Dr. Christina Pöpper

PGP-Key: CD1F6051

About me

I am a postdoctoral researcher in the System Security Group, Institute of Information Security (D-INFK), at ETH Zurich. I defended my PhD thesis entitled "On Secure Wireless Communication under Adversarial Interference" in November 2011.

During my PhD, I was working on different topics in wireless security, in particular on securing wireless radio transmissions against jamming, on secure localization, and secure time synchronization. My research interests cover broad security topics. In particular I like to combine systems and security mechanisms in a variety of application settings. I believe that secure systems rely on solid theoretic foundations, however, cryptography alone is often not enough.

Before doing my PhD, I worked at the European Space Agency (ESA) for two years - space rocks :-).

Before that, I studied computer science at ETH Zurich. In my diploma thesis, I worked on information flows analysis and automatic detection of information leaks during the execution of programs.

Publications

• Nils Ole Tippenhauer, Christina Pöpper, Kasper Bonne Rasmussen, Srdjan Capkun
  On the Requirements for Successful GPS Spoofing Attacks
  In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), Chicago, Illinois, 2011 [PDF]
• Christina Pöpper, Nils Ole Tippenhauer, Boris Danev, Srdjan Capkun
  Investigation of Signal and Message Manipulations on the Wireless Channel
  In Proceedings of the European Symposium on Research in Computer Security (ESORICS), Leuven, Belgium, 2011 [PDF]
• Christina Pöpper, David Basin, Srdjan Capkun, Cas Cremers
  Keeping Data Secret under Full Compromise using Porter Devices
  In Proceedings of the Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC), Austin, Texas, 2010 [PDF]
• Christina Pöpper, Mario Strasser, Srdjan Capkun
  Anti-jamming Broadcast Communication using Uncoordinated Spread Spectrum Techniques
  IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications: Special Issue on Mission Critical Networking, 2010 [PDF]
• Christina Pöpper, Mario Strasser, Srdjan Capkun
  Jamming-resistant Broadcast Communication without Shared Keys
  In Proceedings of the USENIX Security Symposium, Montreal, Canada, 2009 [PDF]
• Nils Ole Tippenhauer, Kasper Bonne Rasmussen, Christina Pöpper, Srdjan Capkun
  Attacks on Public WLAN-based Positioning Systems
  In Proceedings of the ACM/Usenix International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications and Services (MobiSys), Poland, 2009 [PDF]
• Mario Strasser, Christina Pöpper, Srdjan Capkun
  Efficient Uncoordinated FHSS Anti-jamming Communication
  In Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Mobile Ad Hoc Networking and Computing (MobiHoc), New Orleans, Louisiana, 2009 [PDF]
• Saurabh Ganeriwal, Christina Pöpper, Srdjan Capkun, Mani B. Srivastava
  Secure Time Synchronization in Sensor Networks
  in ACM Transactions on Information and System Security, July 2008 [PDF]
• Mario Strasser, Christina Pöpper, Srdjan Capkun, Mario Cagalj
  Jamming-resistant Key Establishment using Uncoordinated Frequency Hopping
  in Proceedings of IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (S&P), Oakland, CA, 2008 [PDF]

Group Publications

Recognition

• Google EMEA Anita Borg Scholarship Recipient 2010

Teaching

Open Theses

• SA/DA/MA: Please check Syssec Student Projects

Theses and Projects

This is a list of theses and projects I have (co-)supervised:

• Der-Yeuan Yu, Schemes for Anti-Jamming Broadcast Communication, Research Project, Spring 2011
• Claudio Marforio, Timed Data Deletion on Mobile Communication Devices, Master's Thesis, Spring 2010
• Arthur Schmitt, Reactive and Smart Radio Jamming, Master's Thesis, Spring 2009
• Sasa Meskovic, Implementation of Jamming-resistant Communication, Master's Thesis, Autumn/Spring 2007/2008
• Laurent Zimmerli, Implementation of Secure RSS-based Localization in Sensor Networks, Student Project, Autumn 2007
• Andrea Malagoni, Multi-party key agreement over insecure wireless channels, Master's Thesis, Summer 2007

Teaching Assistance

I was a teaching assistant for the following lecture at ETH:

• System Security (227-0576-01), lecture given by G. Caronni, N. Weiler and S. Capkun, summer semester 2007

Before I started my PhD, I was involved as a teaching assistant in the following courses: Logics, Algebra, and Computer Science for Electrical Engineers.

Forum for Women in Computer Science

There are way too few women in computer science in Switzerland. Between Sep 2007 and Sep 2011, I was co-heading the Forum for Women in Computer Science at ETH (Frauenförderung). This forum organizes and runs numerous events and programs, both for female high school graduates and for female students of the department with the goal to increase the number of female computer-science students at ETH (currently around 10%).

Related publication:

• Christina Pöpper and Adrian Altenhoff
  What Drives Young Women to Study Computer Science in Switzerland? Experiences on Promoting Computer Science Studies for Female High School Graduates
  In Proceedings of the 5th European Symposium on Gender & ICT, Bremen, March 2009. [PDF]