I6team is a group of eight students working together to film a series of podcasts for an Information Science and Technology class. This website is where the group's podcast series will posted, along with any other materials that the group makes available to the public.
What is the series about?
The series will work to explore a variety of topics, all under within the same question: “How has the recent trend of mass company hacks affected the personal security of the common household consumer?”. This question will be used to guide the discussion and research that the I6team crew undergoes in the creation of the podcast.
Why did you pick that question?
The reason the crew picked this question is because of it's connection to Information Science and Technology. The topic references the ‘People’ of ‘Information, People, and Technology’. The crew plans on using this podcast to discuss the impact that hacks on major companies such as Yahoo (Thielman, 2016) and Amazon (Uzunovic, 2016) has on the daily lives of their consumers. This relates to a key part of what we learn in our class, which is using and securing our own personal technology. The topic also references technology and the lesson on the Internet of Things. The crew will discuss how technology has grown to become a huge part of modern homes, and how this makes people more susceptible to being hacked. The Internet of Things has introduced technology into almost every aspect of one’s life, and this interconnection of technology that has been created has the potential to be quite harmful to a person if hacked.
Why does that matter?
The reason this topic is important is because it pertains to the core of the ideal audience, and the majority of the class. Society is becoming more and more reliant on technology in every aspect of modern lives, and thus the companies that provide these technologies are becoming important to it's consumers. For this reason, the security of these companies is becoming vital in the security of it's consumers own personal technology, and thus lives. In the most recent Yahoo security breach, over one billion credentials were stolen from the website’s database. This means that the names, addresses, phone numbers, and even passwords and security questions, are now in the hands of complete strangers (Thielman, 2016). In the most recent Amazon hack, the same type of credentials were stolen from close to 80,00 people. (Uzunovic, 2016), With this many users being affected, the importance of who these hacks affect, how they do so, and what can be done to lessen the damage, cannot be understated, and that is why the crew plan on tackling these issues.
Who would listen to this, and why?
The targeted audience is college students, mostly people 18-25 years old. Being hacked can happen to anyone and any business and it greatly affects how people live their daily lives. College students are just starting to figure out how the real world works and they should be informed about the recent hacks that are happening around them, or possibly to them. According to New York Times,in 2014 Yahoo was hacked and millions of users names, addresses, birth dates, and passwords were stolen . When businesses like Yahoo or Amazon are hacked, their consumers’ information is in danger. This age group should relate to the topic of hacking because they are the most vulnerable. Even though they themselves do not get hacked, the stores they buy their products from and the websites they visit can become a portal for hackers to retrieve their information.