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Another extraordinary success has been achieved in recent days by the university spin-off DynaNIC Semiconductors from Brno University of Technology, which has its roots in the Faculty of Information Technology. The company was successful in this year's Venture Club Disrupt Awards competition, organized under the auspices of Startup Disrupt and Venture Club at Prague Castle. Every year, the event seeks out top start-ups with growth potential and global technological ambitions. This year, 45 projects entered the competition, with 5 projects selected for the final. Representatives of DynaNIC presented their project to investors at a gala evening held at Prague Castle – and ultimately won first place and with it an investment of up to €3 million. Among other things, the organizers highlighted the fact that DynaNIC is proof that even in Central Europe, a groundbreaking project with global potential in the field of hardware can emerge.

DynaNIC is a technology spin-off focused on the development of an advanced network solution based on the use of FPGA (Field-Programmable Gate Array) technology. It significantly speeds up network traffic processing by transferring demanding network operations from the processor to programmable network cards with data flow speeds of up to 400 Gb/s. It is thus a response to the current challenges associated with the rapid development of AI and the increase in the volume of data transmitted, as confirmed by Jan Kořenek from the Accelerated Network Technologies Research Group: "One chip programmed by us is capable of replacing tens to hundreds of computers with its computing capacity. Instead of a large number of computers, all you need is one with an acceleration card on which the programmed FPGA chip is located. This also significantly reduces energy consumption." Read more about DynaNIC's key product in our previous article.

The experts presented their network acceleration card in May 2024, and in November of the same year, they received an investment of CZK 14 million from the Tensor Ventures fund and other angel investors. This was followed by interest from major technology players, including Microsoft. The latest chapter in this highly successful story is the current award in the Disrupt Awards competition. DynaNIC is thus the flagship application of research conducted at FIT VUT.

We cordially invite you to a public lecture held as part of the habilitation procedure of Mgr. Kamil Malinka, Ph.D., Protection mechanisms against deepfake-based attacks. The lecture will take place on June 12, 2025, at 2 p.m. in room G108.

The habilitation thesis follows up on Kamil Malinka's long-term research activities, which he also develops within the Security@FIT research group. The author focuses on the broader context of cybersecurity in the field of artificial intelligence. His professional interest is not limited to technical solutions themselves – he is also interested in user behavior when using selected security tools, the education of future IT professionals, and the impact of deepfakes on voice and facial biometrics. As he himself points out, an essential and somewhat neglected aspect of the problem is understanding how users work with security tools. A key part of his habilitation thesis is the design of a detection mechanism for voice deepfakes based on spectrogram analysis. Finally, the thesis focuses on the problem of comparing detectors, proposing a detailed framework for evaluating and comparing voice deepfake detectors by evaluating 40 state-of-the-art.

Abstract of the lecture: 

First, we will briefly introduce the issue of deepfakes and its security implications. To better understand the problem, we will present the deepfake use lifecycle and illustrate applications of protection mechanisms on top of it. Most of the discussion that has been devoted to protection mechanisms has focused on deepfake detection. The disadvantage of this approach is that if detection fails, no other protection is standing in the way of a successful attack. Detection is thus an important part of building protection, but it is not the only option. First, we will discuss various protection methods such as watermarking, legal regulations, methods for obstructing deepfake creation, forensics analysis, and methods ensuring proof. In the area of deepfake face and voice detection methods, we will summarize current approaches: detection based on artifact detection, deep learning, or based on physiological features such as eye blinking. Next, we will present and evaluate the design of our detection mechanism for voice deepfakes based on spectrogram analysis. Finally, we will focus on the problem of a detector comparison. We will propose a detailed framework for evaluating and comparing deepfake speech detectors. To showcase our framework's usage and its benefits, we then used this framework to evaluate 40 state-of-the-art deepfake speech detectors. We will demonstrate the results of extensive experiments, where we extended common approaches by testing for previously unobserved forms of manipulated speech.

You can join the lecture via MS Teams, link to the meeting HERE.

Thinking about pursuing a Ph.D. at FIT and need more information? Join us on April 8 in lecture hall D 206 where a presentation about the Ph.D. by Professor Sekanina will be given at 3 pm. This will be followed by a discussion with academics, whom you can ask about anything you are interested in regarding PhD studies.

Information about doctoral studies can also be found on the website. An overview of the dissertation topics is available here. And a reminder, the deadline for applications (Round 1) is 30 May.