There are a number of research programs which provide funding for areas
that have some overlap with security. These are mentioned in the
following sections. A short comparison with SENTINELS is
included.
Some of the following research programs are for certain
specific scientific area's. PROGRESS is for embedded systems,
Freeband for broadband infrastructures, GenCom for communication in the
home environment, and Jacquard is for software engineering.
Another difference is that
SENTINELS addresses a number of topics that are not addressed
at all by any of the other funding programs, such as verification of security
protocols, cryptology, biometrics, smart cards, hardware tamper
resistance, and secure systems engineering.
The European IST program is currently starting the 6th framework
program. Projects are in progress for building
roadmaps to define the European research agenda for the coming 8-10
years. Work in security related areas includes smart cards, mobile
privacy & security, biometrics, cryptography, and dependability.
The SENTINELS community is heavily involved in European Security
projects to ensure that the strength of Dutch
research is recognized in the European context.
It is leading in a number of areas, such as electronic
voting, cryptography and smart card evaluation and verification,
and active in FP5 and FP6 as detailed below. For brevity, only
project partners from the SENTINELS community are mentioned
below. For further information see their respective websites.
CyberVote (http://www.eucybervote.org). Develops an innovative cyber voting system for Internet terminals and mobile phones. Coordinator: Berry Schoenmakers (TU/e), partner: Bart Preneel (Leuven).
CaberNet (http://www.research.ec.org/cabernet). Network of Excellence in Distributed and Dependable Computing Systems. Partners: Andy Tanenbaum (VU) and Pieter Hartel (UT).
As part of FP5 and in the run up to FP6, the EU has funded ten Roadmap
projects related to security (see
http://www.cordis.lu/ist/ka2/rmapsecurity.html). Eight of those roadmap
projects involve members of the SENTINELS community as follows:
AMSD (http://www.am-sd.org). Accompanying Measure on System Dependability. Technical board members: Pieter Hartel (UT) and Otto Vermeulen (PricewaterhouseCoopers).
RAPID (http://www.ra-pid.org). Roadmap for Advanced Research in Privacy and IDentity management. Coordinator: Otto Vermeulen (PricewaterhouseCoopers), partner: TNO-FEL.
ACIP (http://www.eu-acip.de). Analysis & Assessment for Critical Infrastructure Protection. Partners: Andrew Rathmell (RAND Europe, Netherlands) and
Eric Luiijf (TNO-FEL).
PAMPAS (http://www.pampas.eu.org). Pioneering Advanced Mobile Privacy and Security. Partners: Henk Eertink (Telematica Instituut) and TNO-FEL.
RESET (http://www.erciom.org/reset). Roadmap for European Research on Smartcard Technologies. Founding members: Pieter Hartel (UT) and Bart Jacobs (KUN).
STORK (http://www.stork.eu.org). Strategic Roadmap for Crypto. Coordinator: Bart Preneel (Leuven).
DDSI (http://www.ddsi.org). Dependability Development Support Initiative. Leading Partner: Maarten Botterman (RAND Europe, Netherlands).
BVN (no web site yet). Roadmap to successful deployments of biometrics from the user and integrator perspective. Partner: Ben Schoute (CWI).
One of the 12 main strategic objectives addressed in Call 1 of FP6 is
``Towards a global dependability and security framework''.
In preparation of FP6, the SENTINELS
community is partnering in a number
of Expressions of Interests, both for Integrated Projects (IP) and
Networks of Excellence (NoE). Out of the total 11500 proposals submitted,
a large number mention security as an important research topic. Here,
only those that elevate words like cryptography, security and
dependability in the title and which
involve the SENTINELS community, are listed.
Integrated Projects:
FormalCard. Formal methods for safe and secure smart card software.
Participant: Pieter Hartel (UT).
MobilSafe. Mobile Communications used for improvement of the safety and security of emergency personnel and citizens during critical situations.
Participants: Dimitri Konstantas, Pieter Hartel (UT).
SecureGrid. Industrial-Grade Security for Grids.
Coordinator: Kors Bos (Nikhef).
ISDI. Information Society Dependability Initiative.
Technical board member: Pieter Hartel (UT).
Networks of Excellence:
ESORICS. European Symposium On Research In Computer Security.
Member: Pieter Hartel (UT).
TRUST. Technology and Research for Ubiquitous Security and Trust.
Participant: Sandro Etalle (UT).
CLUES. Scientific and Technical Support for Cybersecurity Policy.
Partner: TNO-FEL and Leuven.
The European Commission is currently evaluating the first round of FP6
proposals; the outcomes are not fully know yet, and all information is
confidential at the time of writing (August 2003).
PROGRESS
PROGRESS is an IOP/STW sponsored research program on
embedded software and systems. Dependability and fault tolerance are
high on the PROGRESS research agenda.
There is some healthy overlap between SENTINELS and
PROGRESS because security contributes to
dependability. However, the scope of
SENTINELS is much broader than embedded systems, because
general-purpose computer systems and networks are very much in the
focus of SENTINELS.
``Pure'' security research is not part of the aims of
PROGRESS. Essentially, PROGRESS focuses on
preventing internal problems in computer systems by
developing better and more reliable hardware and software, whereas
SENTINELS focuses on defense against external
threats. PROGRESS is a stimulating and challenging example
for SENTINELS as a successful community forming research
program.
Freeband is a vision for a broadband infrastructure with practically
unlimited bandwidth for personalized services in the Netherlands,
developed in the context of BSIK (previously ICES/KIS). Freeband has a planning
horizon of 2010. It identifies privacy and authentication as a
requirement for the realization of its vision, but it does not involve
``pure'' security research.
The research identified in the SENTINELS program is an
essential enabler for Freeband to be able it to realize its
vision. But there is more. On the one hand SENTINELS can
function as provider of new security methodology and techniques, and
on the other hand Freeband can provide case studies and large-scale
experiments with these new security technologies. Freeband will never
realize the SENTINELS ambition (and vice versa) because
Freeband specific security topics cover only a fraction of the
security issues that SENTINELS wishes to address, and
Freeband has a definite focus of ``broadband access for all'', whereas
the SENTINELS focus is on ``system level security
engineering''.
In the Draft IST workprogram [11] this distinction is also
observed: there is one strategic objective ``broadband access for
all'' and another strategic objective ``towards a global dependability
and security framework''.
MultimediaN focuses on visual, language and auditive information and
its analysis, interaction, and organization. The most important aim of
MultimediaN is to consider the analysis, system
aspects, knowledge engineering and interaction of multimedia
regardless the carrier. By integrating these components
the grand challenges of multimedia can be embraced: semantic access
to multimedia
content, personalized information delivery, video at your fingertips
and truly multimedia information systems.
Security and privacy do play a role because this requires R&D in
security, watermarking, standards, authoring, and delivery of
information through static and dynamic media.
But ``pure'' security research is not among the aims of
MultimediaN. However, like with Freeband, SENTINELS can
function as a provider of new security methodology and techniques for
MultimediaN, and conversely, MultimediaN can provide case studies and
large-scale experiments with these new security technologies tailored
towards multimedia content.
The IOP GenCom targets generic communications in the home
environment. IOP GenCom should lead to generic solutions to serve the
ambient communication, entertainment, information and control needs of
individual users in their private environment. Security does play a
role within GenCom, but only in a limited form, namely focused
exclusively on the private individual.
However, this limited
security component is too small and too much focussed to
have a great influence on the much broader activities that
SENTINELS intends to realize.
Members of the SENTINELS community are involved in defining
the security related research parts of GenCom. This ensures
demarcation and tuning of both programs.
Jacquard
Jacquard is a research program on software engineering funded by the
Ministry of Economic Affairs, by NWO and the Dutch Universities. The
emphasis is on (1) constructing software architectures,
(2) configuring software systems, (3) business processes, and (4) the
evaluation of software systems.
Security is not specifically mentioned in the Jacquard program. However,
Jacquard is perfectly complementary with SENTINELS, in the
sense that better software engineering techniques would ease the task of
the security engineer, and that an overarching security engineering
methodology as advocated by the SENTINELS program would form
useful input and boundary conditions to novel software engineering
methods. Like in PROGRESS, the emphasis in Jacquard lies
on preventing internal problems, not on defense against external
ones.
The national scientific research agenda for computer science in the
Netherlands is called the NOAG-i (see
http://www.ictforum.nl/noag-i.aspx). Security is mentioned in the
NOAG-i but always as a means to achieve a specific goal that is not
directly related to security. For example, one of seven contributions
of basic disciplines to the area parallel and distributed computing
is: ``encryption algorithms, among others for identification, authentication
and security''.
Similarly, in the Multimedia area, one of 13 contributions of basic
disciplines, is: ``encryption algorithms for protection of information
in text, sound and movies''.
Encryption is one of the many subdomains of security, and as such we
believe that the main aim of SENTINELS is not explicitly
addressed by the NOAG-i. None of the remaining six
NOAG-i areas
mentions security explicitly.
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