volumes of data using methods from computer science and specialist know-how and guarantee responsible use of this data. The CSS master's program places great emphasis on interdisciplinarity.

Virtual Open Lab Night 2022

Tuesday, March 8^th, 2022, | 5:00 pm |  online

Vision, Learning & Optimization
Thomas Pock and his team show how to solve challenging computer vision and image processing problems using variational methods and machine learning.

Mixed Reality
Denis Kalkofen and his team present novel approaches for mixed reality displays.

Learning & Recognition
Horst Bischof and his team present recent work on autonomous driving and recognition of human motions and activities.

Real-Time Graphics
Markus Steinberger and his team demonstrate real-time graphics, modeling and other 3D applications running in real time on the GPU.

Robotics and 3D
Friedrich Fraundorfer and his team show research results in the area of 3D computer vision and demonstrate the camera drones used the aerial vision lab.

Virtual Reality
Dieter Schmalstieg and his team show novel algorithms and display technologies for Virtual Reality.

The Formalization and Representation of Expert Knowledge with Visual Analytics to Improve Product Quality in Serial Manufacturing Processes

December 09^th, 2021 | 11:00 pm |  online

Advances in new technologies, such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and big data analytics are enabling a new generation of smart manufacturing processes. These technologies allow the efficient tracking of the quality of produced parts along every step in the manufacturing process.
Here, sophisticated measurement equipment forms interconnected IoT networks, where the “smartness” level depends to great extent on how organizations can leverage data-driven approaches to create value of resulting big datasets and to support human experts with their high-cognition analysis tasks. In this regard, Visual Analytics (VA) can help to integrate human experts into the visual exploration of IoT data by augmenting analytical reasoning capabilities together with model-supported and custom-designed visualization interfaces. Thus, in this thesis, we analyze the role of VA in serial manufacturing processes. Specifically, we aim to examine how such visualization approaches can be used to formalize and represent expert knowledge to make it readily accessible for the development of data-driven approaches, which show great potential in improving serial manufacturing processes. In doing so, we present results from four design study projects in collaboration with a German manufacturer of electric vehicles. Our results indicate that VA shows great potential in augmenting human analytical reasoning processes of knowledge-intensive tasks. Furthermore, we outline how features, models, and especially labels can be leveraged by organizations as explicit knowledge products to be shared among organizational members and leveraged to engage in sophisticated data-driven approaches.

About Joscha Eirich

Joscha Eirich holds two bachelor's and master's degrees in business administration and information systems from the University of Bamberg.
At the moment he is working on his PhD at BMW Group. His research activities focus on the integration of domain knowledge into machine learning pipelines as well as visual analytics for the analysis of large-scale IoT data from serial manufacturing processes.

^{tugraz.webex.com/tugraz/j.php
Thursday, Dec 09, 2021 11:00 am | 1 hour | (UTC+02:00) Amsterdam, Berlin, Bern, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna Meeting number: 2733 247 3401
Password: UJhxpqJ4M28}

^{Join by video system
Dial 27332473401@tugraz.webex.com
You can also dial 62.109.219.4 and enter your meeting number.}

^{Join by phone
+43-720-815221 Austria Toll
+44-20-3478-5289 United Kingdom Toll
Access code: 273 324 73401}

Matchmaking Encryption

December 20^th, 2021 | 12:00 -14:00 |  webex

Join via the meeting link
Join with meeting ID:
Meeting ID (access code): 2733 968 8841 Meeting password: imNugMMt623

Daniele Venturi introduce a new form of encryption that we name matchmaking encryption (ME). Using ME, sender S and receiver R (each with its own attributes) can both specify policies the other party must satisfy in order for the message to be revealed. The main security guarantee is that of privacy-preserving policy matching: During decryption nothing is leaked beyond the fact that a match occurred/did not occur. ME opens up new ways of secretly communicating, and enables several new applications where both participants can specify fine-grained access policies to encrypted data. For instance, in social matchmaking, S can encrypt a file containing his/her personal details and specify a policy so that the file can be decrypted only by his/her ideal partner. On the other end, a receiver R will be able to decrypt the file only if S corresponds to his/her ideal partner defined through a policy. On the theoretical side, we define security for ME, as well as provide generic frameworks for constructing ME from functional encryption. These constructions need to face the technical challenge of simultaneously checking the policies chosen by S and R, to avoid any leakage. On the practical side, we construct an efficient identity-based scheme for equality policies, with provable security in the random oracle model under the standard BDH assumption. We implement and evaluate our scheme and provide experimental evidence that our construction is practical. We also apply identity-based ME to a concrete use case, in particular for creating an anonymous bulletin board over a Tor network.

Speaker: Daniele Venturi (Professor of Applied Mathematics, UC Santa Cruz)

SAFEST project - a Hardware Security network

November 22^th, 2021 | 2:00 - 3:00 pm |  IFEG042



In this talk, Prof. Pagliarini will introduce the SAFEST project and the opportunities for collaboration and staff exchanges between TU Graz and TalTech. SAFEST is a H2020 Twinning action, a type of project where partners are committed to cross-training each other on the complementary topics of (hardware) security and circuit design. In particular, Prof. Pagliarini's team provides expertise on the design of application specific integrated circuits (ASICs). The talk will also cover one successful collaboration between TalTech and TU Graz where a post-quantum crypto core named SABER was recently taped out in 65nm CMOS.

CSBME Faculty Day 2021

October 14^th 2021, 13:30 - 18:00 CET, Aula "Alte Technik" and online

In addition to the Inaugural Lecture by David Garcia-Becerra, we will also host the Dean's List awards ceremony for the top students on our faculty and the presentation of the eponymous scholarship.
We are also pleased to have short research presentations by our career professors: Ursula Augsdörfer, Friedrich Fraundorfer, Elisabeth Lex, Viktoria Pammer-Schindler, Markus Steinberger, as well as Selina Wriessnegger.
A running buffet rounds off the Faculty Day.

Computer science education in Bavaria: reacting to the challenges of digitization

When: October 19^th, 2021 from 17:00 - 18:00
Where: HS BE01, Steyrergasse 30, Ground Floor // Webex
Registration required!

The unstoppable digitization of all areas of life is changing our society sustainably and dramatically. School education must respond to this appropriately, i.e., on a broad front. This requires a carefully planned, long-term, evidence-based overall strategy designed for sustainability, which must touch (almost) all areas of school activity. In line with this universality of demands, an enormous diversity of terms used for informatics education is evident worldwide. We have identified over 40 relevant terms for this purpose. Equally diverse are the teaching contents offered in this area. The identification of competencies to be learned by students poses particular difficulties. There is very little preliminary research on this to date.
To master digital systems, our students need solid knowledge of their technical functioning and logical structure as well as competencies suitable for everyday use to apply digital tools effectively and efficiently. This foundation can only be learned in a dedicated subject of computer science. But all other school subjects must also respond to the challenges of digitization by adapting their learning objectives, learning methods and the media used accordingly. However, it is not easy to make such changes to an existing school system while it is still in operation. The greatest challenge here is the restructuring of pre- and in-service teacher education, both in computer science and in the didactics of all other subjects.
The German State of Bavaria already reacted to this challenge in 2000 with the introduction of a compulsory subject in computer science at its Gymnasien and Realschulen, which was significantly developed designed and supported by the author, i.a. in teacher education, curriculum work, and by writing textbooks. This was followed in 2019 by another major offensive by the state government, in which the existing compulsory subject of computer science was further expanded as well as newly introduced at main schools.
In this presentation, the basic concept of this subject will be presented, as well as some supporting activities such as teacher training. However, in the course of these activities, some persistent obstacles have also emerged that are very difficult to remove, Above all, the low enrollments in teacher training programs for computer science, as can be observed in almost all concerned countries. One possible reason for this could be found in the contradictory personal requirements of a teaching degree on the one hand and a computer science degree on the other.

International Days 2021

When: October 19^th, 2021 - October 21^st, 2021
Where: Webex

Have you been thinking about going abroad as part of your studies for some time now? Do you keep asking yourself the following questions: Where? When? For how long? What opportunities are there at all?
During the International Days at Graz University of Technology, there will be various opportunities to get information, ask open questions and network with students who are currently doing a semester abroad or are doing their exchange at Graz University of Technology.