The DACS mission is to contribute to the development of responsible communication networks by performing top-quality research and by educating talented students. Our society is increasingly relying on networks such as the Internet and 5G/6G for a wide range of critical applications. Ensuring the security, trustworthiness, and resilience of these networks is of the utmost importance. Furthermore, as ICT systems including communication infrastructure are consuming an increasing share of our worldwide energy consumption, a drastic increase of energy efficiency of communication networks is inevitable. To get a detailed understanding of the operation and (mis)use of our core Internet and its connected mobile and wireless communication infrastructures, we design and execute methods to measure and analyse the traffic flowing over these networks, and to map the distribution of services on the Internet. We use the knowledge gained from this to improve security and resilience, e.g., by detecting anomalies and attacks, and identifying single points of failure. We also simulate, model and analyse networks and network technology to comprehend their efficiency and performance. Further, we design architectures, protocols, and algorithms for existing and future network systems and ensure that they provide the required functionality, performance, security, and resilience in a sustainable manner. Finally, we also consider the context in which these systems are operating, e.g., user aspects, governance aspects, and digital autonomy
The focus of DACS research is in three partly overlapping areas: Internet security, wireless networks, and sustainability of networked systems.
In the area of Internet security, we investigate the detection and mitigation of Internet attacks as well as the design of secure (core) network systems. For attack detection and mitigation, we take a measurement-based approach, to get inspired by the real-world scenario’s and to ensure our models are representative. We create data lakes and use big data analysis techniques to find potential threats. The data we analyse include network flows, data from the Domain Name System (DNS, the “yellow pages” of the internet), routing information (BGP, the Border Gateway Protocol) as well as web certificates (SSL, TLS). The security problems on which we focus include Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks as well as Botnets. For the design of secure (core) network systems we study approaches to improve the transparency and security of packet switches and routers. We therefore follow Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Open Networking principles. We use programming languages such as defined for “Programming Protocol-Independent Packet Processors” (P4), and experiment with systems such as SCION and RINA. Our goal is to facilitate secure routing and network / device attestation within critical networks.
Next to our activities on Internet security, we focus on wireless networks for extremely demanding applications in terms of real-time requirements, reliability, etc. Examples of such applications are Intelligent Transportation Systems, smart manufacturing and (social) extended reality. Key challenges here are to develop scalable protocols and algorithms to meet the very stringent reliability and real-time requirements; to make models that can predict the joint behavior of coordinated control and the underlying wireless networks; to develop a new generation of systems that have a significantly reduced energy consumption, and to develop distributed systems that can exploit the huge amounts of data that can be sensed in Cyber-Physical Systems (such as Intelligent Transportation Systems) in real time to control elements in that same system. Our goal is to develop protocols, algorithms and models for a new (6th) generation of wireless systems and their applications.
For sustainability of networked systems, we investigate the sustainability of cellular infrastructures, especially the energy efficiency of wireless communication techniques and concepts for 5G and 6G. This includes techniques for cell-free massive mimo, national roaming, and semantic communications. We also investigate how we can reduce carbon emissions in the operation of the computing and communications continuum by properly scheduling workload in space and/or time. Finally, we study how we can increase the sustainability of the core Internet infrastructure itself.