RHUL Cyber CDT Blog

This past month, we flew to Oregon to attend the 2023 Oregon Programming Languages Summer School. OPLSS was over two weeks, with the two Sundays free. The lectures were an hour and a half, 4 times a day. The first week lent more heavily into the maths behind languages and proofs over languages with lectures on the Lambda cube, proof theory, logical relations and Category theory. The second week was more about the use of the previous week's content for topics such as program analysis, verified compilation and program synthesis. There were also 3 participant talk sessions where other participants gave talks on their own research areas. These talks gave a really interesting opportunity to hear about what current MSc and PhD students are working on, and led to some very interesting discussions all round! Thanks to these talks, as well as general chats throughout the fortnight, OPLSS was an amazing opportunity to meet other early stage researchers and industry folk working in related ar...

It has been just over a year since I successfully completed my viva – a milestone that initially felt both terrifying and insurmountable when I first joined the CDT. Now, I have the privilege of reflecting on my PhD journey and how its opportunities have shaped my present. I also wish to inspire curious students to embrace the full potential of the CDT and similar programs.   When I first came across the CDT application form, I initially envisioned transforming from a disillusioned city worker into a technical cyber security wizard, focusing on governance or incident response – as those were the only cyber security functions I was familiar with at the time. Very quickly, the CDT taught me that cyber security encompasses a vast and comprehensive range of approaches, offering me a holistic perspective on the field. Supported by the CDT, I engaged with exciting research and practitioner communities to learn about security governance, feminist and critical approaches, geography, the ph...

 At the end of May 2023, a group from the Royal Holloway CDT attended the 2023 edition of CyCon in the Estonian capital, Tallinn. CyCon – the International Conference on Cyber Conflict – is organized by the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE), which is based in Estonia. The Royal Holloway CDT has a strong tradition of attending CyCon and of working with the CCDCOE. Some of this year’s group also attended in 2022 – you can find a write-up of that trip here :  The theme of the conference was ‘Meeting Reality’ – a phrase that perhaps reflected the continuing impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The talks covered a wide range of policy, legal, and technical aspects of cyber conflict. A highlight for us was attending the talk given by Royal Holloway’s own Andrew Dwyer on the evolution of the UK’s concept of cyber power. In between talks, CyCon served up an insight into the intersection of the academic, military, and government circles. Technical special...