SRAM PUF Analysis and Fuzzy Extractors

In this project, we investigate authentication systems that utilize fuzzy extractors and Physically Unclonable Functions (PUFs) to uniquely identify hardware components. More specifically, we seek to verify authenticity using PUFs based on Static Random Access Memory (SRAM). We propose an implementation of a fuzzy extractor in software which allows for the extraction of uniquely identifying information from this type of PUF. Included is a working prototype and framework for this authentication system to facilitate future research on this topic

Program Similarity Detection with Checksims

In response to growing academic dishonesty in low- level computer science and electrical and computer engineering courses, we present extit{checksims}, a similarity detector designed to highlight suspicious assignments for instructor review. We report the design rationale for the software, and describe our detection of dozens of previously undetected cases of academic dishonesty in previous classes

Fuzzy Extractors: How to Generate Strong Keys from Biometrics and Other Noisy Data

We provide formal definitions and efficient secure techniques for - turning noisy information into keys usable for any cryptographic application, and, in particular, - reliably and securely authenticating biometric data. Our techniques apply not just to biometric information, but to any keying material that, unlike traditional cryptographic keys, is (1) not reproducible precisely and (2) not distributed uniformly. We propose two primitives: a "fuzzy extractor" reliably extracts nearly uniform randomness R from its input; the extraction is error-tolerant in the sense that R will be the same even if the input changes, as long as it remains reasonably close to the original. Thus, R can be used as a key in a cryptographic application. A "secure sketch" produces public information about its input w that does not reveal w, and yet allows exact recovery of w given another value that is close to w. Thus, it can be used to reliably reproduce error-prone biometric inputs without incurring the security risk inherent in storing them. We define the primitives to be both formally secure and versatile, generalizing much prior work. In addition, we provide nearly optimal constructions of both primitives for various measures of ``closeness'' of input data, such as Hamming distance, edit distance, and set difference.Comment: 47 pp., 3 figures. Prelim. version in Eurocrypt 2004, Springer LNCS 3027, pp. 523-540. Differences from version 3: minor edits for grammar, clarity, and typo

A framework for automatically generating optimized digital designs from C-language loops

Reconfigurable computing has the potential for providing significant performance increases to a number of computing applications. However, realizing these benefits requires digital design experience and knowledge of hardware description languages (HDLs). While a number of tools have focused on translation of high-level languages (HLLs) to HDLs, the tools do not always create optimized digital designs that are competitive with hand-coded solutions. This work describes an automatic optimization in the C-to-HDL transformation that reorganizes operations between pipeline stages in order to reduce critical path lengths. The effects of this optimization are examined on the MD5, SHA-1, and Smith-Waterman algorithms. Results show that the optimization results in performance gains of 13%-37% and that the automatically-generated implementations perform comparably to hand-coded implementations

A framework for automatically generating optimized digital designs from C-language loops

Reconfigurable computing has the potential for providing significant performance increases to a number of computing applications. However, realizing these benefits requires digital design experience and knowledge of hardware description languages (HDLs). While a number of tools have focused on translation of high-level languages (HLLs) to HDLs, the tools do not always create optimized digital designs that are competitive with hand-coded solutions. This work describes an automatic optimization in the C-to-HDL transformation that reorganizes operations between pipeline stages in order to reduce critical path lengths. The effects of this optimization are examined on the MD5, SHA-1, and Smith-Waterman algorithms. Results show that the optimization results in performance gains of 13%-37% and that the automatically-generated implementations perform comparably to hand-coded implementations

Multimedia

The nowadays ubiquitous and effortless digital data capture and processing capabilities offered by the majority of devices, lead to an unprecedented penetration of multimedia content in our everyday life. To make the most of this phenomenon, the rapidly increasing volume and usage of digitised content requires constant re-evaluation and adaptation of multimedia methodologies, in order to meet the relentless change of requirements from both the user and system perspectives. Advances in Multimedia provides readers with an overview of the ever-growing field of multimedia by bringing together various research studies and surveys from different subfields that point out such important aspects. Some of the main topics that this book deals with include: multimedia management in peer-to-peer structures & wireless networks, security characteristics in multimedia, semantic gap bridging for multimedia content and novel multimedia applications