Siaw-Lynn Ng

Contact details

I am currently a senior lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London.

My contact address is

Dr Siaw-Lynn Ng

Information Security Group

Royal Holloway

University of London

Egham

Surrey TW20 0EX

Email to S.Ng@rhul.ac.uk

Biography

I obtained a B.Sc. (Hons.) degree in Mathematics from the University of Adelaide in 1995, and a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Royal Holloway, University of London in 1998.

My PhD thesis is entitled ``On covers of point sets in finite geometries'' (postscript version or pdf version). The work includes constructions of minimal sets of points covering a line in finite projective planes, as well as a study on a family of extended generalised quadrangles and a construction of a new example. The abstract is available in postscript and pdf formats.

I was a post-doctoral research assistant at Royal Holloway from 1998 to 2001 (EPSRC Grant GL/L78505 - Authentication protocols with asymmetric computing requirements).

I am a senior lecturer, working part-time since 2004. My main research is in the fields of finite geometry, combinatorics and security protocols. My research focuses on the interaction between discrete mathematics and information security. Recent research areas are combinatorial problems in cryptography and communications, and the balancing of privacy and accountability in anonymous networks.

Academic activities

Teaching

2001-2004: Module leader for two MSc in Information Security courses: Business and Security Issues Raised by Electronic Commerce and Secure Electronic Commerce and Other Applications. I was also part of the team involved in providing consultancy through Royal Holloway Enterprise.
2004-2013: Module leader and lecturer for a third year Mathematics undergraduate course ( MT3620 Cipher Systems) and co-lecturer with Dr Carlos Cid for the postgraduate course ( MT4620 Advanced Cipher Systems).
2014 Autumn term: Sabbatical.
2015 Module leader and lecturer for a third year Mathematics undergraduate course ( MT3620 Cipher Systems) and the postgraduate course ( MT5462 Advanced Cipher Systems).
2018-2020 Module leader and lecturur for the third year/MSc course Error-correcting codes (MT3610/5461).
2021 Module leader for IY2760 Introduction to information security.

MSc students

I am happy to supervise MSc projects (ISG and Maths) in the areas of

Applications of discrete maths in information security / cryptography, for instance, the application of difference families in areas of communications and information security, and the applications of coding theory.
Security, resilience and privacy in distributed data storage systems.
Anti-jamming techniques.
Autonomous vehicles and vehicular ad hoc network security.
Applications of cryptography.
Any other areas of information security as long as they are interesting!

PhD students

Amizah Malip (Secure and private annoucement schemes for VANET), completed January 2015.
Mwawi Nyirenda Kayuni (Combinatorial properties of frequency hopping sequences), completed November 2017.
Chatdanai Dorkson (Private information retrieval using regenerating codes), completed 2021.

Publications

Please email me for copies of any of these which you cannot obtain through the given links. Up to date publications are available from the Royal Holloway website

Disjoint difference families and their applications. S.-L. Ng, M. B. Paterson. Designs, Codes and Cryptography, 78(1), 103-127, January 2016. Preprint available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1509.05255.
A combinatorial model of interference in frequency hopping schemes. M. M. Nyirenda, S.-L. Ng, K. M. Martin. Submitted. Preprint available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1508.02570.
Private reputation retrieval in public - a privacy-aware announcement scheme for VANETs. L. Chen, Q. Li, K. M.Martin, S.-L. Ng. IET Information Security. In press, August 2016. Preprint available at arxiv.org/abs/1506.03588.
Security in Swarm Robotics. T. Laing, K. Martin, S.-L. Ng and A. Tomlinson. Chapter in Handbook of Research on Design, Control, and Modeling of Swarm Robotics. IGI Global, 2015.
Cover-free codes and frequency hopping multiple access. M. Nyirenda, S.-L. Ng and K. Martin. Presented at the Ninth International Workshop on Coding and Cryptography, April 13-17, 2015.
A note on an upper bound of traceability codes. S. Owen and S.-L. Ng. Australasian Journal of Combinatorics 62(1):140-146, 2015.
A combinatorial framework for frequency hopping multiple access. K. Martin, S.-L. Ng and M. Nyirenda. In Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Workshop on Algebraic and Combinatorial Coding Theory, September 2014, pp. 271-276.
Broadcast-enhanced Key Predistribution Schemes. M. Kendall, K. Martin, S.-L. Ng, M. Paterson, and D. Stinson. ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks. Volume 11 Issue 1, Article 6, 2014 . Preprint available at http://eprint.iacr.org/2012/295.
A certificateless anonymous authenticated announcement scheme in vehicular ad hoc networks. Q. Li, A. Malip and S.-L. Ng. Security and Communication Networks Vol. 7, no. 3, March 2014, pp. 588 - 601. doi: 10.1002/sec.760.
A privacy-aware reputation-based announcement scheme for VANETs. L. Chen, Q. Li, K. M. Martin and S.-L. Ng. In Proceedings of the IEEE 5th International Symposium on Wireless Vehicular Communications (WiVeC), 2013, pp. 1 - 5. doi: 10.1109/wivec.2013.6698222. Extended version submitted to the International Workshop on Cloud Technologies and Trust Domains (CTTD 2013)
A reputation-based announcement scheme for VANETs. Q. Li, A. Malip, K. M. Martin, S.-L. Ng and J. Zhang IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, Vol. 61, no. 9, November 2012, pp. 4095 - 4108.
Threshold anonymous announcement in VANETs. L. Chen, S.-L. Ng and G. Wang. IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communication Special Issue on Vehicular Communications and Networks, Vol. 29, no. 3, March 2011, pp. 605 - 615.
Traceability codes. S.R. Blackburn, T. Etzion and S.-L. Ng. Journal of Combinatorial Theory - Series A, Vol. 117 (2010), pp. 1049-1057. See http://eprint.iacr.org/2009/046.
Comments on "Proving Reliability of Anonymous Information in VANETs" by Kounga et al. L. Chen and S.-L. Ng. IEEE Transaction on Vehicular Technology, Vol. 59(3), 1503--1505, March 2010.
Prolific codes with the identifiable parent property. S.R. Blackburn, T. Etzion and S.-L. Ng. SIAM Journal of Discrete Mathematics, Vol. 22, 1393-1410, 2008.See http://eprint.iacr.org/2007/276 for the extended preprint.
The combinatorics of generalised cumulative arrays. K. Martin and S.-L. Ng. Journal of Mathematical Cryptology, Vol 1, 13-32, 2007.
Attack on Shao's key agreement protocol. T. Alassiry, S.-L. Ng and P. Wild. IEE Proceedings - Information Security, Vol 153, No 2, 54-57 June 2006.
Ideal secret sharing schemes with multipartite access structures. S.-L. Ng. IEE Proceedings - Communications, Vol 153, No 2, 165-168 April 2006.
A characterization of posets that are nearly antichains. S.-L. Ng. Order, Vol 21, No 1, 1-5 February 2004 .
Comments on mutual authentication and key exchange protocols for low power wireless communications. C. J. Mitchell and S.-L. Ng. IEEE Communications Letters, Vol 8, No 4, 262-263 April 2004.
Posets and protocols - picking the right three-party protocol. S.-L. Ng. IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communication, Vol 21, No 1, 55-61 January 2003.
A representation of a family of secret sharing matroids. S.-L. Ng. Designs, Codes and Cryptography, Vol 30, 5-19, 2003.
Some properties of the Yoshiara family of planes. S.-L. Ng. European Journal of Combinatorics, Vol 23, 77-81, 2002.
On the composition of matroids and ideal secret sharing schemes. S.-L. Ng and M. Walker. Designs, Codes and Cryptography, Vol 24, 49-67, 2001.
Comments on ``Dynamic participation in a secure conference scheme for mobile communications''. S.-L. Ng. IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, Vol 50, No 1, 334-335 January 2001.
On k-arcs covering a line in finite projective planes. S.-L. Ng and P. R. Wild. Ars Combinatoria, Vol 58, 289-300, January 2001.
A new family of extended generalized quadrangles of order (q+1, q-1). S.-L. Ng and P. R. Wild. European Journal of Combinatorics, Vol 21, 395-406, 2000.
Comment: Horng's identification scheme based on Shamir's 'RSA for paranoids'. C. J. Mitchell and S.-L. Ng. Electronics Letters, Vol 36, No 5, 422-422, March 2000. A version is available here.
Comments on "On the security of three-party cryptographic protocols" by Xu, Zhang and Zhu. S.-L. Ng. Operating Systems Review, Vol 33, No 3, 5-6, July 1999.
Comment: Signature scheme based on discrete logarithm without using one-way hash-function. C. Y. Yeun, S.-L. Ng and C. J. Mitchell. Electronics Letters, Vol 34, No 24, 2329-2330, November 1998.

... and some unpublished manuscripts

Characterisation and generalisation of k-arcs covering a line in projective planes.

Footnotes

Page most recently updated on 17 August 2022. Please send all comments and corrections to S.Ng@rhul.ac.uk.