Institute for Applied Information Processing and Communication (IAIK)

Head: Posch Reinhard

Inffeldgasse 16a, 8010 Graz, Austria, Europe
Tel.: (+43 316) 873 5514
Fax: (+43 316) 873 5520

Homepage: http://www.iaik.tugraz.at

Teaching topics follow IAIK's research interests. In addition, we emphasize new teaching methods: Students work project-oriented and follow an inter-disciplinary approach; Moreover, we encourage team-results, independent work, and integration of up-to-date research problems. With this teaching method we try to meet the dynamics of knowledge creation and face the short life cycles of relevant knowledge. This method proves also adequate when trying to cope with the requirements from the industry at one end, and the goal to offer a proper scientific education at the other end.

Observing rapidly-evolving technologies like information security, networking, and system-on-chip design, IAIK consults public and private institutions, both, national and international. Considering the migration towards a global information society, such advisory services are of paramount importance. IAIK emphasizes the independent position of its consulting activities.

In the framework of the "project semester" students can work intensively at the IAIK and thus earn up to 24 course units (Semesterstunden). The Telematics Master study program offers "Security in Information Technology", consisting of several courses with altogether 45 ECTS-points; this is also offered as a cluster of courses for students of Technical Mathematics .

Additionally, the institute is significantly contributing to "System-on-Chip Design", a Master course which is offered in cooperation with six other institutes at TU Graz and which is unique in Austria. Since 1998, the IAIK has organized together with a number of European universities yearly summer and winter schools at various venues under the title "Intensive Program for Information and Communication Security" (IPICS).

The successful team of the IAIK is led by following professors:

O.Univ.-Professor Dr. Reinhard Posch (Head of the Institut)

Reinhard Posch was 1951 in Graz, Austria. He studied at Graz University of Technology mathematics with special emphasis on data processing and got his masters degree (Dipl.-Ing.) in 1973. He got his Ph.D. also at this University in Informatics and Telecommunication. From 1971 to 1979 he worked for the Graz Reasearch Ceter in the fields program design for road construction, operating systems and terminal handling. From 1974 to 1984 Reinhard Posch was assistant professor at Graz University of Technology. In 1984 he got approved as Lecturer ("Habilitation") for "Applied Information Processing and Information Technology". Since 1984 he is full Professor. He is head of the Institute of Applied Information Processing and Communications Technology at the Graz University of Technology since 1986.

At present Reinhard Posch is member of the Oenorm (Austrian standards body) Cryptography and Machine readable cards group. He is also member of many professional societies: IEEE, ACM, OCG (member of the board of the Austrian Computer Society), OGI (Oesterreichische Gesellschaft für Informatik), ACONET, OeMG (Oesterreichische Mathematische Gesellschaft) GME (Microelectronic society) etc. He is the Austrian representative in IFIP TC6 (Communication) as well as IFIP TC11 (Computer Security). He got elected vice chairman of TC11 for the period 1995-1998.

Reinhard Posch was also the coordinator for the Austrian EUROCHIP (ESPRIT II) project and is at present coordinator if the OCG IT-Security group. Besides this Reinhard Posch is member of the Working group on Security of payment systems with chipcards of the Austrian National Bank. He has been working as a consultant for the Austrian Lottery and the Mobilkom Austria. He is also engaged as an expert witness by Austrian courts in the field of IT-Security. In the field of security Reinhard Posch is also a consultant of the IPTS Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, Joint Research Centre (European Commission) Seville. He worked with the OECD group of experts on cryptography in preparing the OECD guidelines for cryptographic policies. At the national level he is consulting the Federal Chancellary and the Ministery for Interior Affairs on matters of security and cryptography. Reinhard Posch was member of the Austrian delegation consulting on the EU-directive on electronic signatures. Since May 1999 Reinhard Posch is also scientific director of the Austrian Information Security Center (A-SIT).

Ao.Univ.-Professor Dr. Karl Christian Posch

Karl Christian Posch 1979 got his Diploma in Electrical Engineering at Graz University of Technology in 1979 and his Ph.D. in Informatik in 1988.
1984/85 he was the head of the hardware design group at MUPID Computer Company, from 1981 to 1988 he was Assistant professor at the Institute for Information Processing IIG. Since 1998 he is Associate professor (a.o.Univ.-Prof.) at the Institute for Applied Information Processing and Communications Technology and since 2004 vice dean of the Faculty of Computer Science.

His research interest is directed towards System-on-Chip Design, Embedded Systems, and VLSI design methodology. In particular, I am interested in the problem solving aspect in connection with VLSI technology. Although this field has been of high academic and industrial interest during a couple of years, the human designer has not been taken into consideration as part of the design process to the extent he should have been. Building a bridge across the gap between the algorithmic behavioral way of describing systems, mainly used by software oriented people, and the structure-driven design style, most often used by engineers with background in electrical engineering, is one of the key issues of solving today's design crisis in this field. In contrast to the technology oriented view and the problem oriented view, the designer oriented view has been of limited scope.
In 2000 he set the main focus in teaching to "Teaching Initiative System-on-Chip Design in Graz" (see http://socware.tugraz.at).

Professor Dr. Vincent Rijmen

Since 2004 Vincent Rijmen is full professor at the Technical University of Graz (Austria). With the invention of the Rijndael-Algorithm (together with Joan Daemen) he has become one of the well-known scientists of the world. In 2000 this algorithms was selected by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) to become the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).

Vincent Rijmen obtained in 1993 the degree of electronics engineer at the University of Leuven, Belgium (K.U.Leuven). 1997 he finished his doctoral dissertation on the design and analysis of block ciphers and continued his researching activities in the COSIC research group. His research interests are symmetric Kryptography, Blockchiffres and Hash-Functions.