This is the research site of Bernard van Gastel. This site includes academic articles, and background articles. Sometimes I appear in the media, and that is also listed here. I work at the Radboud University, in the Institute for Computing and Information Sciences (iCIS). I work on energy efficient software by creating methods to analyse energy consumption of software, and combine that with research into the effects of digitalization which affects society. Together, I call this Sustainable Software. My non-academic programming work can be found on my Bit Powder site, which include a shared clipboard over SSH utility, and some libraries.

Download PhD thesis about sustainable software (2016)

News

• 2022-12-19 Interviewed by our university magazine Vox about my new role focussing on sustainability of IT and how to incorporate that in our research institute.

• 2022-12-02 Interviewed on national radio (Radio 1, Nieuws en Co) about TikTok and how Chinese employees can access data from European users. In the fragment from minute 34:00 onwards I make the point that there are multiple (mental health) apps were the user data flows to foreign countries, so the problem is not contained to TikTok.

• 2022-11-18 Interviewed in the Volkskrant (in Dutch) about my SSD discovery and the fallout it caused.

• 2022-11-17 Gave a presentation on the Tech&Bites meet-up in Boxmeer about what happens when you hack a SSD, and the disclosure process.

• 2022-11-16 Gave a presentation on the TechCoders meet-up in Utrecht about Sustainability & IT, and the trends in there.

• 2022-10-27 Interviewed for AG connect (in Dutch) about how to make software sustainable.

• 2022-10-06 Interviewed for the Dutch radio in the Atlas show about the privacy implications of data.

• 2022-10-01 Transfer news: today I started at the computer science institute iCIS in Nijmegen, to prepare a larger intiative in sustainability of IT. That includes setting up a research line in the energy consumption of software controlled devices, and integrating sustainability in the courses of computer science.

• 2022-08-20 Helped NOSop3 to prepare an explainer about the algorithms used in TikTok, and their influence. See it here.

• 2022-07-25 We have 3 vacancies (for 2 years) in iLab for software developers. We have built the PEP repository for safe and privacy friendly storage of data. And now we are going to extend it, so that instead of downloading data and running an algorithm locally users will be able to upload an algorithm to the repository. This is more time and energy efficient than downloading all the data a user wants to work on. Read more.

• 2022-07-12 PhD position available: 'digital technology for the energy transition', read more.

• 2022-06-16 Gave a presentation on sustainability of IT for the Open University of NL Green Office.

• 2022-05-17 Participated in a panel during the 'Groene Peper 2022' about 'Bijvangst en keerzijdes van digitalisering tijdens de lockdowns in het onderwijs' (pro and cons of digitalization in education during lockdowns). See it here.

• 2022-04-21 I was interviewed by AGConnect about how we incorporate sustainability in our eduction. Read more.

• 2022-03-10 Cindy Cloin interviewed me for an article called Elections via the internet? that could easily compromise the freedom to vote, about software used during elections.

• 2022-03-07 Our team got the 2022 Ammodo Science award for fundamental research (in Humanities). Read more.

• 2022-02-18 Grant proposal was awarded: our ERC proof-of-concept project to assess the privacy impact of mental health apps is going to start in one month. Together with TILT from Tilburg (Linnet Taylor and Tineke Broer), Tamar Sharon (from iHub), and I are going to create a dashboard.

• 2022-02-12 A NOSop3 explainer about the Pegasus spy software was published. I gave some factual input on the video (and I'm credited in the description of the video).

• 2022-02-11 The two vacancies for software developers are public now. Lots of Rust, open source, public values.

• 2022-02-01 Predictive policing project with Frederik Zuiderveen Borgesius has started. A PhD candidate, Pieke de Beus, has started.

• 2022-01-06 This site launched.

• 2021-12-01 I am nominated for the teacher of the year award at the faculty of science, where I teach.

• 2021-09-15 Hired 2 software developers and 1 interaction designer for our team.

• 2021-03-16 A podcast about my SSD security research was recorded by NPO 3FM. You can listen it online.

• 2020-09-01 I started at the Radboud University (working full time there now).

• 2020-06-03 An interview with me about COVID tracking apps was published in iBestuur #35 (in Dutch).

Awards and nominations

• 2022 Won the Ammodo Science award for fundamental research (in Humanities). Read more.

• 2022 Nominated for the teacher of the year award at the faculty of science.

• 2020 Our paper on the SSD security (published at Security and Privacy 2019) was nominated for the Dutch Cyber Security Best Research Paper (DCSRP) Award in 2020.

• 2019 Our new course AppLab was nominated for best education innovation award at the Open University.

• 2018 Nominee of the faculty for the three yearly Open University Research price for best PhD thesis.

Teaching

Currently I teach two courses at the Radboud University:

• Operating systems (concepts) 2020- (RU).

• Operating systems security 2020- (RU);

I used to teach the following courses:

• AppLab 2018-2020 (created in 2018 this course from scratch to fill a gap in the curriculum at OU, best new course in faculty, nominee of OU best new course)

• Computer netwerken 2017-2020 (created in 2017 from scratch at OU)

• Concepten van programmeertalen 2016-2017 (at OU)

• Logica and informatica 2016 (at OU)

• Programming courses 2015-2020 (several at OU)

• Besturingssystemen 2015-2020 (at OU, redesigned for new book)

• Operating systems 2016-2017 (at RU, redisgned fo new book and converted to English)

• Werking van computersystemen (at OU)

• Software analysis 2010-2018 (at RU)

Publiciations

• Bernard van Gastel, Bart Jacobs, Jean Popma: Data Protection Using Polymorphic Pseudonymisation in a Large-Scale Parkinson's Disease Study. In Journal of Parkinson's Disease, 2021.

• AS Hoffman, B Jacobs, B van Gastel, H Schraffenberger, T Sharon, B Pas: Towards a seamful ethics of Covid-19 contact tracing apps? Ethics and Information Technology 23 (1), 105-115, 2020.

• Markus Klinik, Bernard van Gastel, Cynthia Kop, Marko van Eekelen: Skylines for Symbolic Energy Consumption Analysis. FMICS 2020: 93-112

• Carlo Meijer, Bernard van Gastel: Self-Encrypting Deception: Weaknesses in the Encryption of Solid State Drives. IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy 2019: 72-87

• Pascal van Gastel, Bernard van Gastel, Marko van Eekelen: Detecting energy bugs and hotspots in control software using model checking. Programming 2018: 93-98

• Bernard van Gastel: Analysing energy consumption of systems controlled by software. Programming 2017: 19:1-19:2

• Bernard van Gastel, Marko van Eekelen: Towards Practical, Precise and Parametric Energy Analysis of IT Controlled Systems. DICE-FOPARA@ETAPS 2017: 24-37

• Bernard van Gastel: Assessing sustainability of software - Analysing Correctness, Memory and Energy Consumption. Open University, 2016

• Bernard van Gastel, Rody Kersten, Marko van Eekelen: Using Dependent Types to Define Energy Augmented Semantics of Programs. FOPARA 2015: 20-39

• Rody Kersten, Bernard van Gastel, Olha Shkaravska, Manuel Montenegro, Marko van Eekelen: ResAna: a resource analysis toolset for (real-time) JAVA. Concurr. Comput. Pract. Exp. 26(14): 2432-2455 (2014)

• Sylvia Stuurman, Bernard van Gastel, Harrie Passier: The design of mobile apps: what and how to teach? CSERC 2014: 93-100

• Daniel J. Bernstein, Bernard van Gastel, Wesley Janssen, Tanja Lange, Peter Schwabe, Sjaak Smetsers: TweetNaCl: A Crypto Library in 100 Tweets. LATINCRYPT 2014: 64-83

• Bernard van Gastel, Freek Verbeek, Julien Schmaltz: Inference of channel types in micro-architectural models of on-chip communication networks. VLSI-SoC 2014: 1-6

• Rody Kersten, Paolo Parisen Toldin, Bernard van Gastel, Marko van Eekelen: A Hoare Logic for Energy Consumption Analysis. FOPARA 2013: 93-109

• Rody Kersten, Bernard van Gastel, Manu Drijvers, Sjaak Smetsers, Marko van Eekelen: Using Model-Checking to Reveal a Vulnerability of Tamper-Evident Pairing. NASA Formal Methods 2013: 63-77

• Sebastiaan J. C. Joosten, Bernard van Gastel, Julien Schmaltz: A Macro for Reusing Abstract Functions and Theorems. ACL2 2013: 29-41

• Bernard van Gastel, Julien Schmaltz: A formalisation of XMAS. ACL2 2013: 111-126

• Rody Kersten, Olha Shkaravska, Bernard van Gastel, Manuel Montenegro, Marko van Eekelen: Making resource analysis practical for real-time Java. JTRES 2012: 135-144

• Abdulaziz Alhussien, Nader Bagherzadeh, Freek Verbeek, Bernard van Gastel, Julien Schmaltz: A formally verified deadlock-free routing function in a fault-tolerant NoC architecture. SBCCI 2012: 1-6

• Bernard van Gastel, Leonard Lensink, Sjaak Smetsers, Marko van Eekelen: Deadlock and starvation free reentrant readers-writers: A case study combining model checking with theorem proving. Sci. Comput. Program. 76(2): 82-99 (2011)

• Bernard van Gastel, Leonard Lensink, Sjaak Smetsers, Marko van Eekelen: Reentrant Readers-Writers: A Case Study Combining Model Checking with Theorem Proving. FMICS 2008: 85-102

Media

• 2022-12-02 Interviewed on national radio (Radio 1, Nieuws en Co) about TikTok and how Chinese employees can access data from European users. In the fragment from minute 34:00 onwards I make the point that there are multiple (mental health) apps were the user data flows to foreign countries, so the problem is not contained to TikTok.

• 2022-11-18 Interviewed in the Volkskrant (in Dutch) about my SSD discovery and the fallout it caused.

• 2022-10-27 Interviewed for AG connect (in Dutch) about how to make software sustainable.

• 2022-10-06 Interviewed for the Dutch radio in the Atlas show about the privacy implications of data.

• 2022-08-20 Helped NOSop3 to prepare an explainer about the algorithms used in TikTok, and their influence. See it here.

• 2022-04-21 AGConnect interviewed me about how we incorporate sustainability in our eduction. Read more.

• 2022-03-10 Cindy Cloin interviewed me for an article called Elections via the internet? that could easily compromise the freedom to vote, about software used during elections.

• 2022-02-12 A NOSop3 explainer about the Pegasus spy software was published. I gave some factual input on the video (and I'm credited in the description of the video).

• 2021-09-15 Bernard van Gastel was a guest in the Dutch science TV show Atlas to talk about the CoronaCheck QR-codes and what the issues with interfacing between the digital and analogue world are. CoronaCheck is the Dutch national COVID app to prove that the user has been vaccinated or has been tested, using QR-codes. It was designed with privacy in mind. But as with many digital systems, the interfacing with the real world can be a problem. Watch here.

• 2021-04-29 An interview about my job was featured in Tech Gelderland, and in the Gelderlander newspaper. The full interview is available online: Onderzoek naar menselijke maat bij digitalisering.

• 2021-03-16 A podcast about my SSD security research was recorded by NPO 3FM. You can listen it online.

• 2020-06-03 An interview with me about COVID tracking apps was published in iBestuur #35 (in Dutch).

Incomplete list, older items omitted.

Projects

Currently:

• ERC proof-of-concept project (150k): creating a privacy impact assessment dashboard for metal health apps (together with TILT, Tilburg).

Past (obtained, or took part in):

• CHARTER (EU Artemis project);

• Formally verified Network-on-chips (funded by Intel);

• Resident participation ('burgerparticipatie') with IRMA (funded by the Dutch minstery of interior affairs).

• Twid (50k, funded by SIDN Fonds): introducing authenticity on the Twitter platform to battle misinformation.

• PEP-NOLAI project (~2100k): creating the digital infrastruce for the National Education Lab AI.

• REACT project (300k): Extending PEP: instead of bringing the data to the algorithms (as is the case with PEP), the algorithms can be computed at the storage location of the data.

• PEP project (~1700k, funded by EU EFRO): a privacy-friendly data repository for medical data research.

• Proof-of-provenance;

• Bootstrapping PubHubs.net;

• C4Yourself (introducting pseudonyms for small scale medical research).

Graduated students

• Stijn Keijzers (Master, RU, 2014)

• Guus Bonnema (Bachelor, OU, 2015)

• Jeroen Kleijn (Bachelor, OU, 2015)

• Stefan Versluys (Bachelor, OU, 2015)

• Jelle De Laender (Bachelor, OU, 2016)

• Koen Buitenhuis (Master stage, RU, 2016)

• Roel Heirman (Bachelor, OU, 2016)

• Sven van Valburg (Master stage, RU, 2016)

• Pascal van Gastel (no family ties, Master, OU, 2017)

• Erin van der Veen (Master stage, RU, 2018)

• Erik de Brouwer (Master, OU, 2019)

• Hans van de Pol (second supervisor, MSc, OU, 2018)

• Mark Westenberg (Master, OU, 2019)

• Mitchell Duim (Master, OU, 2019)

• Robbin van den Berg (Master, OU, 2019)

• Robert Buitendijk (second supervisor, Master, OU, 2018)

• Tom Nikken (Master stage, RU, 2019)

• Gunnar Noordbruis (Bachelor, RU, 2020)

• Matthijs Spaans (Master, OU, 2020)

• Willem van Oort (Master stage, RU, 2020)

• Fu-Rianne Veens (MSc, RU, 2021)

• Marc Verwoert (MSc, RU, 2021)

• Jos Craaijo (second supervisor, MSc, RU, 2021)

• Steven Wallis de Vries (Internship, RU, 2022)

• Martijn Heitkönig (Internship, RU, 2022)

• Hans Lous (BSc, RU, 2022)

• Randy Putgens (Internship, OU, 2022)

• Thijs Fransen (Internship, RU, 2022)

Current PhD students

• Daniel Ostkamp, making encryption available to large audiences (started 2021);

• Pieke de Beus, predictive policing (started 2022);

• PhD position available: 'digital technology for the energy transition', read more.

Student project ideas

• Adding energy consumption to tracing frameworks for anaylsing production deployments;

• Extending GitLab for additional energy savings;

• Creating a test framework for Rust energy testing, based on criterion;

• Implementing symbolic execution visualize energy consumtpion of external devices for Rust;

• Using snapshot of production data to energy profile IT applications;

• How to specify sustainability requirements during insourcing ('inkoop') of IT products;

• Energy consumption of different GUI frameworks (intermediate-mode, retained, etc);

• Comparison of async runtimes in Rust and C++, on properties such as memory usage, energy consumption, kernel calls, etc;

• Microservice architecture using pseudonimization for central identifiers (using libpep);

• Creating a browser plugin for checking document signatures, that were signed offline (effectively creating a secure release channel);

Contact info

Bernard van Gastel (in full: dr. B.E. van Gastel)
Assistant professor (in Dutch: universitair docent) in sustainable digitalisation
Institute for Computing and Information Sciences (iCIS)
Radboud University

Bernard.vanGastel@ru.nl
M1.01.01 in the Mercator 1 building, Radboud University (see route description)