Saturday, May 10, 2025
Blog Page 359

All dressed up with nowhere to go

Nina Follows
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All dressed up with nowhere to go

From actually changing out of our pyjamas before getting back into bed again at night, to parading our best black-tie around the aisles of our local Tesco, the pandemic has cultivated an array of new approaches to what might be considered getting ‘dressed up’.

A month into Lockdown #3, however, with arguably very little else on the horizon, a bit of time spent curating and frolicking in a fun ‘fit could foster some otherwise-neglected artistic flair; a small semblance of sophistication or put-together past normality; or even just some valuable moments of mindless distraction.

I’m not suggesting that we need to don full-on party garb for Panopto, or head-to-toe taffeta for Teams (though should you feel that way inclined, be my guest by all means!), but dabbling in some indulgent dressing might just be a unmatchable minimal-effort way to restore a pinch of glam and spice to our perhaps otherwise mildly lacklustre lives.

So go on – cast those sorry sweatpants aside, turn on some trouble-free tunes, and delve into the dusty depths of your ‘drobe to discover what joys might there await…

…even if it is just to get right back into bed again.

Model: Annabel Follows

Photographer: Nina Follows

Confessions of a productivity addict

Rochelle Moss
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Confessions of a productivity addict

There’s one attitude that seems to unite all Oxford students, transcending colleges, from historians to scientists – and no, it’s not a hatred for Christ Church. Perhaps it’s something even worse than Christ Church: toxic productivity. That sense of always needing to do something inhabits the streets of Oxford (and intercepts the endless Teams calls), telling students that downtime just isn’t for us.

This article is a perfect example. Whilst I enjoy writing and often find it relaxing, I’m not sure why ticking ‘Cherwell life article’ off my to-do list is so much more satisfying than lying on the sofa and re-watching Bridgerton. After a chaotic second week filled with essays, I’ve been left with a weekend with not much to do. My third-week work hasn’t been set, so alas I cannot spend my Saturday watching 4.5 hours of economics lectures – a real tragedy, I know. Instead, I’ve been gifted a day with no looming deadlines and, because of lockdown, nowhere to go. I therefore found myself this morning at a bit of a loss. Fortunately for me, the Cherwell editors had a solution to my woes – a Life article to write? Another thing for my to-do list? Perfect.

Perhaps a to-do list perfectly embodies what I’m trying to describe. Personally, I am a massive fan of lists and would recommend them to anyone with paper and a pen. Not only do they ensure I remember what I actually need to do, but they also split it up, so that even on lazy days I can tick something off. They also make me feel productive. A day where I‘ve completed three tasks is a success, even if they were only ‘pay my battels’ or ‘send that email’.  I feel I’ve been productive, every single day, even if my productivity is really a wishful illusion.

This guilt surrounding days where you haven’t really done much is definitely the ‘toxic’ in toxic productivity. Oxford terms can be so busy, with essays, events, and extracurriculars,  that a day with nothing to do seems odd. Even worse, a day where you haven’t done anything seems like a massive error. I always feel a certain sense of guilt when I haven’t got much done in a day, considering it a day wasted. The absolute worst days, however, are when you haven’t even relaxed, you’ve just done nothing. When you’ve been writing your essay but also not really writing your essay – spending more time reading Facebook than your actual reading. It gets to the end of the day and it’s just been pretty unsatisfying. The solution to this common conundrum however can be found in the best phenomena of them all: organised fun.

Organised fun is a fundamental part of any productivity addict’s timetable. Organised fun has not quite made it to my to-do list yet, but I feel when you have a busy Oxford schedule, organised fun means that fun time is genuinely fun.  Organised fun means actually enjoying my time not working, rather than wasting it on my phone. In Michaelmas, it meant a walk around Christ Church Meadows with a friend, a quick dash to Pret, or a fake Christmas formal in my household. Hilary Rochelle’s organised fun has tragically had to take it down a notch. The woods behind my house now substitute for Christ Church Meadow, my kettle acts as a replacement Pret, and Christmas formals are a distant memory.

Lockdown hasn’t just made organised fun harder, but it’s also made productivity more toxic. Before Coronavirus it was the pressures of Oxford making productivity a nightmare, now it’s everywhere. It’s in articles detailing ways to stay busy in lockdown, on TV when people detail the incredible feats lockdown has finally given them the opportunity to do, and somehow, it’s also made its way to TikTok. Lockdown has given some people a unique chance to do something special, but for the rest of us, it’s just been pretty hard. Having nothing to do puts pressure on us to do something, even when all we want to do is watch TV without feeling guilty. In Lockdown 3.0 I’ve learnt to expect less of myself. I no longer feel like I’m wasting my time not learning French or baking more banana bread and I’ve accepted the beauty of organised fun.

So please, Dear Reader, ignore the recent Oxfess complaining that they only managed to do 10 hours of work today, and instead take a break. Watch some TV, go for a walk, do something creative, or maybe just don’t do anything at all. But most importantly: don’t feel guilty. I know I’m going to do absolutely nothing after finishing this article – once I’ve ticked it off my to-do list.

EXCLUSIVE: OxMatch breached data protection law

Issy Kenney-Herbert
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EXCLUSIVE: OxMatch breached data protection law

Trinity Term saw the creation of OxMatch, a matchmaking service with the tagline “remote Trinity doesn’t have to be lonely”. Cherwell has found that this service has violated GDPR laws along with their own privacy policy (shared with those who sign up at the beginning of their matchmaking form). All data regarding these infringements was obtained in the public domain. 

Students who signed up received unexpected emails; OxMatch’s November Privacy Policy (used for Michaelmas matching) states: “We add you to our mailing list so that we can let you know about your match” and that “we use your email and contact information to communicate with you regarding your match.” Furthermore, Chapter 2, Article 5 of the General Data Protection Regulations notes that data must be “kept in a form which permits identification of data subjects for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which the personal data are processed” and declares that all data must be “collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and not further processed in a manner that is incompatible with those purposes”.

While the “purposes” outlined in OxMatch’s privacy policy pertained to communicating regarding their match, students also received emails about signing up to MyTutor, a new version of Oxfess and new rounds of OxMatch. Students were also identified by name in some of these emails. One email, sent on the 1 January 2021, included the name of the student emailed in the subject line, asking if they wanted to join the OxMatch team and “become the next Cupid?” Another was sent urging students to like a variation of the Oxfess page – this was not described by OxMatch as a “sponsored post”. A third, which was described as a “sponsored post” by OxMatch, sent on 13 December 2020, included the name of the student emailed in the subject and body of the email and continued: “We’re writing to let you know about MyTutor, where you can earn up to £20 an hour, all within reaching distance of the kettle”. The footer of the email read: “You are receiving this email because you signed up for OxMatch… Sponsored posts like this allow us to run OxMatch and also go towards supporting our access initiative”.

OxMatch did not respond to Cherwell’s queries regarding why such emails would be sent, especially as they appear to be “incompatible” with the purpose of communicating regarding a match and this use was not specified within the sign-up form. However, MyTutor confirmed to Cherwell that the email was sponsored – although not for a “substantial” amount. They continued: “OxMatch reached out to propose we sponsor one of their emails, and we were disappointed to learn that the message may not have been sent in line with their privacy agreement with users. As such we won’t be working with them again, and will be updating our due diligence process when sending sponsored messages via third parties in future. We note that OxMatch have updated their privacy guidelines to refer to third party marketing but that should not be taken as meaning that we endorse or have approved this update.”

OxMatch told Cherwell: “In accordance with GDPR, we process and release data only in anonymous forms for statistical analysis. All data is kept anonymous and identifiable data is not shared with any third parties.”  OxMatch refused to confirm how long data is kept or how data is stored.

In December 2020, OxMatch collaborated with student paper The Flete to release an “OxMatch Campus Report”,  running through the answers of those who signed up, including answers to a series of questions like which subjects signed up, political leanings, crushes and a diagram of kinkiness levels at each college. 

OxMatch’s own Privacy Guidelines and Data Practices, effective from November 20th 2020, were shared with each of the participants at the beginning of their form. It stated: “We also gather metadata: statistics about how the student population as a whole answered. This is just for fun posts on our Facebook: it’s always anonymised, and we’ll only use data aggregated across at least 15 people.”

While the data was anonymised and no individual student response was revealed, this “metadata” was released to an online student publication with an unclear transfer of data – not “fun posts on our Facebook”. Beyond this, OxMatch promised that “we’ll only use data aggregated across at least 15 people”. OxMatch told The Flete that they had “over 4500 signups since its inception in Trinity Term 2020” and then broke down the subject makeup for signups. The smallest groups were “Physics and Philosophy as well as Classics with Modern Languages, accounting for just 0.2% and 0.3% of sign-ups respectively”. Making the generous assumption that the full signup figure was 5000 – and that all of these were included within the RAG and standard Michaelmas versions to which the statistics pertain, rather than any being made in Trinity Term 2020 – this is equivalent to 10 Physics and Philosophy students, below the 15 promised in OxMatch’s Privacy Policy. For Classics with Modern Languages, this sums to exactly 15 students. In OxMatch’s Privacy Policy, they also wrote that: “We will not publish any information that could lead to personal identification (such as the case of small colleges/subject groups)”. The Flete confirmed to Cherwell that they were not informed this data was in breach of OxMatch’s privacy regulations.

OxMatch has now returned for another round of matchmaking with an updated privacy policy which explicitly states sponsored emails to be sent to those who sign up: “By signing up to OxMatch, you consent to us occasionally sending you sponsored emails.”

Individuals who wish to know what data any company holds on them can make a subject access request under GDPR law. This request can be made via email, social media or any other reasonable means of communication. By the same method, these individuals can request that their data is deleted.

Three more University libraries reopen

Joe Stonor
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Three more University libraries reopen

The Sackler, Vere Harmsworth and Social Science libraries have all reopened as part of the Bodleian’s phased approach to increasing access to its on-site services. 

The Bodleian’s latest update announced that readers can now use the sites listed above, as well as the Old Bodleian, including Duke Humfrey’s Library, whose opening hours will be extended to include Saturdays. The Cairns Library is also available to students. 

Access to all libraries remains dependent on booking places in advance through the online Space Finder service. New slots are released at 10am each morning.

In addition to the three newly-opened libraries, the Bodleian has released its plans for the reopening of some of its other facilities. Although a faculty email to all history students said that the Radcliffe Camera will be “closed until further notice”, the Bodleian Libraries website indicated that the site will reopen on Monday 15th February, the same day as the Taylor Institution Library and two days before the Law Library is due to begin welcoming students again.

The announcement comes as the Bodleian continues its gradual resumption of in-person services. Further reopening has been allowed by the fact that cases of coronavirus recorded by the University have remained low this term, with only twelve positive test results amongst staff and students for the week ending the 29th January. 

Earlier this term, this paper reported disquiet amongst some members of library staff concerned by the safety of working conditions. Speaking to Cherwell, a Bodleian spokesperson said that “our highest priority is the health and well-being of our staff, students and the local community. The personal circumstances of staff, including individual health, risk to other household members, and caring responsibilities, are always taken into account when considering a return to on-site working”. 

In an effort to ease readers’ reliance on physical library services, the spokesperson added that the Bodleian is “prioritising remote services”.

The Bodleian hopes that the fears of staff will also be addressed as all of the on-site team have been invited to participate in a “Lateral Flow Device testing pilot”, whilst readers will be under more pressure to fully follow regulations thanks to the introduction of a “new and robust compliance plan” which, if not abided by, may lead to readers being asked to leave the library. Furthermore, the spokesperson informed Cherwell that weekly meetings are taking place between the library and staff and trade unions, to ensure that reopening takes place as safely as possible.

Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC BY-SA 3.0

Debating the Preservation of Cultural Infrastructures: the Example of Tolkien’s Property

Amir Pichhadze and Marietta Kosma
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Debating the Preservation of Cultural Infrastructures: the Example of Tolkien’s Property

Fans of J.R. Tolkien have been troubled by the prospects of having Tolkien’s home sold to private buyers. Should it go on the market or become a preserved space?

Tolkien’s former house in north Oxford was built in the 1920s. The writer resided there with his wife Edith and their four children from 1930 until 1947. This house has some historical importance, even though its architectural qualities are not out of the ordinary. More specifically, the drawing room has attracted considerable attention because Tolkien composed most of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy there. In that room he also met with his students from Oxford University.

Devoted bibliophiles would love to see Tolkien’s former house become a preserved space. For example, Julia Golding, an advocate of the campaign of the house’s preservation states that ‘the worldwide Tolkien fan base is enormous, but there is no center for Tolkien anywhere in the world.’ Therefore, one should be established. Even though the layout of Tolkien’s house has slightly changed it would be great for his legacy to be preserved. To this day most of the house’s original elements are still maintained, such as ‘the hardwood floors, the high ceilings and the wood-burning fireplaces, and in the kitchen there is an old bell system that was used to communicate with the rest of the house’. There are also ‘a few of the trees Tolkien had planted’ himself in the garden.

In this vein, a campaign has been raised by Tolkien’s fans to accumulate enough money for the property to be restored and turned into a museum. The ‘ Project Northmoor’ began on the 2nd of December. However, it is unclear why this effort of rendering Tolkien’s house a museum did not take place in 2004, when the house was initially listed as a Grade II building.

The debate of the preservation of Tolkien’s house could be seen as a reflection of a larger problem at hand: the cultural infrastructure crisis. Spaces of cultural production fall out of existence at an alarming rate especially due to the economic crisis inflicted by the COVID-19 pandemic. New spaces of cultural production are rarely established. This is a global phenomenon, as there has been a significant increase in the repurposing of cultural buildings due to the economic crisis, rising population and a lack of adequate housing.  For example, the Wuhan Salon: Cultural Exhibition Center was turned into a hospital to cover the need of hospitalizing Covid-19 patients. The maintenance of these places is important as it allows longtime fans to access them again and again, thereby continually reshaping popular culture. The interactions they have in these physical spaces and their engagement with these unique cultural sites create irreplaceable emotions and signify a new affective era continuously reshaped. In light of restricted access to cultural sites in the corona-virus era, a new kind of affective engagement is emerging. As Judith Butler postulates, ‘the demand for infrastructure is a demand for a certain kind of inhabitable ground’. There is a need for spaces where the intellectual heritage of writers’ is protected. In these cultural infrastructures, visitors can honor the creators of art and form a cognitive, emotional bond with them. It is almost like a cultural pilgrimage that leads the individual to continuously renegotiate his positioning in relation to the writer’s legacy. In the same vain, Jane Austen’s house at Chawton, Charles Dickens’ home in London and William Faulkner’s house in Rowan Oak are some spaces of writers’ cultural production successfully preserved.  The Brontë Parsonage is yet another example of a space of cultural production which operates as a cultural pilgrimage preserving the Brontë sisters’ intellectual heritage. All these spaces operate as significant sites, literary pilgrimages of the writers’ literary production.

Another reason why Tolkien’s fans are so attached to his residence is because they experience nostalgia for the places in which his narratives take place. More specifically, most narratives of Tolkien take place in Middle Earth, which is based on a past version of our own world. It is a space with a particular history, which does not exist in a vacuum. In the same vein, Tolkien’s house has its own particular history. For example, In 1968 Tolkien told the BBC that he remembered the particular moment when he conceived the idea for The Hobbit.

‘I can still see the corner in my house in 20 Northmoor Road where it happened. I’d got an enormous pile of exam papers there and was marking school examinations in the summer time, which was very laborious, and unfortunately also boring. I remember picking up a paper and […] nothing to read. So, I scribbled on it, I can’t think why, ‘In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit’’.

Tolkien sets both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in fictional places far away from home. The trope of the house becomes important, because there is always the desire of returning to it. In The Hobbit, Frodo Baggins decides to leave Hobbiton and travel through the dangerous countryside, exploring the open air in forests and mountains away from his underground home. As the narrative progresses, Baggins and his allies are attacked in the underground, with his friends captured by elves in a forest and led to a riverside settlement. Upon his return to Hobbiton, Baggins find his house forever altered. Completing a circuit of diverse experiences alters one’s perception. The interplay between darkness and light, confinement and freedom are significant in Tolkien’s writing, which largely depends on enclosed spaces such as tunnels, ruins, underground railroads juxtaposed against open spaces like forests, rivers and mountains. Frodo Baggins was able to overcome the hardships of life by reminiscing about his time at home in, his beloved Shire. Despite the changes that have taken place since his departure, home’s sense of familiarity still comforts and expresses, the same feelings that the readers have developed through reading Frodo’s adventure.

The spaces that Tolkien describes are ingrained in the readers’ minds and are spaces they can relate to. They share an intimate connection, where remembering spaces of the past can provide comfort and continuity. An experience of his that Tolkien ingrained in his work is the theme of railroads which was prominent in his house as his sons had a great  passion for model railway engines and have created a track layout in their Oxford room. Tolkien’s created world becomes real to its fansdue to Tolkien’s capacity of making the past part of the present. As he stated himself, he wanted to create ‘a mythic cycle that stood on its own’. This invented world of Tolkien has emotional relevance to the world we are part of, since his characters exhibit realistic human behavior. They are multi-faceted and exhibit complex traits. Instead of merely describing the imaginative spaces in which his characters exist, Tolkien imparts cultural signification to them. The stories of Tolkien have the capacity of making the past a part of the present instead of rendering it forever out of reach. As the characters in Tolkien’s novels try to pass down from one generation to the other their stories. We are asked to enrich the present with our experiences from the past. Fans who will see Tolkien’s house will be able to enrich their perspective of his actual house with the way he idiosyncratically constructs fictional spaces in his texts.

Tolkien’s legacy is undeniably enormous. By preserving cultural infrastructures to the degree that is possible, today’s cultural infrastructure crisis can be assuaged. The wider public needs to ask themselves what kind of cities they would like to live in and whether they are willing to take the risk of residing in a place lacking significant cultural infrastructures such as authors’ houses.

What If Cummings Was Right?

Oliver Lavelle
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What If Cummings Was Right?

Cummings has gone. Still, if you sat through the entirety of his blog, you will find a lot that explains what has happened in British politics over the last year. You also won’t find anything since January 2020, though there are suspicions that a tell-all could be on the way. It’s worth saying that if something were to be published now- the sort of spill which detailed all the inner-governmental intrigues and misfirings during the pandemic- it could potentially be very damaging for the individuals still at the helm of the Covid response. 

Here’s a man who spent the last year wielding more power than basically anyone else in Downing Street: a first-class disrupter (a first class degree, too — from Exeter College, Oxford). I see Cummings as caffeine with a flow chart; a slightly frenzied physics don with too much fresh chalk and an unwarranted faith in his captive audience to keep up. He is an exceptionally fizzy thinker and a ruminative writer. There’s a lot going on in the blog: ideas (mostly strange), some number of graphs, hundreds of links to articles on physics, astronomy, medicine, behavioural science, management theory, contagion dynamics, history — all crowned with 200 pages on education from 2014. We don’t know how many people have read it, but it’s the closest thing we’ve got to seeing Dom’s mind, and thus into the very heart of the Downing Street policy levers. 

The aspiring wide-learner should read his blog, not for the opinion, necessarily, but for the articles and people it flags up. David Deutsch (quantum computing), Colonel Boyd (military strategy, known for the OODA loop), Joseph Licklider (computer science), Philip Tetlock (superforecasting) — all make appearances quite frequently. There is no point in denying that the workings are of someone who has looked at an abnormal amount of research, at least some of which he must have absorbed. The translation into politics is a bit more tricky, though. Part-time blogging and full-time employment under BoJo don’t go hand in hand, it seems. 

Cummings as an intellectual is a real optimist. He’s not glib in the salesman sense. He’s not Churchillian or Thatcherite or de Pfeffely, or whichever timbre Boris has imbibed this week. He’s direct, and a bit like Lenin: the system can change, but it must be torn down first. “We want to improve performance and make me much less important — and within a year largely redundant” he said, funnily, a year ago. 

Cummings has, however, become very important. His gripe is with the ideas, the people, and the machines in Westminster: in the urgency around this sequence. The crux of his argument is that Westminster isn’t aligned for progress. Error correction doesn’t happen, policy isn’t led by data, conventional wisdom rules the decision room, the decision room isn’t exciting enough (he says it needs holograms and big flat screens), civil servants are useless, and there aren’t enough “weirdos” around.

Party matters haven’t concerned Cummings much in the past. The way he has described some members of the Conservative Party as “narcissistic” and  “delusional” obviously left a bad taste; something that’s come back to bite him now, alongside the other 48% of Brexit, big data, the split with Cameron, and Gove’s education reforms which Cummings worked on. He also receives criticism for his general misconduct around Westminster; he’s often seen donning untucked dress shirt-sleeveless-parka combos to cabinet meetings and walking around barefoot, which might be enough of an insult of itself, even without his arbitrary, aggressive outbursts, and his use of an armed protection officer to escort an aide from Downing Street. 

But genius often writes in eccentric fonts. What if Cummings was right? What if Westminster really is an anachronism- enough to warrant such nutty behaviour and the entrance of such a nutty man? What if it is as hostile to diverse thinkers as he makes it out? Is his departure a representation of the system that has seen him (and the rest of his insurgent type), hurled out after a few months of chaos?

Presentation isn’t what Cummings is about. Substance over style. His attire is perhaps telling for this matter, but one gets a true sense of this in the manifesto he put to paper in a January blog update, which looks like what happens when politics resembles an undergrad on a newsagent nicotine run.

“I will use this blog to throw out ideas. It’s important when dealing with large organisations to dart around at different levels, not be stuck with formal hierarchies. It will seem chaotic and ‘not proper No 10 process’ to some. But the point of this government is to do things differently and better and this always looks messy. We do not care about trying to ‘control the narrative’ and all that New Labour junk and this government will not be run by ‘comms grid’…”

We’ve seen a lot of that sort of ‘messy’ politics in the last few months. For better or worse, Johnson’s Number 10 nexus hasn’t enthused itself in mimicking a Blair kind of spin machine. When Cummings hasn’t been in the headlines, COVID has, with some adjunct of government failure added to befit the mood of calamity. U-turns have followed U-turns, cabinet ministers were prevented from appearing on breakfast shows, targets have been missed, and policy responsibility has been under constant scrutiny. Keir Starmer has been leading an excitingly resurgent Labour Party to hold the government to account for its failures with real clarity, and a level of detail worthy of an esteemed public prosecutor. Prime Minister’s Questions have been jittery for Boris when it has been about free school meals, testing, and PPE procurement. 

We’ve also seen a lot of dismissals. Sonia Khan, Sajid Javid’s media adviser, went in November. The Head of Ofqual, Sally Collier, went in summer after the exam screw-up. Sir Mark Sedwill, the most senior civil servant, stood down in September, said to have resisted the institutional march that Cummings had set for Whitehall. 

Where the mess is hard to clean up, events haven’t helped. Coronavirus was not something anyone in (or out of) government expected for 2020, but for those inclined to the Cummings model, such events can provide a remarkable opportunity to redesign and refocus a large-scale system. When the virus first came on to the scene in March it was probably far too soon for any of the new government’s structural revamps to have had any great effect. It’s here where one begins to moot the counterfactual. How much would a change in the system have helped the early response? Could the “seeing rooms”, the data centralisation, the red-teaming effect of “weirdos”, have helped at all to prevent the calamity? New Zealand centralised a lot of their data. As did Germany. Both countries had fairly good early responses, and were able to rely on institutional alignment and data feedback to divert resources in real-time. The UK, whilst getting better, seriously struggled out of the blocks in reconciling local and national aspects of governance, aligning the strategies of devolved and non-devolved areas, and even counting the accruing cases and deaths. 

That aside, what can Cummings’ departure signal, eleven months into his tenure, other than the fulfilment of at least some of the mechanisms he set out to achieve in twelve? “Clearing the air”, the reason the PM gave for his dismissal, does not seem very convincing. It seems to me like Dom’s contract is up- according to, well, Dom. These were the two who braved the odds of the 2016 Referendum, and captured an unthinkable volume of support from Northern voters in 2019. If Cummings was important enough for Boris to cling to during the Durham fiasco, then “air-clearing” won’t be the reason for his departure now. It either got personal, or Dom’s work is done. He has been working from home in the last few weeks (London, not Durham). And one can probably count on the fact that he won’t be seen back in Westminster for a while, unless he continues to pull strings from behind the curtain, which feels quite likely. Checking out of Hotel California is the obvious adage to include here, but “stubborn verruca” fits better- they never really leave you alone. 

The thing with Cummings is that he’s either an evil genius (a Strangelove type), or a high-talking sham — but there is no having it both ways. Regardless of the awkward nature of the breakup (including rumours that Boris’ fiancée, Carrie Symonds, had been involved, which doesn’t help), Cummings will continue to be seen, for a generation, as one of the most influential figures to have pranced about Whitehall. I don’t think it’s ever been the case that an adviser has generated such a buzz, nor is it likely that the hole left in Boris and his team will get filled anytime soon. The blog remains our vantage point into the world as he sees it- and what a different world that has become in the last 12 months.

BREAKING: University confirms 12 positive cases this week

Sasha Mills
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BREAKING: University confirms 12 positive cases this week

The university has confirmed 12 cases amongst staff and students from Early Alert Service tests for the 23rd-29th January, a slight increase from the record-low 7 cases reported last week. The number of tests administered has dropped slightly from 103 to 99, with a positivity rate of 12.1%, almost twice that of last week’s figure.

Since the University started the Early Alert Service, 6,439 tests have been administered, with 1,229 coming back positive and an average positivity rate of 19.1%. Last term, the lowest number of positive tests reported in a week was 21. Cases have remained low this term outside of the spike of 45 cases reported in week 0. 

According to Public Health England, cases have been dropping in Oxford Central and East Central Oxford, but rising again in North Central Oxford and Osney, Jericho & Port Meadow. In the seven days up to January 26th, 10 cases were reported in Oxford Central, 20 in East Central Oxford, 8 in North Central Oxford, and 12 in Osney, Jericho & Port Meadow.

Multi-factor authentication – why it’s more than just extra effort

Jennivine Chen
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Multi-factor authentication – why it’s more than just extra effort

“Action-required; multi-factor authentication will be deployed on your Oxford SSO account soon.”

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) – a phrase we have no doubt read multiple times over the past few weeks. But apart from just being ‘extra effort’ to logging in each time, what is the effect of having MFA on our accounts?

Passwords are easy to crack

First, let’s take a trip down memory lane. When the web first started, the most popular password of all times was ‘12345’, and ever since the 1990s, we have been following the same patterns when it comes to creating passwords. Studies have shown that a staggering 59% of people use the same password everywhere, and regardless of this, roughly 90% of passwords can be cracked in less than 6 hours. But how exactly does one ‘crack’ a password? 

1. Phishing links

The most obvious attack strategy is by phishing. The attacker pretends to be a well-trusted source and sends a link to a fallacious website, where the user can enter in their username and password. Thankfully, a study done by Duo Security on user behaviours showed that only 5% of users fall for these phishing links, with results improving every year. But just as users improve, hackers have changed their main methods too.  

2. Dictionary and brute-force attacks

In a dictionary attack, a software will systematically enter words that can be found in a dictionary to guess a user’s password. In a brute-force attack, cyber criminals use softwares to try and guess every possible combination of characters – not just dictionary words – starting from the most commonly used passwords, then moving on to more complex sentences. For longer passwords, brute-force attacks take a significantly longer time than dictionary attacks, which is why you’re often reminded not to use ‘real’ words in your passwords.

3. Credential stuffing

In addition, using the fact that you have probably reused some passwords across different websites, hackers trying to get access into your sensitive data may start on the less well-protected sites. Once your credentials are obtained on one platform from a data breach, it will be used to attempt log-ins on other platforms (by ‘credential stuffing’).

4. Man in the Middle

More dangerous methods include ‘keylogger’ – where a virus infiltrates the user’s computer and captures every keystroke, including sites visited, usernames, and passwords and more. Have you ever been told not to enter sensitive information on public WiFi? Here’s why. Disguised as a public-WiFI access point, the attacker’s program tries to insert itself into the interaction between the user and an app  Using this ‘Man in the Middle’ attack strategy, the attacker is able to gather all communications and login credentials that the user enters into the app. 

How Multi-factor-authentication works
This is where the importance of multi-factor authentications becomes evident. Instead of just using one method of authentication, MFA requires at least two factors to prove the users identity from a combination of these elements below, so that the attacker won’t be able to gain access to the user’s account even if they’ve cracked the user’s passcode!

  • Knowledge (something only the user knows): answers to personal security questions; the users’ password
  • Possession (something only the user has): one-time passcodes sent by text or email, or generated via smartphone apps; physical or software security tokens 
  • Inherence (something only the user is): fingerprints; facial recognition; other biometrics

The future of Multi-Factor Authentication
Increasingly with more firms and companies adapting to a remote working environment, the need for data security has prompted a rise in MFA roll-out. Yet it is worth noting that MFA is not only a product of the digital age. When you withdraw money at the ATM, both your bank card (possession) and your PIN (knowledge) is required. Looking ahead, some technology firms are looking into AI-based algorithms that analyse the users’ typing biometric as a second way of authentication, by matching patterns on how people type on their keyboards. Google is reportedly starting to do something similar, analysing things such as subtle mouse movements on webpages to decide if the user is human or robot, but its still unclear to what extent it is useful. Until that day that we do know, we will have to live content with an extra step of login effort, and feel safe with the knowledge that it won’t be likely for malicious attackers to get access to our sensitive information (read: browser search history that includes ‘fun facts about MFA’).

Image credit: Austin Distel on Unsplash

EU regulator approves Oxford vaccine

Charlie Hancock
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EU regulator approves Oxford vaccine

The European Medicines Agency has approved the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for use in adults. The vaccine is the third to be given approval from the regulator.

The news comes after the Standing Committee on Vaccination at the Robert Koch Institute, the German governmental public health agency, advised against using the vaccine to immunise people older than 65, citing a lack of data.

The CEO of AstraZeneca, Pascal Soriot, told La Republica that the company’s vaccine produced a “very strong antibody production against the virus in the elderly, similar to what we see in younger people.” The Chief Executive of the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), Dr June Raine, echoed his sentiment saying “Current evidence does not suggest any lack of protection against Covid-19 in people aged 65 or over. The data we have shows that the vaccine produces a strong immune response in the over-65s.”

The EU has purchased over 2.3 billion vaccine doses for its 446 million inhabitants, equalling around five doses per person. Some vaccines, including the Oxford/AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines, require two doses injected a few weeks apart to produce more complete immunity.

400 million doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine have been purchased by the EU for use in its member states and the European Economic Area. The EU ordered 80 million doses to be produced by the end of March. However, AstraZeneca has suffered delays at their production plants in the EU, meaning they will only be able to produce 61 million doses in that timeframe.

The EU has asked AstraZeneca to provide them with vaccines produced in the UK to make up for this shortfall. Stella Kyriakides, the European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, as argued that the bloc’s contract with AstraZeneca gave them access to vaccines produced at two plants in the UK. Soriot has rejected her calls to divert doses from the UK, arguing that the company’s contract with the EU only obliged it to make “best efforts” to fulfil its order and that the UK could claim any vaccines produced in British plants first.

The EU has received criticism for its slow vaccination programme, which has forced hospitals in Paris and Madrid to cancel or delay patients’ appointments to receive their first dose. As of January 28th, Denmark has the highest vaccination rate in the EU having administered 3.95 doses per 100 people. The UK has issued 12.33 doses per 100 people. Israel has the highest dosage rate in the world, at 52.64 doses per 100 people.

Image: Treehill/ CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

University physicists hoping to ‘hear’ spacecraft land on Mars

Sasha Mills
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University physicists hoping to ‘hear’ spacecraft land on Mars

Physicists at the University of Oxford are hoping to ‘hear’ the NASA Perseverance Rover when it lands on Mars in February. The Rover will deploy two balance masses when it lands on the planet’s surface at approximately 4000 metres per second, creating seismic waves that the physicists hope they will be able to detect with the InSight Rover already positioned on the planet. 

InSight is designed to detect seismic activity in order to help scientists learn more about the interior structure of the planet. The rover landed on the planet in 2018, and while it has detected hundreds of marsquakes so far, it has yet to detect an impact event. Impact events are significant because their time and location can be determined by satellites orbiting the planet, and so scientists can use them to calibrate seismic measurements. 

The Perseverance Rover offers the first opportunity for scientists to detect a planned impact event on the planet, which could provide an abundance of evidence on the structure and atmosphere of the planet. This might be challenging, however, as there is a significant distance between InSight’s current position and the landing site for the Perseverance Rover. Scientists remain hopeful that the landing will be detected. 

Ben Fernando, an Oxford physicist and InSight team member, said: “This is an incredibly exciting experiment. This is the first time that this has ever been tried on another planet, so we’re very much looking forward to seeing how it turns out.”

“This would be the first event detected on Mars by InSight with a known temporal and spatial localisation. If we do detect it, it will enable us exactly to constrain the speed at which seismic waves propagate between Perseverance and InSight.”

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