For my final CPSC 602 project, I wanted to create an “unessay” in the form of an educational video that would actually be (hopefully) entertaining to watch. While brainstorming, I thought of all the times I was watching TV and wanted to correct what was happening if it fell within my usual area of expertise. Through this (probably annoying) fighting with the TV, my friends and family have unwillingly gained a lot of knowledge about the functioning of the legal system in the past. So, could I expand this to information security? And furthermore, could I do it in a way that was less annoying?
In looking into how to address this, I came across Wired’s “Technique Critique” series. In watching these, I was amazed by how much I could trick myself into learning when it was hidden in a TV show clip. I decided this style of video would be the best to try to emulate in my project.
In approaching this task, I first thought of TV shows I knew addressed topics we had covered in the course. The first example, which ended up making up a significant portion of my final project was Brooklyn Nine-Nine, where the characters frequently either reference passwords or attempt to gain access to the accounts of others. One difficultly here however was actually obtaining video that would be usable, as I could only download and use videos already uploaded to YouTube. However, I managed to find a few relevant clips.
Here I ran into the problem that I had only addressed one issue brought up within the course. While this would potentially be fine for other projects, my purpose here was to address a few topics so that an average TV lover could gain a broad understanding of multiple topics over the course of a fifteen minute video. Here, my approach because less sophisticated. I immediately logged on to Netflix, looked through my viewing history, and then for the longer running shows, searched “name of the show + computer/hacked/cyber/bitcoin”. Here I came up with two more clips that touched on course issues. While there were a few more, I realized my video was getting a bit long, and any longer would mean that the video would lose viewers and therefore its purpose of broad education.
While there were a few unexpected hiccups that came with video editing, I managed to create a video just under fifteen minutes which addressed password security, encryption, and VPNs/TOR in a way that was (hopefully) user accessible and engaging.
This is so cool and well done! I love that you used Brooklyn nine nine as an example to explain the information you were getting across. This not only gets people drawn in but is super creative all in all. I wish the site would’ve allowed you to upload a longer clip I would’ve really loved to see the whole thing, hats off!!
I finally managed to upload it to youtube privately (after a fight with the copyright division of NBC of course), so if you are interested theres a link to the full version here! https://youtu.be/kPKiam8XKm0
And thank you for the feedback! Truthfully if I was going to make this public I would make another draft, but glad to hear you think it went well in this iteration.
Wow I love your project idea. It is very engaging. I wonder if there is any link to your final project video so we could see the whole video.
It’s amazing how much we unintentionally learn from TVs. I recalled from my previous internship’s on-boarding training where the cyber security training was 2 long articles to read, and unfortunately I skimmed through them and did not retain much of the information. Educating users via a video format can definitely be more effective, and I find it especially so to employees of non-tech functions as they tend to find the training less appealing.
I think this is a great idea! We learn a surprisingly large amount of information from movies, TV shows, etc. There’s a lot of misinformation about these concepts (from Hollywood), so I think trying to use the same sort of strategy to inform others can definitely work. This can sort of trick people into learning something that they may not be interested in, and not making it feel like work.
Yes! I mean I would have gotten tricked easily, I have seen some tech-animes as well in the past and I did get to learn some important security issues in today’s age. I believe any kind of shows can incorporate these lessons into them.
I’m very happy to see that people are using media tools more as a means of teaching information security and helping people understand more about the technology they use everyday and how to keep themselves safe while using it. I especially love that scene where everyone tries to guess terry’s password, it shows how passwords could be very easy to guess and it shows how having a stronger password would be near impossible to guess! Very interesting blog post
Haha I love that show, I never expected to actually learn something regarding it.
It’s so cool to see people in higher courses doing something similar to us. Nice video that you shared by the way.
Awesome work! When it comes to finding innovative ways to teach the youth about how social security works, I believe it is best to incorporate some lessons into the things that people spend their time on a lot. Since a lot of people love to watch TV, these lessons will definitely stick in their heads. Videos are meant to be more lively than any piece of text, so it would be easier to have a good effect on the youth while they have fun watching the videos. Honestly, this is a really good strategy!