Social impact

Because of the nature of this product, there are few major social impacts outside of the public results of security breaches. Excessive trust in this product, coupled with major technical failures of it, would culminate in such a breach. It is important that the possible ethical and product failure causes of these conditions are properly addressed.

Ethics and Liability Hazards

Because our product would be a low-effort, time-saving security device, it is possible that user's tendencies could be to become over-reliant on the system we provide, and forego other more traditional and tedious security methods as they become comfortable with our product. It is ethical that we do our best to prevent this system from defeating its own purpose by decreasing security behavior in users.

• Product should not be marketed as a fail-proof system. Although doing so would lead to more persuasive marketing, we must remember there is a margin for failure in any technical device, provide means and instructions for users to back up their data accordingly, and encourage personal security behaviors as well. Introduction of a product that makes security easy and effective could lead to poor security behavior among users.

• No component of the system should be easily accessible by us without user approval. Just because we design and troubleshoot the product, that does not give us authority to view users' information protected by it.

• Because many users will likely rely on this device long after it's initial market release, it is important that we stay up to date with current events, technological advancements, and developments in cybersecurity/software/encryption fields, among others. It is important that if we ever plan to stop doing such research to protect and update users, they will be informed in advance that the device will be no longer supported.

• User reviews, reports, and even media/professional opinions of our product should be taken seriously, and any issues should be quickly addressed to the best of our ability. Users should be notified of any changes to the product's software.

• Product should be designed and priced at a level that is reasonably affordable to those who might need it. Pricing should honestly reflect overhead, maintenance, R&D, business, logistics, and material costs.

Failure Hazard Analysis

This device would be used to protect vital company, medical, and personal information, among many other uses. Due to the nature of the information this device protects, security failure could result in data breaches that seriously damage lives or businesses.

• • Product failure (Like data being corrupted/inaccessible) could massively inconvenience users, especially those who rely heavily on the product's promises of data protection.

  • Repeatable/Regularly occurring issues should be researched heavily and solved rapidly, especially if they are new or unprecedented. Such issues could reflect larger incompatibilities with software, hardware, or cyber-security developments.

  • We should maintain an excellent understanding of planned OS updates & changes well in advance of their release, and do due diligence to ensure there are no gaps in user security while we troubleshoot the product for use with popular, newly-released systems. We may need to directly interact with companies like Apple and Microsoft to ensure our product will remain compatible through large device-side updates.