Rikke Bjerg Jensen

I am a Professor in the Information Security Group at Royal Holloway, University of London. My work is ethnographic in nature and grounded in explorations of information security practices and needs among groups of people living and working at the margins of societies.


PhD Position in Ethnography: Social Foundations of Cryptography

We are looking for a PhD researcher to conduct ethnographic research on the security needs and practices of participants in large-scale urban protests. The studentship is funded by Royal Holloway University of London as part of our EPSRC-funded Social Foundations of Cryptography project. The link to the ad can be found here.

Grounded in ethnography, this PhD project sets out to understand how information security is understood, practised, negotiated and shaped by protesters. Through extended fieldwork in a particular non-UK setting (to be decided together with the candidate), it will explore the mundane, social, temporal, spatial, cultural, political notions that underpin large-scale protests and related information security practices as well as the technologies protesters rely upon. Moreover, it will study how technologies facilitate collective action and engage with participants through on-the-ground observation and engagements, during protests and related activities.

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EPSRC Standard Grant: Social Foundations of Cryptography

Our grant application for the research project titled “Social Foundations of Cryptography” has received funding from the EPSRC. So, this is me saying a little bit about the project, who we are and what we hope to do.

To start us off: what really excites me about this project (besides the ethnographic work itself) is that we are bringing together ethnography and cryptography and asking each field to inform and transform the other. The typical interaction between the social and computer sciences (at least in the area of information security that I work in) focuses on their ‘applied’ sub-fields, where the norms and presumptions underpinning neither science are put at stake. Here, technological solutions are ‘only’ examined at the application stage, while fundamental design decisions are left largely unchallenged. The premise of our project, however, is that by allowing social science to interrogate established assumptions and norms in computer science, we can unlock innovation in the latter. We therefore ask ethnography to pose, and expose, foundational questions about cryptography itself, not simply about its applications.

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10 fully funded PhD positions at the Centre for Doctoral Training in Cyber Security for the Everyday

It’s that time of year again, where I put together a post telling anyone who is interested why doing a PhD in information security with a grounding in qualitative social science, particularly ethnography, is super cool. This year is no different, but let me start with the practical stuff.

We are currently accepting applications to Royal Holloway’s Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Cyber Security for the Everyday. We have 10 fully funded PhD positions that are all related to information security, in the broadest understanding of the term. This includes research grounded in the social sciences. For information about the research carried out by past and current CDT students - as well as details about the CDT programme - check out the CDT website.

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ethnography group in information security

Some of us in the Information Security Group at Royal Holloway University of London did a thing; we created the Ethnography Group to, in a slightly more formal way, bring together and make visible our ethnographic work. Our intention is to create a hub - a home - for those of us working at the intersections of ethnography and information security, with a particular focus on the security needs and practices of populations that are under-represented in information security research.

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10 fully funded PhD positions at the Centre for Doctoral Training in Cyber Security for the Everyday

We are currently accepting applications to Royal Holloway’s Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Cyber Security for the Everyday. We have 10 fully funded PhD positions that all centre on information security, in the broadest understanding of the term. This includes research grounded in the social sciences. For information about the research carried out by past and current CDT students - as well as details about the CDT programme - check out the CDT website.

Read more →