Impact

From Honours Project to Open-Source Application: Developing a Wireshark ILNP Dissector

Wireshark is one of the world’s most widely used network analysis tools, and it comes with great pride that recent graduate Shubh Sinhal’s CS4099 Project “Wireshark and ILNP” has been included within the tool’s official codebase.

Shubh developed a Wireshark ILNP dissector that could be used for the ease of study for researchers and students interested in investigating and testing Identifier Locator Network Protocol (ILNP). Commenting on his work, he stated that his goals were “to identify ILNP flows, validate checksums, and produce tables for tracking and analysing data.” In this way, Shubh’s project adds the ability for Wireshark to detect and analyse ILNP traffic in TCP and UDP segments, check data integrity, and provide new filters and tracking tools for flow analysis. He notes:

I wanted to work on a large, well-known code base to gain experience with complex software and understand how such projects are organised. Since IP is still the dominant protocol, there is little work on new Internet layer protocols, and through the networking modules offered by St Andrews, I gained an interest in Internet architecture and protocol design for communication between devices located across the globe.

The CS4099 module prepares students to design, develop, and test a software system. Pursuing such a project involves students embracing independent research that can have an impactful effect on current software tools. Shubh relays that by supporting ILNP in Wireshark, “it lays the groundwork for potential wider adoption of an alternative internet layer protocol that improves on IPv6 with better mobility and multi-homing capabilities and simpler network management.” This development opens the door for innovation and unexplored opportunities in the future, including “new uses and features, as well as the improvement of performativity,” which in turn could lead to “ILNP becoming a strong alternative to traditional IP.”

With the guidance of his supervisor, Saleem Bhatti, Shubh remarks how the module’s personalized mentorship allowed him to “navigate” a complex code base and “strengthen” his capacity for software development by improving his abilities in understanding existing documentation and code, testing, debugging and producing documentation of his own. Most importantly, he reflects on how the project strengthened his confidence in working with real-world software and networking technologies, as well as improved his ability to work effectively with existing code, therefore giving him the chance to “explore an experimental protocol and contribute to open source by creating a useful tool that others can build on.”

With Shubh Sinhal now being credited on the list of authors for Wireshark, his contribution has shown how research within the School of Computer Science, as well as the engineers graduating from the school, are creating real impact through software applications within academia and beyond.

Information about ILNP can be found at https://ilnp.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/. With the main part of the codebase Shubh produced being located in the master branch of the Wireshark GitHub repo here.

By Nina Globerson

The St Andrews Global Research Centre for Changing Climates Science, Society, Solutions

The next 600 years of St Andrews history will be set against a radically altered climate. The St Andrews Centre for Changing Climates, initiated this September, will leverage insights from climate change past and present, spanning science and society, to better understand the diverse array of challenges posed by a changing climate, and the solutions required to address them. Structured around cross cutting themes (Thresholds, Extremes, Solutions) and critical research topics (Environmental history; Climate and culture; Climate fundamentals and impacts; Adaptation and mitigation; Climate, health, and wellbeing), the Centre will pursue a distinctively diverse, cross-disciplinary agenda of research and impact, of benefit to researchers, decision makers, and the public. With a vision of interdisciplinarity possible only at an institution like St Andrews, the Centre will inspire uniquely nuanced, well-informed, and long-term perspectives on the scientific, political, ethical, and social dimensions of climate change.

The Centre’s Director, Dr James Rae, Reader in the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, said: “St Andrews is uniquely well positioned to pull together research on the plurality of changing climates – physical, economic, social, cultural – to better understand how we can address this critical global challenge. Dr Alan Miller from the School of Computer Science will be participating in the research center.

Enhancing Privacy for Internet Communication Protocols: SICSA 2025 Best PhD Dissertation Award

On June 25th, recent PhD graduate, Dr. Gregor Haywood, took to the stage to receive the 2025 “Best PhD Dissertation” award from the Scottish Informatics & Computer Science Alliance (SICSA).

Gregor (Lecturer in the Department of Cybersecurity and Computing at Abertay University, and PhD Award Recipient) is standing next to Debbie Meharg, Head of Applied Informatics at Edinburgh Napier University, Director of Education for SICSA, and the Awards Chair for the SICSA PhD Conference 2025

Gregor (Lecturer in the Department of Cybersecurity and Computing at Abertay University, and PhD Award Recipient) standing next to Debbie Meharg, Head of Applied Informatics at Edinburgh Napier University, Director of Education for SICSA, and the Awards Chair for the SICSA PhD Conference 2025

Haywood’s thesis on “Enhancing Privacy for Secure Internet Communications Using ILNP” focuses on how underlying communication protocols for the Internet could avoid privacy leaks, while continuing to utilise existing and unmodified hardware, infrastructure, and Internet services. His study was driven by his academic interest in the unintended design consequences within large interconnected systems:

I was captivated by working on a project that was socially relevant, deeply technical, and – ultimately – solvable. During my undergraduate degree, I started looking at private communication mechanisms as a side project which turned into my fourth year dissertation, and continued onwards within my PhD. I like finding these unanticipated problems, such as privacy leaks, security vulnerabilities, and environmental impacts, then designing new solutions that fix the problems without disrupting the operation of the larger systems at play.

(Dr Gregor Haywood)

Professor Saleem Bhatti (School of Computer Science, Thesis Supervisor) adds how Haywood’s work demonstrates what he believes to be ‘the first deployable mechanisms for perturbing traffic flow correlation attacks at the network level, as well as perturbing privacy attacks by traffic analysis as might be performed by a machine-learning system.’ For this reason, he was enthusiastic to nominate Haywood’s thesis for SICSA stating it is ‘an excellent balance between science and engineering’ that explores ‘a radical new architecture in addressing using the Identifier Locator Network Protocol (ILNP) to provide new privacy features, and an open-source implementation in FreeBSD that is usable across the existing Internet.’

The SICSA PhD Conference is a flagship event that brings together various participants from fourteen Scottish Universities to network, seek graduate researcher training, and share current interdisciplinary projects.  Dr. Tristan Henderson (Senior Lecturer and Computer Science Director of Postgraduate Research) comments that submitting to awards like SICSA encompasses the primary aim of a PhD which is ‘learning how to become a researcher.’  For this reason, SICSA is a valuable opportunity that allows for ‘visibility’ and ‘recognition’ of one’s work both nationally and internationally adds Professor Bhatti.

In recalling his own researcher journey, Dr. Haywood expresses that whether it is learning a ‘can-do attitude’ from his supervisor or picking up fun new quirks such as ‘hoarding hand-me-down computer hardware,’ the School of Computer Science and his PhD research have given him the space to thrive for who he is:

I suspect I will always have a compulsive need to understand things deeply – but now I have the tools to harness that into computer systems research, and whether it is celebrating the wins at conference dinners with my peers, or consoling each other at the pub when it falls apart, it is hard to put words to the joy I have found in being part of a community that can match my passion, debate my technical points, and jump on board with my research tangent conversation starters.

 It’s also very exciting to celebrate a success in privacy research. Many headlines are about data breaches and privacy failures, and so much research is about finding new privacy vulnerabilities. Being able to say “we made things better” is a great opportunity to inject some hope into the research community.                                            

(Dr Gregor Haywood)

This elation also extends to the pride that both Dr. Henderson and Professor Bhatti feel towards having an alumnus from the School of Computer Science win this award. ‘It is a great honour’ they both expressed, and a fantastic example of the impact of research outside of the university. Dr. Henderson adds that within Computer Science, there are a number of dissertation awards, including SICSA and the BCS in the UK, as well as the ACM internationally. He encourages students to indulge in these opportunities, with Dr. Haywood noting that ‘participating in this and other inter-institutional networking events was a valuable way for me to broaden my research mindset throughout the PhD’ and if you are considering applying yourself or nominating a student for it, ‘do it! You have nothing to lose and plenty to gain. Remember it is the reviewers’ job to judge your work, not yours – you just need to judge whether you have time to submit.’

Dr. Haywood is now a Lecturer in the Department of Cybersecurity and Computing at Abertay University with key aspects of his work being available to read online until his thesis is published in June 2026.

ILNP web page: https://ilnp.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk

Blog written by Nina Globerson

Congratulations to Saleem!

We’re thrilled to share some fantastic news and congratulate Saleem on being selected as one of the recipients of the ICANN Grant Program for his  project: “Deployability of ILNP at Global Scale.”

The announcement was officially made by ICANN on May 29, 2025, as part of their first-ever cohort of grant recipients. You can read the full announcement here.

This is a major achievement and a testament to Saleem’s dedication. Once again, congratulations, Saleem!

 

Successful Doors Open Event

The school hosted a highly successful Doors Open event yesterday, welcoming many visitors including industry professionals, university colleagues from other schools (e.g. Psychology & Neuroscience, Biology and Chemistry) and prospective students. Attendees had the opportunity to explore cutting-edge projects in Artificial Intelligence, Human-computer Interaction, Software Engineering and engage with interactive technology demonstrations.

Highlights of the event included the popular “Hot Tattie” sessions in Artificial Intelligence, Programming Languages and Human Computer Interaction. The enthusiastic participation and positive feedback from visitors highlighted the school’s commitment to outreach, education, and fostering a strong connection between academia and the broader community.

Special thanks to Ruth Hoffmann and Kirsty Ross who organised this event. We would like to thank all who attended Doors Open and made it a success. We look forward to seeing you next year!

GAP Days Summer 2024 @ St Andrews

The School of Computer Science hosted this years Summer GAP Days between 26th August and 30th August.

GAP Days are workshops where developers and users with programming experience are invited to influence the future development of [GAP] by initiating and contributing to discussions and coding sprints.

These GAP Days have been special as we celebrated 10 years of the [Digraphs] package as well as 10 years of [GAP Days] (to the week!).

We had a great selection of speakers and attendees from varied backgrounds, which cumulated in the release of the re-vamped GAP webpage, and over 30 new versions of packages!

Doors Open @ CS, 11th April (10am-4pm)

On 11th April, the School of Computer Science at St Andrews will host our Doors Open event. We will be thrilled to welcome any and all visitors from outwith the School, whether you are locally based, from elsewhere in the UK, or from overseas.

As a rapidly growing school, we are looking to build relationships with new partners and are keen to find out how we can help you, your companies, and/or organisations to solve problems and improve processes.

Our Doors Open Day will have over 60 individual exhibits and activities. Our presenters will be our staff and students, with representation from 1st year undergrad through to PhD students, academic and technical members of staff.

Please register here if you would like to attend to enable us to order sufficient food!

 

Doors Open Event Success

We had a wonderful time yesterday at the Doors Open day. We welcomed more than 200 visitors who were interested in learning more about our programs, facilities, and research.

We showcased some of our cutting-edge projects in artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, and software engineering. Our visitors had the chance to interact with virtual reality systems, and smart devices. They also learned about the ethical and social implications of these technologies.

Special Thanks to Ruth Hoffmann, Ken Boyd and Kirsty Ross who organised the event. We would also like to thank everyone who attended the doors open day and made it a success. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. If you have any questions or feedback, please feel free to contact us at collaborate-cs@st-andrews.ac.uk.

We look forward to seeing you again soon!

The Schools of Computer Science and Mathematics & Statistics are now an Institutional Member of the European Women in Mathematics

The Schools of Computer Science and Mathematics & Statistics are now an Institutional Member of the European Women in Mathematics (EWM). The EWM is an association dedicated to encouraging women to study mathematics and related sciences (such as computer science), supporting them in their careers and promoting scientific communication.

Being an Institutional Member supports the EWM in their mission and promotes the role of women in mathematics and related fields while strengthening connections across the European community of mathematicians (which is the primary goal of the EWM). “With the help of our institutional members we are able to empower more female mathematicians by offering travel grants, organize panel discussions and providing a platform to communicate.”

If you would like to find out more about the EWM or how the Schools support Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity, please get in touch with the ED&I officers or Ruth Hoffmann who is a EWM country coordinator for the UK.