Shen Wang and Professor Feng Hao from the Systems and Security theme at the Department of Computer Science and Ehsan Toreini from Durham University, have had the paper ‘Anti-Counterfeiting for Polymer Banknotes Based on Polymer Substrate Fingerprinting’, published in the journal IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, in which they propose a novel technique called Polymer Substrate Fingerprinting, which can identify each banknote’s own unique, unclonable fingerprint.

The researchers have found that every polymer banknote has a unique "fingerprint", which is caused by the inevitable imperfection in the physical manufacturing process, whereby the opacity coating, a critical step during the production of polymer notes, leaves an uneven coating layer with a random dispersion of impurities in the ink. This imperfection results in random translucent patterns when a polymer banknote is back-lit by a light source.

Prof. Graham Cormode of the Department of Computer Science has been named among the 2020 Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Fellows, for contributions to computer science. The ACM is the world's leading learned society for computer science. Prof. Cormode is recognised for his contributions to data summarisation and privacy enabling data management and analysis. His work on data streams and sketching has been widely implemented in many high tech companies and organisations.

This year’s Warwick Postgraduate Colloquium in Computer Science (WPCCS) was held on Monday 14th December and marked the 18th edition of this beloved event. For the first time in its history, WPCCS took place online, on the communication platform MSTeams, to allow everyone to participate safely during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

A cherished occasion to present one’s research, receive valuable feedback, and create connections within the department to develop new ideas, the Colloquium saw the participation of 50 PhD students who gave presentations spread across seven major themes, showcasing the quality and diversity of the research carried out in the Computer Science Department at Warwick. 22 PhD students also submitted longer, more detailed presentations which were made available to participants and attendees on the official WPCCS MSTeam, so to receive constructive in-depth comments.