ACE-SUPPRA

Security, Usability, Performance, and Privacy Research on Algorand

About Algorand

The [Algorand protocol][1] is a carbon-zero Layer 1 Blockchain technology, founded by the Turing Award winner and MIT professor Silvio Micali. Based on pure Proof-of-Stake (POS) consensus, Algorand currently supports 1000 transactions per second (TPS) with a 4.5 second settlement finality and offers a powerful smart contract platform based on the Algorand Virtual Machine (AVM).

About ACE

The [Algorand Centers of Excellence (ACE) program][2], funded by the Algorand Foundation, is dedicated to support research, education, development, and social impact of projects in the Blockchain and distributed ledger space. In total, the Algorand Foundation selected 10 centers of excellence globally out of 77 proposals with over 550 participants, representing 46 countries. The projects were evaluated by 27 international experts with various backgrounds.

About TUM-ACE-SUPPRA

The TUM project ACE-SUPPRA (Security, Usability, Performance, and Privacy Research in Algorand) was selected for a five year long research initiative grant with educational and outreach elements. The Principal Investigator (PI) of ACE-SUPPRA is Prof. Georg Carle, head of the Chair of Network Architectures and Services (NET). ACE-SUPPRA is an interdisciplinary initiative, involving teams of different TUM departments with the following Co-PIs:

  • Prof. Andreas Herkersdorf – Chair of Integrated Systems (LIS)
  • Prof. Florian Matthes – Chair of Software Engineering for Business Information Systems (SEBIS)
  • Prof. Alexander Pretschner – Chair of Software and Systems Engineering (SSE)
  • Prof. Isabell Welpe – Chair of Strategy and Organization (SAO)

Research of the involved groups, building on their key competencies, addresses technical, economic, and social aspects of blockchain technologies in relation to the Algorand protocol. The chair of Prof. Carle targets assessment of the Algorand infrastructure, aiming for the improvement of its performance, and research of more secure and privacy-preserving techniques for the Algorand users. Prof. Herkersdorf and his team address performance enhancements using SmartNICs to which certain operations can be offloaded. Smart contract capabilities are a key factor to blockchain adoption and usability, which will be investigated by the research group of Prof. Pretschner, aiming to improve robustness, quality, and security. Focusing on secure usability, Prof. Matthes aims to offer solutions to minimize risks and overhead caused by smart contract development. The team of Prof. Welpe addresses aspects of tokenomics and governance of Algorand. ACE-SUPPRA outreach activities include the organization of workshops and hackathons.

Additional Information

Related publications

2024-03-01 Filip Rezabek*, Marcin Bosk*, Leander Seidlitz, Jörg Ott, Georg Carle, “Context Matters: Lessons Learned from Emulated and Simulated TSN Environments,” in 3rd International Workshop on Negative Results in Pervasive Computing (PerFail 2024), Biarritz, France, Mar. 2024. [Pdf] [Bib]
2023-06-01 Marcin Bosk*, Filip Rezabek*, Johannes Abel, Kilian Holzinger, Max Helm, Georg Carle, Jörg Ott, “Simulation and Practice: A Hybrid Experimentation Platform for TSN,” in 22nd International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) Networking Conference, Barcelona, Spain, Jun. 2023. [Bib]
2023-03-01 Filip Rezabek*, Marcin Bosk*, Georg Carle, Jörg Ott, “TSN Experiments Using COTS Hardware and Open-Source Solutions: Lessons Learned,” in 2nd International Workshop on Negative Results in Pervasive Computing (PerFail 2023), Atlanta, USA, Mar. 2023. Best Paper Award [Pdf] [Slides] [Bib]
2022-12-01 Richard Von Seck, Filip Rezabek, Benedikt Jaeger, Sebastian Gallenmüller, Georg Carle, “BFT-Blocks: The Case for Analyzing Networking in Byzantine Fault Tolerant Consensus,” in 2022 IEEE 21st International Symposium on Network Computing and Applications (NCA), Dec. 2022, vol. 21, pp. 35–44. [Preprint] [DOI] [Bib]
2022-11-01 Filip Rezabek, Max Helm, Tizian Leonhardt, Georg Carle, “PTP Security Measures and their Impact on Synchronization Accuracy,” in 18th International Conference on Network and Service Management (CNSM 2022), Thessaloniki, Greece, Nov. 2022. [Pdf] [Bib]

Finished student theses

Author Title Type Advisors Year Links
Ali Sabbagh Assessment of Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) Mitigation Techniques MA Filip Rezabek, Burak Öz 2023
Daniel Gockel Evaluation of State Channel Approaches on Smart Contract Platforms BA Kilian Glas, Filip Rezabek 2023
Marc Sinner Design and Evaluation of a Decentralized Blockchain Ticketing System MA Filip Rezabek 2023
Phillip Kemper Assessment of ZK-EVM-based Rollups for Blockchain Scalability MA Kilian Glas, Filip Rezabek 2023
Achraf Aroua Assessment of Ethereum after the Merge MA Filip Rezabek 2023
Gopi Mehta Exploring Reputation Systems for Permissionless Blockchains MA Filip Rezabek 2023
Leonardo Fraquelli Assessment of Scalable Blockchain Solutions MA Filip Rezabek 2023
Reshma Vasudevan Threshold Cryptography Optimization using Time-Sensitive Networking MA Filip Rezabek 2023
Nina Schwanke Modeling Network Characteristics of Blockchain Protocols MA Filip Rezabek, Richard von Seck, Kilian Glas 2023
Simon Borowski Structure and Performance of Smart Contracts in Different Ecosystems MA Filip Rezabek, Kilian Glas, Richard von Seck 2022
Andreas Kramer Performance Evaluation of Privacy Enhancing Infrastructure MA Filip Rezabek, Richard von Seck 2022
Andrei-Cosmin Aprodu Providing Network Layer Privacy to Blockchain Protocols IDP Filip Rezabek, Richard von Seck 2022
Christoph Schnabl Private Group Management for Mix Networks BA Daniel Hugenroth, Filip Rezabek, Richard von Seck 2022
Johannes Pfannschmidt Feasibility Study of Threshold BLS Signature Scheme for Tamper-Resistance Signature Service BA Filip Rezabek, Richard von Seck, Dr. Holger Kinkelin 2022
Timo Michael Saunus Software-based Security for Intellectual Property and Collaboration MA Richard von Seck, Filip Rezabek, Holger Kinkelin 2022
Justus von der Beek TEE Support for Digital Data Marketplaces IDP Filip Rezabek, Holger Kinkelin, Richard von Seck 2022

Open and running student theses

Author Title Type Advisors Year Links
Tizian Leonhardt Private Computing on Permissionless Blockchains IDP Filip Rezabek 2023
Simon Borowski Macro View on Smart Contracts and their Processing Overhead IDP Filip Rezabek, Kilian Glas, Richard von Seck 2023
Shouvik Ghosh Parshant Singh Extension of the EnGINE Framework and Profiling Blockchains to Identify and Optimize Bottlenecks IDP Filip Rezabek, Richard von Seck 2022