Electronic Currency

Electronic currency is also known as electronic money, e-money, electronic cash, digital money, digital cash or digital currency. It refers to money or scrip which is exchanged only electronically. Typically, this involves the use of computer networks, the internet and digital stored value systems.
E-currency provides the Internet user with a safer and more convenient way in dealing with online transaction as they can make the payment by just a simply click on the confirm button and the deal is then completed. It minimizes the risk of using the credit card where the users’ personal financial information might be explored or being stolen.

Future evolution
The main focuses of electronic currency development are:
1) Being able to use it through a wider range of hardware such as secured credit cards; and
2) Linked bank accounts that would generally be used over an Internet means, for exchange with a secure micropayment system such as in large corporations (PayPal).

Furthering network evolution in terms of the use of digital cash, a company named DigiCash is at the focus of creating an e-cash system that would allow issuers to sell electronic coins at some value. When they are purchased they come under someone’s own name and are stored on his computer or under his online identity. At all times, the e-cash is linked to the e-cash company and all transactions go through it, so the e-cash company secures anything that is purchased. Only the company knows your information and will properly direct purchases to your location.

Drawback of electronic currency
Although digital cash can provide many benefits such as convenience and privacy, increased efficiency of transactions, lower transaction fees, and new business opportunities with the expansion of economic activities on the Internet, there are many potential issues with the use of digital cash. The transfer of digital currencies raises local issues such as how to levy taxes or the possible ease of money laundering. There are also potential macroeconomic effects such as exchange rate instabilities and shortage of money supplies (total amount of digital cash versus total amount of real cash available, basically the possibility that digital cash could exceed the real cash available). These issues may only be addressable by some type of cyberspace regulations or laws that regulate the transactions and watch for signs of trouble.

A review on a post on e-tailing from My E-Commerce blog

Most of the people sell products via Internet, how about services?
Offering services thru Internet might not be popular in Malaysia, but getting online services is a trend in overseas. For instance, online restaurant reservation services have been launched since 2007 in New York and San Francisco.
There are approximately 7,000 high-end restaurants around the world are using OpenTable.com, a Web site which allows customers to go for online restaurant reservation. In OpenTable.com, it takes 10 seconds by only few "clicking", which is far better than making reservation thru telephone. Having this service helps to improve the efficiency and profitability of the restaurants, save time and even reduce the error risk.

Based on the current trend, I believe there will be more online services popping up in the Internet, perhaps in the future people can even do a hair cut without physically present to the saloon. (Haha…this is merely my imagination!)

Wish to know more about OpenTable? Here is a news reporting about OpenTable.com.

The Treat of Online Security: How safe is our data?

Technology is wonderful as it keeps bringing more convenience to our lives. Traditionally people rely on computers to work for simple electronic tasks. With the advancement of technology, we can perform more than that by using the Internet, such as e-transactions. However data security is always an issue and it grows largely as more and more malicious attacks are developed.

Malicious Threats
Malicious threats can be categorized into technical and non-technical attack. Technical attack is an attack perpetrated using software and systems knowledge or expertise. The most common example is Malware. Malware is a compound from malicious and software. It is used to describe all types of malicious software, including worm, virus, Trojan horse, Spyware, Adware, Rookit etc.

A perpetrator is likely to use Trojan program to capture one’s personal and sensitive data. Trojan is a program which appears to perform a certain useful action but in fact performs hidden action such as transmitting a computer virus. For example, Girlfriend Trojan is a server program that arrives in the form of file that looks like an interesting game. When the unsuspected runs the program, the Trojan installed. The server will execute commands, sent by the client, on the victim’s computer such as to send back the information captured (user Ids and passwords) to the client. The Trojan program also enables the perpetrator to erase or overwrite data on a computer, corrupt files in a subtle way, upload and download files, show fake downloads of software movies, games, porn videos and porn websites that victim did not download, and so on.

Similar to Trojan, a Spyware existed to collect personal information without the user's knowledge or informed consent and send it to third parties. It is being installed surreptitiously on a personal computer. The spyware program can collect various types of personal information, such as Internet surfing habit, sites that have been visited, but can also interfere with user control of the computer in other ways, such as installing additional software, redirecting Web browser activity, accessing websites blindly that will cause more harmful viruses, or diverting advertising revenue to a third party. Spyware can even change computer settings, resulting in slow connection speeds, different home pages, and loss of Internet or other programs.

Besides this, our data is also exposed to non-technical attack, which is an attack that uses trickery to trick people into revealing sensitive information. Phishing is an example of this attack. It becomes a popular method to collect information by masquerading or creating fake Web sites that look identical to real Web sites. Commonly an email will be sent to customers requesting them to provide or update their information on the fake Web sites.

There are still other threats of data security. By taking necessary steps to safeguard our personal information, it could reduce information leaks.

How to safeguard our personal and financial data?

Traditionally, by locking up all the important documents and files is considered safe. Due to the advance in technology, it however does not work that way anymore.

You might wonder, how secure is considered as secure in network system?
Have you ever purchased any item from the Internet? Or have you experienced making any transaction through e-banking? Performing Internet activities which involve personal data could be risky, because the chances of leaking or theft these information is higher.
Therefore I’m here to share with you some tips regarding how to safeguard your personal and financial data.

1. Setting the passwords character as long as possible. The log in passwords of financial transaction should be more than 6 characters, and the characters should exclude the IC number or date of birthday to prevent anyone to trace your personal and financial confidential data. Bear in mind; do not divulge your account access passwords to other.

2. You should be able to verify the security web site, especially the web site which is financial-based. A secure financial web site should have the certificate of ‘Veri Sign Secure Site’ and also certified by ‘Web Trust’. The purpose of getting ‘Veri Sign Secure Site’ certificate is to ensure data confidentiality and integrity, and all information transmitted over the Internet is encrypted using the 128-bit Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol from Verisign Certificate Authority. SSL is a secure way of transferring information between two computers on the Internet using encryption. Whereas ‘Web Trust’ is to certify that the web site complies with the international web security standard. For example Maybank2u.com is reliable because it has been certified by both of these.

3. Antivirus. Top 5 Online Scanners which recommended by Mary Landesman are Trend Micro's Housecall, Kaspersky Online Scanner, Kaspersky File Scanner, Virustotal Jotti Online, and Malware Scan. By scanning the computer with any of these antivirus softwares before performing any financial transaction, it helps you to ensure there is no spyware in your computer.

The last but not the least, you should avoid accessing financial information in public, such as the outdoor wi-fi access. The financial transaction data seem to be open to the public and anyone who is IT expertise can easily trace the information.

Wish to know more?
http://www.verisign.com/
http://antivirus.about.com/od/freeantivirussoftware/tp/aaonline.htm

A review on a post on Internet Security from My E-Commerce blog

After reading a post about new spamming tactics on Internet Security from My E-Commerce blog, I learn more about spam and would like to share some information here.

What is spam?
Spamming is the abuse of electronic messaging systems to indiscriminately send unsolicited bulk messages and it is flooding the Internet with many copies of the same message, in an attempt to force the message on people who would not otherwise choose to receive it. Most spam is commercial advertising, while the most widely recognized form of spam is e-mail spam, the term is applied to similar abuses in other media: instant messaging spam, Usenet newsgroup spam, Web search engine spam, spam in blogs, wiki spam, mobile phone messaging spam , Internet forum spam and junk fax transmissions.

Spam can be used to spread computer viruses, trojan horses or other malicious software. The objective may be identity theft, or worse (e.g., Advance fee fraud ). Some spam attempts to capitalize on human greed whilst other attempts to use the victims' inexperience with computer technology to trick them (e.g., Phishing ).

Anti-spam software can prevent all unwanted spam and junk email and filters for preventing spam. This is evidenced in the Web-based e-mails services providers such as Yahoo, Google and Hotmail, where spam mails are easily filter out and diverted to the spam folders.
Email and Internet content security provider, Marshal warned of the emergence of three new forms of spam.

· The first is a new run of greeting card spam targeting major holidays;
· The second is disguised as an Adobe Picture Document Format (PDF) attachment.
· Lastly, is a new form of spam labelled as Piggyback Spam.
These three forms of new spam are discussed in the new spamming tactics on Internet Security. To learn more on these please click here

Besides the solutions that are discussed in the post, here are some tactics you can use to greatly reduce the amount of spam you receive. Combining these tactics can help you read your e-mail in peace, without being accosted by continual spam.

1. Remove email links from your Web site.
Spam "robots" are continually scouring the Internet in search of new e-mail addresses. To reduce your current amount of spam, u can remove actual links to your e-mail and replacing them with a spelled-out e-mail address or create graphics that display your e-mail address because Spam robots can't read the text in graphic form.

2. Do not give out your business e-mail address.
If you must provide an e-mail address for a purchase, subscription, or registration, use a non-company account with a free webmail provider, such as Hotmail or Gmail.

3. Do not ask to be removed.
Many people make the mistake of replying to spam e-mail messages and asking to be removed from the list. However, attempting to remove yourself may result in even more junk e-mail.

4. Never buy and never reply.
Don't respond to spam solicitations. Buying products that are advertised in spam messages encourages spammers to continue. If you truly need what's being offered, find it from a reputable business.

5. Block spam at the server level.
Many hosting companies allow you to employ a spam blocker, such as Spam Assassin, at the server level. This means that your spam will be shuttled to a particular junk folder before you ever see it. However, these e-mail messages will remain on your server until you delete them.

6. Purchase a spam filter.
You can purchase a spam filter. There are many products out there, including SpamCop, which can filter out even cloaked spam messages. SpamCop also provides a free service to report spammers who are targeting your e-mail address.

Phishing:Examples and Its Prevention Methods

Let me share with you what phishing is all about. Phishing is basically a method of collecting(stealing) information through fake Web sites which seem as real Web sites. In United States, approximately 1.2 million computer users suffered losses of $ 929 million USD which caused by phishing.

One of the examples of phishing is Adwords. It is a Google’s flagship advertising product. Google offers pay-per-click advertising which seems attractive to marketing salesperson to deal with their business. In fact, “phishers” have taken up this opportunity to steal information by creating a fake Web site.

Here is the example of a faking URL:


Other indicators of phishing such as:
1. The email address of a user in a generic fashion which may lead to a high probability of phishing. Eg: Dear valued eBay member….
2. As mentioned above, the fake URL like http://www.google.com@members.thinkbank.com/ may trick the user to log in by clicking a link provided in the site, such as http://www.google.com/. In fact, the link actually directs the browser to phishers on members.thinkbank.com.
3. The other common trick used by phishers is requesting the user to “verify” their account or “update” their information.

Increase in the public awareness of phishing by identifying the real URL of a Web site helps to solve the problem. Here is a video that I downloaded from youtube. I would like to share with you on how to identify a fake URL and a real URL.






Users also can use software programs to identify phishing contents on Web sites and emails. There are some anti-phishing software available in the market such as Phishing-Sweeper-Enterprise, Phishing Detector, Phishing Zapper, etc. Click here to look for more anti-phishing software.

Besides, the use of spam filter also helps in protecting a computer users from phishers. Kindly visit to Cloudmark to look for various types of anti-phishing spam filters.

For organizations, Cloudmark introduced some unique verification tools such as challenging questions and secret images which serve the purpose of verifying a passwords. Or, users could look for the digital certificate to ensure the particular site is being certified and reliable before proceeding with any transaction. A good example would be Maybank2u.com

An example of an E-commerce failure and its causes

The internet creates new connectivity with customers and offers the opportunity to expend markets. However, it also has the potential to expose a retailer to more source of risk. There are some extremely successful virtual Ecommerce companies such as eBay, Google, Yahoo! and etc. But, there are also a large number of Ecommerce companies began to fail. Pets.com is one among many other online retailers that failed as a business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce entity.

Pets.com was a San Francisco-based online business that offered pet products, information, and resources to consumers over World Wide Web. The site was launched in November, 1998 founded by web company developer Greg McLemore. Julie Wainwright, previously CEO of Reel.com, was appointed CEO of Pets.com. The company received over $50 million in funding from backers including Hummer Winbald, Bowman Capital, Discovery Communications, Walt Disney, and Amazon.com.

In the beginning of 1999, Pets.com appeared to be on a road to success. The company succeeded wildly in making its mascot, the Pets.com sock puppet. The Pets.com site design was extremely well received, garnering several advertising awards. Pets.com offered consumers a broad product selection, large-scale inventory, competitive prices, and expert advice from a staff of pet-industry experts and veterinarians. It also offered an efficiently designed website that attracted many customers.

Although Pets.com had a first-mover advantage being the first of these virtual pet stores to enter the market but Pets.com was in a crowded field. It operated in a very competitive market, Pets.com, Petopia, PetsMart.com, and Petstore.com all launched within months of each other in 1999. This market competition forced Pets.com to advertise extensively and to sell goods below cost. Noting the high costs of delivering items such as dog food and the thin profit margins involved. Pets.com decided to close down in November, 2000 just two years after its launch.

One problem with Pets.com’s business model was that it was not unique and did not offer consumers anything different from the other online pet supplies retailers. Another problem that Pets.com faced was that it entered a market of selling low-margin food and supplies that are extremely costly to ship to consumers.

The reasons for the closing of Pets.com relate back to an unsustainable business model and unachievable expectations. It acquired large amounts of funding from venture capitalists without considering the consequences. Without any experience, the firm went public only a few months after its initial launch. Pets.com assumed that the market and its revenues would grow quickly enough to allow for a profit before funding money was exhausted. Too strong of a focus on market share instead of on gaining profits led to the downfall of Pets.com. Also, another contributing factor is that this e-tailer may have overestimated the number of online customers it could gain in the pet market.

After collapsing, its assets were sold to Petsmart.com, a click-and-mortar pet supplies retailer. Refer to http://www.petsmart.com/home/index.jsp. There are many reasons why some firms may not want to enter the online selling market, and the experience of Pets.com is just one example of many.

The top ten E-commerce mistake can be refer to:
http://www.e-consultancy.com/news-blog/364700/top-10-most-common-e--commerce-mistakes.html

http://shopping-cart-review.toptenreviews.com/top-ten-mistakes-ecommerce-article.html