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May 172017
 

Slowly re-bouncing back to my PhD research after over a month of break to sort out my personal drama – still unresolved.

A piece of great news in April!

On April 25th 2017, I attended a #WMERSM (WhiteHall Enterprise Risk & Security Conference http://www.whitehallmedia.co.uk/esrm/seminars/) Conference and was chuffed to see my Transfer Report outcomes referenced by Ms. Sue Milton in her talk.
Links to the tweets:
Great talk @Sueanywhere #wmersm citing my triage response #databreach consequences

#wmersm great topic @Sueanywhere thanks for citing my #PhD #CityUniversity

Many thanks to Ms Sue Milton & the event organisers to allow me to attend as Ms Sue Milton’s guest.

 Posted by on May 17, 2017 at 4:51 pm
May 162017
 

The word ‘data broker’ was used in this Guardian news – Five things we learned from Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook hearing

On the diagram I did way back in 2013/2014, I did not have ‘data broker’ as potential ‘predator’ of our personal data. So in light of the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal, ‘data broker’ (not ethical ‘data broker’!) should appear in the same grouping for criminal and extortioner.
The data and stakeholders diagram is available here:

Data & Stakeholders (pdf)

A firm & their stakeholders (incident response)

Welcome to use the above diagrams as long as you cite this site and the author, Cher Devey, 2015.

 Posted by on May 16, 2017 at 2:31 pm
Aug 122016
 

Semiotics is important because it can help us not to take ‘reality’ for granted as something having a purely objective existence which is independent of human interpretation. It teaches us that reality is a system of signs. Studying semiotics can assist us to become more aware of reality as a construction and of the roles played by ourselves and others in constructing it. It can help us to realize that
information or meaning is not ‘contained’ in the world or in books, computers or audio-visual media.
Meaning is not ‘transmitted’ to us – we actively create it according to a complex interplay of codes or conventions of which we are normally unaware. Becoming aware of such codes is both inherently fascinating and intellectually empowering. We learn from semiotics that we live in a world of signs and we have no way of understanding anything except through signs and the codes into which they are organized.
Through the study of semiotics we become aware that these signs and codes are normally transparent and disguise our task in ‘reading’ them. Living in a world of increasingly visual signs, we need to learn that even the most ‘realistic’ signs are not what they appear to be.
By making more explicit the codes by which signs are interpreted we may perform the valuable semiotic function of ‘denaturalizing’ signs. In defining realities signs serve ideological functions. Deconstructing and contesting the realities of signs can reveal whose realities are privileged and whose are suppressed.
The study of signs is the study of the construction and maintenance of reality. To decline such a study is to leave to others the control of the world of meanings which we inhabit.

Extracted from ‘Semiotics for Beginners by Daniel Chandler’

 Posted by on August 12, 2016 at 2:39 pm
Aug 052016
 

Caught between three world views as described in this passage:

Scientific knowledge is constructed socially by subjective minds interacting with nature. It, therefore, seems obvious that we have to admit that our inner “subjective” world is as foundational a part of reality as “objective” external nature and “intersubjective” social worlds.

But western scientific culture lacks a transdisciplinary framework that can encompass all three worlds without reducing any of them to byproducts of the development of one of the others. We need such a non-reductionistic framework more than ever as our basic problems often arise in the gaps between the recognized disciplines.

Interdisciplinary work needs a transdisciplinary framework for mutual orientation and context determination.

A sort of common map, so to speak, on which to point out, recognize and understand each other’s territories..

Extracted from: ‘The necessity of Trans-Scientific Frameworks for doing Interdisciplinary Research’ by Professor Søren Brier

Now, how do I apply the theory and the transdiscipinary framework for my research on data breach incident response?

It seems that on initial exploration, Peirce’s work on Semiotics provided the necessary framework in the form of Firstness, Secondness, Thirdness – Peirce’s ternary.

 Posted by on August 5, 2016 at 6:18 pm
Jun 122016
 

It’s now June 2016…was supposed to complete my MPhil/PhD transfers by end of July 2016.
Schedule sifted again!

I’m hoping to finish all my interviews by end of June and hoping to do the transfers by end of September 2016.

A bit of my Sunday ranting..

Couple of weeks ago I called TalkTalk 3-times with a BIG hope to get an interview with them for my research interviews.
1st call: the HR Office was closed.
2nd call: asked for their IT Manager. After I spelled out the reasons for my calls, he slammed the phone down. How rude is that?! Just goes to show TalkTalk has no protocol or customer handling procedures. No wonder they’re hacked!
The 3rd call – no answers from the switch board. I think the company should change their name to NOTALK.

Also, some folks want to get my research findings but not interested or willing to participate in the interviews. Poor excuses with ‘non-disclosure or confidentiality’ agreements. It seems that declaration of the research ethics procedures/approval, and also with the consent form for participants are poor substitutes for getting folks to participate. Perhaps industry practitioners don’t know why researchers are doing interviews and also why their input are needed.

 Posted by on June 12, 2016 at 2:03 pm