News
Successful submissions at ACM CHI
ATHENE researchers are presenting their papers at the prestigious ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, known as CHI. CHI is the leading international conference on human-computer interaction and serves as a platform for researchers, practitioners, and industry leaders to share their latest work and ideas and to foster collaboration and innovation in this field.
read more
ATHENE project on AI to combat online hate speech: Dr Thea Riebe introduces herself
Hate speech on the internet is on the rise – and AI is set to help identify and combat it more effectively. The CYNTRA project will launch in July 2026 within the ATHENE research area Reliable and Verifiable Information through Secure Media (REVISE). It will be coordinated by Dr. rer nat. Thea Riebe and her colleague Dr. rer. nat. Marc-André Kaufhold, two researchers at TU Darmstadt's group PEASEC – Science and Technology for Peace and Security. In this interview, Thea Riebe introduces herself and her research, and provides insights into the project’s research approach and practical relevance.
read more
New ATHENE project: Greater security for embedded systems in practice and research
Since the start of the year, ATHENE has been running a new research project entitled ‘Advanced Reverse Engineering Techniques for Embedded and Wireless Systems’ – ARTEWS for short. Until the end of 2029, ATHENE researchers will be working to make the security of embedded systems systematically verifiable – and will be developing complementary tools for this purpose, which will be integrated into a practical toolbox by the end of the project. The target audience comprises small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as well as academic research groups. The toolbox is designed to help them carry out security analyses in a structured and independent manner.
read moreATHENE researchers have uncovered serious security vulnerabilities in children's smartwatches.
Smartwatches enable children to make calls and send text messages to their parents. Parents can also use the device to track their child's location. Designed for children aged 4–10, these smartwatches serve as an introduction to smartphones. ATHENE researchers from the Secure Mobile Networks (SEEMOO) department at TU Darmstadt, headed by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Matthias Hollick, have examined a children's smartwatch and found that even basic IT security mechanisms were not observed. Doctoral student Nils Rollshausen explains the details of the analysis in an interview.
read more
From our research: Greater fairness in facial recognition
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Naser Damer and his team at ATHENE are developing innovative methods for fair biometric systems. In this interview, he explains how continuous demographic labels instead of discrete categories reduce bias in facial recognition systems and what role this research plays in trustworthy AI applications.
read more