Jude Stovall

This summer, our research team was tasked with finding information on Sony’s PlayStation 4. Dillon, Kimberly, and I were each assigned different areas to research. Dillon was in charge of the network connections, Kimberly was responsible for internal and  external storage, and I was responsible for the PlayStation’s file system. My research confirmed another teams’ findings about the PlayStation 4 hard drive.

My findings were not what I had hoped to find. I wanted to find something new, but in the beginning of the project, our group found results of another research project that had already attempted what we were about to begin. The research team in Europe had already done extensive testing on the hard drive of the PlayStation. Our results were the same and showed that the hard drive was encrypted and has a proprietary file system. Forensic tools did not recognize the format. This made the task very difficult and it was hard to produce results that did not match the other teams. Even though I was only able to emulate another group’s research, I still believe the results are important. I did not believe this at the beginning of the project

This project was a unique experience for me. I had no previous research experience before this project, so I am grateful I got to participate in a project led by professors here at Sam Houston State University. I was particularly interested in this project, because I want to go to graduate school and study to be a professor. It was a good exposure to the process. In addition to the exposure to research, I was also able to work on a team of other computer scientists, which I have yet to do in any of my classes. With this, I was able to learn firsthand how important teamwork is in research. Without splitting the work among several people, our results would not have been what they are.

In conclusion, this summer research project taught me several things. I was able to work with a team and research a subject I am passionate about. This has left me interested in pursuing more research opportunities in the future once I have obtained more knowledge of computing science and digital forensics.