In case you’re interested, my #PhD #thesis (previously embargoed for commercial purposes) is available via openaccess.city.ac.uk Cher Devey – PhD Thesis
Feb 202023
Jul 192019
A memorable graduation ceremony #PhD #CityGrad 16th July 2019 pic.twitter.com/4t6ZX8Q1Qi
— cher devey (@datachainrisk) July 16, 2019
Jul 192019
#PhD in computer science.16th July 2019 #CityGrad pic.twitter.com/E3ijl5y955
— cher devey (@datachainrisk) July 16, 2019
Songbird
Month-by-month
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Aug 192018
Chilling & listening (& looping on YouTube) to Songbird by Eva Cassidy. Took a week away from PhD writing and was in south-western France most of last week on some sort of a ‘working holiday’. To my daughter – who is getting married next September – and also her sisters ‘To you, I would give the world…(Songbird).
Went to Goldsmiths library yesterday (Saturday) morning and somehow someone took my new (yes new!) MacBook Pro charger/power adaptor (& cable + plug)! That’s the bad news. The good news is that he/she didn’t take the laptop?! So, another day of no PhD writing as I had to go to an Apple Store to get a new charger. No wonder Apple has a record trillion $ under its brand. The charger is made in China. I’m adding a hefty (from a poor student) £88 (for plastics!) to Apple’s trillion. Listen up Apple!
Will need to kick-start my PhD writing.
Jun 022018
The easy stuff of my Thesis is getting the outline of the chapters and the dates to complete each of the chapters.
Now the ‘hard’ stuff of writing up…
Today is a reflection day, reflecting on all the sweating & agonising moments with finding users, doing the interviews, designing-building of the dashboard, doing the user evaluation of the dashboard & dealing with WiFi/internet, online questionnaire, iPad, being Me and also being a researcher.
Well…also the many personal dramas since I started on this PhD journey.
Nothing is forever dramatic or agonising or ‘real’, right? This is as real as can be – a beautiful piece of music & singing – to remind me that fairy tales can be ‘real’ stuff. Well… ‘real’ for me & for less than 5 mins for that Royal walk 
. A divine music in a memorable scene – simply, truly magical!
Can my Thesis capture all the dramas of the past years?
Mmm.. not really. It will have to be a meta-non-PhD Thesis or a personal diary of some sort.
During my supervisors’ meeting last Thursday, my 1st supervisor reminded me the essence of my research i.e. embedded in the aim/questions/objectives – all the ‘soft’ stuff which I now have to write about. She also said she is not an expert on my research topics, and another commented – Cher is the ‘expert’ now . It’s not the ‘expert’ stuff that got me into reflective mood since the meeting. It’s when she said to write a story about my findings…
So, my invisible chapters in my Thesis have to be stories that any non-experts would want to read and be captivated like listening to a piece of divine or sublime music.
Just write Cher!
My final piece of study – user evaluation
2018, dashboard, data breaches, GDPR, incidents, Month-by-month
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Feb 252018
I am now extending my user evaluation (January-February schedule) to March as January was a quiet month. It has been difficult to get practitioners in industry to commit their time to participate in my user evaluations study. Personal data incidents are still regarded ‘scary’ stuff to disclose or to talk about openly or even privately with a researcher.
Even after I reassure folks that my research does not require disclosing any personal or commercially sensitive information, folks (esp. senior managers) still won’t allow their employees (those that have the relevant knowledge/experience) to share and participate in my research.This is a pity as they will certainly learn something in sharing and participating in my user evaluation. According to this news, the #FCA is to require UK banks to make details of cyber security #incidents public from August 2018. Under the GDPR, organisations processing personal data of EU residents/citizens will need to report certain breaches to the ICO and also to affected individuals. My prototype dashboard will help organisations to conduct an initial personal data harm assessment.
So far, practitioners who took my user evaluation study involving a questionnaire and the prototype dashboard have expressed positive remarks and provided suggestions for further improvement or commercialisation of the prototype concepts.
Jul 272017
One nicety of being a research student is learning interesting stuff, stuff that other researchers have done, in particular in data visualisation (one of my many interests!).
Most recently I attended two seminars at City, both interesting in many ways. Their websites:
Microsoft researchers on data driven storytelling
Fanny CHEVALIER – Research Scientist at Inria
If I have spare time, I’ll blog about my own challenges (& less notable achievement but still an achievement in my own terms!) with data visualisation tools. Finding and getting a grip with ONE storytelling tool to do a nice, neat & brain-cracking (or mind-blowing) visualisation of what I THINK my intended users want to see from my research output is beyond my research domains.
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.
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:
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.
Mar 282017
17th March 2017 Data Breach news: