RHUL Cyber CDT Blog

  "This article was first published in the August 2021 issue of Inside Time, the UK's National Newspaper for Prisoners and Detainees" Since the start of the pandemic, purple visits has operated the video calling service at prisons in England and Wales - but in the summer it was announced that a different provider, Phonehub will take over. Here, Natasha Rhoden describes some of the problems users had with the purple visits service. This past year of Covid-19 lockdowns has spawned new ways to stay in touch with loved ones across the country. It is possible that video calls for prisoners and families introduced in response to the lockdowns may be here to stay. However, to ensure that video calling meets the needs of prisoners and their families, their views on the service will be crucial. I wanted to understand more about how prisoners and their families experienced this change from face-to-face visits to video calls, and how this experience might be improved. My end goal wa...

I passed by PhD viva in March 2020 and currently work as a research scientist at Cambridge Quantum in the quantum crypto team. My role is to explore classical alternatives to quantum schemes so that we can investigate quantum advantage, if/when it exists. There are several aspects of my time in the CDT which have already shown their value in my new role. Firstly, unlike a traditional PhD, the CDT gave us no specific topic to study but instead encouraged us to look at anything related to cyber security. I found the lack of concrete direction challenging at times, and was rarely in my comfort zone. However, the experience of diving into new areas, trying to figure out what the current problems are and what useful things I might be able to say has prepared me for the uncertainties of research. As I am no expert in quantum physics, in my current role I continue to stay outside my comfort zone, diving into new areas and figuring out what useful things might be said. In some ways, it feels ...