Electronic Currency - E-Micropayment systems: Bitpass

Electronic currency also can call as e-money, electronic cash, electronic money, digital money, digital cash or digital currency. It refers to money or scrip which is exchanged only electronically and this also involves use of computer networks, the internet and digital stored value systems. The examples of electronic currency are Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) and direct deposit.

E-Micropayments are small online payments, typically under US $10.

The following are companies with e-micropayment products:
1. Bit Pass (bitpass.com)
2. Pay stone (paystone.com)
3. Pay Loadz (payloadz.com)
4. Peppercoin (peppercoin.com)

Bitpass was one of the online payment system for digital content and services. It was founded in December, 2002 and the co-founder was Kurt Huang. Besides, it also partnered with major technology and financial services companies such as Microsoft, PayPal, the Royal Bank of Scotland and First Data.

Bit Pass system works similarly to a pre-paid telephone card: you sign up for the service and put money into your account using a credit card or PayPal, which gives you credit towards the purchase of content.

On January 19th, 2007 Bitpass announced that they were shutting down due to "circumstances beyond our control," CEO Matthew Graves wrote in an e-mail to customers., and operations officially closed on January 26th, 2007.

Credit Card Debt: Causes and Prevention

In the case of credit cards, the issuer lends money to the consumer to be paid later to the merchant and the cardholder has to pay for the debt when the statement is delivered to them.

By using credit card, there will always have the financial problem which is credit card debt that face by the cardholder due to the poor money management. Without paying the cash directly, the cardholder will have no idea where the money is going. The statement will not be delivered to the cardholder every time when he use the credit card, thus, the cardholder may overspend the money easily without taking attention. Furthermore, making the late payment also will increase the debts because the credit card companies will charge for the interest.

There are some steps to avoid the credit card debt. Always determining the monthly income and needed expenses and keep away from buying things that are unnecessary, saving may help to avoid the debt. It is important to keeping control of credit cards and always makes sure that there is enough money to pay for the debts. Besides, some credit card companies will charge more interest when the payment is made lately, thus always pay the bill on time. Use the credit card like cash and pay the balance in full every month.

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

Reviewing post: "Spammer Agrees to $10 million settlement http://ecommerze.blogspot.com/search/label/Internet%20Security

When we type “Ryan Pitylak” in any search engine, there are many results about Anti-spam activists, affiliate marketing services, viral marketing, anti-spam services, and so on. Well, his name is blacklisted previously as he is known as “spam king” at year 2004.

The man who was tricking people by sending 25 million spam-mails a day, now is turning a new leaf. I had viewed his blog: http://ryanpitylak.blogspot.com and it showed that “Ryan Pitylak” is one of anti-spam community. He provides services in stopping spam from spammers. He also provides other services as I mentioned above.

Graham Cluley of Sophos (1 of IT Security Company) said, "Spammers like Pitylak have shown themselves to be prepared to break the law in their eagerness to pump out unwanted marketing messages. Some companies may feel uncomfortable about working with someone who has shown a history of behaving unethically, without caring about the consequences for other internet users."

I think that we should give opportunity to wrong-maker because everyone would make mistake. People may change to be better. Besides, his previous experience is worth to the organization who hires him as he can provide more efficient way to fight against spam.

Now, he set up his own company, Pitylak Security. I believe that the person who can learn from mistakes and correct those mistakes will be successful.

Phishing: Examples and its prevention

What is “Phishing”?

Phishing is pronounced like “fishing”, is a term used to describe a malicious individual or group of individuals scamming users by sending e-mails or creating web pages that are designed to acquire sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords and credit card details. Normally, PayPal, eBay and online banks are common targets.

How to identify a phishing e-mail?

a) Identify the company
These types of e-mails normally are sent out to thousands of different e-mail addresses. Actually, the person sending these e-mails has no idea who you are. If you have no affiliation with the company the company the e-mail address is supposedly coming from, it's fake. For example: the e-mail is coming from Citibank but you bank at a different bank.

b) Checking spelling and grammar
Improper spelling and grammar is almost always an obvious error.

c) No mention of account information
If the company really was sending you information regarding errors to your account, they would mention your account or username in the e-mail. In the eBay example, the e-mail just says "eBay customer", didn’t mention you username and account number, if this really was eBay they would mention your username.

d) Deadlines
E-mail requests an immediate response or a specific deadline.
For example: the requirement to log in and change your account information within 24 hours.

e) LinksMany phishing e-mails will hide the true URL. Normally, the URL list in the email is not related to the company URL. For eBay example: http://fakeaddress.com/ebay is not an eBay URL, just a URL with an eBay section. If you're unfamiliar with how a URL is structured.

Below are examples of what a phishing e-mail may look like:

How to prevent the phishing?

a) Keep antivirus up to date and use anti-spyware software
Most antivirus vendors have signatures that protect against some common technology exploits.
This can prevent things such as a Trojan. Besides, installing an active spyware solution such as Microsoft Antispyware.

b) Do not click on hyperlinks in e-mails
Do not click any hyperlinks in an e-mail, especially from unknown sources.

c) Take advantage of anti-spam software
Anti-spam software can help keep phishing attacks at a minimum. A lot of attacks come in the form of spam. You can reduce many types of phishing attacks by using anti-spam software such a Qurb.

d) Firewall

Use a desktop (software) and network (hardware) firewall. It can prevent some malicious code from entering your computer and hijacking your browser.

The Threat of Online Security: How Safe is Our Data?

Nowadays, most businesses have move towards to online system. They have experienced some kind of security threat to their business.Since the Internet is a public system in which every transaction can be tracked, logged, monitored and stored in many locations, it is important for businesses to understand possible security threats to their business.

Security can divided to three concept.First is confidentiality.Confidentially allows only authorized parties to read protected information.Second is integrity.Integrity make sure that the data remains as is from the sender to the receiver.Third is availability which can ensures you have access and are authorized to resources.

There are many threats to e-commerce that may come from sources within an organization or individual. The followings are some of the potential security threats that can be found:

1. Tracking the shopper - It is one of the easiest and most profitable attacks, another name is social engineering techniques. These attacks involve observation of the shopper’s behavior, gathering information to use against the shopper.

2. Inquiring the shopper’s computer - Most of the users are no understand about the system that they are using. Additionally, software and hardware vendors, they want to ensure that their products are easy to install, then they will ship products with security features disabled. The confused user does not attempt to enable the security features.

3. Sniffing the network - Here, the attacker monitors the data between the shopper’s computer and the server. He collects data about the shopper or steals personal information, such as credit card numbers.

4. Using known server bugs - The attacker analyzes the site to find what types of software are used on the site. Then, the attacker proceeds to find what patches were issued for the software. In addition, he searches on how to utilize a system without the patch. He proceeds to try each of the exploits.Finally, the attacker finds a weakness in a similar type of software, and tries to use that to exploit the system. This is a simple, but effective attack.

How to safeguard our personal and financial data??

Nowadays, theft can also be committed through computer or internet. Therefore, the security of our personal and financial data is important. There are several steps to safeguard our personal and financial data.

The first step is setting up the username and password for logging into computer. After done, it will only access to the network. This can help us to keep away the unauthorized people from entering. But we must avoid using the password that can be easily figure out by others such as birth date and never use the automatic login that saves the password. The important thing is never write the information down, that means always keep the information in our mind. We are also encouraged to change the password frequently.

Generally, credit card information is needed for purchasing online when making the payment. It is essential for us to use the password protected to safeguard our credit card information. Sometimes, we will require entering the credit card verification codes rather than only entering the card numbers, holder’s name. These codes can be found on the back of the credit card. It used to make sure that the card is used only by the card’s holder.

Sometimes, we will receive the unsolicited e-mails from unknown senders. It is best to type in the web address and never clicks directly on the links. Moreover, never respond to the mails appearing from bank or other entity that request our personal information.

To protect our personal data from being stolen, anti-virus software, anti-spyware and firewalls can be used to safeguard the data. But we have to make sure the anti-virus software and anti-spyware are always up-to-date. Firewalls are installed especially for those who are always connected to the internet.

It is important for us to protect our personal and financial data before it has been stolen.

How E-commerce can reduce cycle time, improve emloyees' empowerment, and facilitate customer support?

Nowadays, E-commerce brings many benefits to consumers, as well as sellers or service providers. We discuss cycle time reduction, empowerment, and customer support in this topic.

Reduce cycle time: “Cycle time” here means the time from receiving customers’ orders until delivering goods and services to customers, and receiving payment from customers. E-commerce can eliminate few steps in business processing, such as withdrawing money from bank, making payment at counter (waste more time if you need to queue up). It not only benefits customers, but also benefits sellers as time saving is economic saving for the organization. Besides, digital products save more cost as those products can be delivered through Internet.

Improve employees’ empowerment: Employees have more authority and power to make decision through E-commerce. It provides more information to employees as there is greater access to the information needed. Empowerment can motivate employees to perform better in their job, more efficient to achieve the organizational goals.

Facilitate customer support: We can view and shop online 24 hours a day, all year round. Most websites will update new products, but they also will keep information of their previous products. This information makes customers more understand about those products. Besides, E-commerce also allows customers to interact with sellers, as well as interact with other customers. They can share opinion and experiences through the website, such as forum and feedback. Another interested facility of E-commerce is self-customized products. Nike lets customers personalize their sports shoes through the website. Customers will be happier and more enjoyable online shopping. Other examples of self-customization are Dell, Jaguar, and etc.

An example of an E-Commerce success and its causes – e bay

One of the successes of E-commerce is e-Bay. E-Bay began like an online garage sale and started by Mr. Omidyar from his home in 1995. The first name of eBay was used is Echo Bay Technology. Unfortunately, when company registers the domain name - E chobay.com, it was already in used. So, they shortened the name to eBay.com.

E-bay is success because it emphasis on customer and have ability to transform many fragmented such as provide a local market into global ones at a low cost to users. The items in eBay have included different types of products such as clothing, computer, car, CD, concert tickets and others. You can find just about anything on eBay and it convenient for users.

Besides, the function of eBay website is very simple, if you do not already have an account with EBay, you need to register an account. For buyers only require your name, address, e-mail and telephone number. For sellers, you'll also need to provide credit card information. EBay also has a secure system to receive your credit card number, so there is no risk that anyone can intercept your credit card number.

Otherwise, the main feature of eBay is auction. It has allowed many people to become entrepreneurs and provides a method for companies or governments to dispose of unwanted items. It also provides a market for people to supplement their income, liquidate an estate, to rid of unwanted items from their collections and sell the things that they no longer want or need. Along with growth, now eBay is become a leader in Internet revenue.

AN EXAMPLE OF AN E-COMMERCE FAILURE AND ITS CAUSES

One of the failures of e-commerce is Webvan. Webvan was an online credit and delivery grocery business which was started in the late 1990s. At the beginning, the company offered services in ten U.S. market and hoped to expand to 26 cities. Unfortunately, the company was shut down in year 2001.

Webvan failed is because of the poor management decisions. The company was expanded too fast with too little of money. Its money is used to build up the expensive infrastructure and expand rapidly across the country when it was popular. The company was run out of money. A net loss of $217 million and accumulated deficit of $830 million forced Webvan have to close up their business.

Besides, the inability to connect with their customers also may cause the e-commerce failed. Webvan tried to delivery the groceries in 30 minutes to fulfill the customer satisfaction. It is quite a good service but some of the customers would like their groceries to be delivered at night since they are working at day time. Moreover, the deliveries will sometimes be late and the customer was not at home when the van was there. Although the customer could reschedule the time, if the customer would need the groceries at the same day then they have to get the things from the supermarket which may cause inconvenience for them.

The company is unable to raise more cash to avoid the bankruptcy. Finally, on 9 July 2001, Webvan filed for bankruptcy and began its liquidation.

History and Evolution of E-Commerce

The most popular activities in the internet website is Web shopping.E-commerce has benefit the seller to use information technology to done the business process.E -commerce become possible since year 1991 when the internet is open for commercial use.

When year 1984, the term ecommerce meant the process of execution of commercial transactions electronically with the help of the leading technologies such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) which gave an opportunity for users to exchange business information and do electronic transactions.

In year 1992,one of a America website name Compuserve has offers online retail products to its customers. This gives people the first chance to buy things off their computer.

After that, Nestcape arrived in year 1994. Nestcape has providing users a simple browser to surf the Internet and a safe online transaction technology called Secure Sockets Layer.

After a year which mean year 1995,amazon.com and ebay.com is created and this two website is the biggest names in e-commerce.This two websites become more popular from one year to another year.This is because seller can post their product details and photos in the website and easy for the buyer to lauched it.

In year 1998,DSL or Digital Subscriber Line is created.It provides fast, always-on Internet service to subscribers across California. This prompts people to spend more time, and money, online.

According to Business.com,retail spending over the Internet reaches $20 billion in year 1999.More people using internet to done business.

Today, the largest electronic commerce is Business-to-Business (B2B). Businesses involved in B2B sell their goods to other businesses. In 2001, this form of e-commerce had around $700 billion in transactions.

Woo Shi Yuin~~

Hi, I am Woo Shi Yuin. I am accounting student in University Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia. My hometown is Ipoh, Perak, is a nice and lovely place. I like shopping, reading, "singing k", and and and watching movies, and also day-dreaming. My birthday is on 20th February, every year. My favourite colours are pink and purple. I like penguin because it's cute. ^_^



Well, this is the first time I created a blog and this is the first post, hope you all like this blog. We will do our best to tell you about E-commerce. If you have any comment or suggestion, please feel free to tell us.



The top 5 websites that I visited the most:



1.) http://www.utar.edu.my/ - The useful website for all UTAR students to check out information about our course, activities, and all events in our university.



2.) http://www.google.com/ - The common website for us to search information about our assignment, course work, also if we search for any games, songs, and etc.



3.) http://www.sudokukingdom.com/ - This website provides daily online sudoku to solve. I like to play sudoku as I like Mathemathics. It can help to develop your mind and your logic thinking.



4.) http://www.youtube.com/ - I visit this website to watch drama and also the video clip posted by friends, or other people around the world. However, I didn't post any video clip on this website.



5.) http://www.friendster.com/ - Usually I visit this website to view my friends' photos, upload my own photos... Actually I am still finding out other features in this website such as playing online games, decorating my own page, and etc.



So, hope that this introduction can help you to know more about me. ; )

Self-introduction

Hello, my name is Tan Su Sian. My birthday is on 10 December and i will be 21 years old this year. I come from Sarawak, but my friends always say that i'm from Kota Kinabalu, Sabah just because i study at there before. I am now studying at UTAR and taking accounting course. I never write any blog, but this semester i will write the blog because this is the assignment for E-commerce.

The top 5 website that i always visit are:
1. http://www.hotmail.com/ - I visit this website is only for checking the mail from my family and friends.

2. http://www.yahoo.com/ - I use this website to find the information that i need.

3. http://www.baidu.com/ - When i need the dictionary, i will visit this website. Besides, i will search the music through this website too.

4. http://www.utar.edu.my/ - I'm sure that every UTAR student will visit this website. Through this website, we can check our examination results, timetable and others.

5. http://www.airasia.com/ - I'm from Sarawak, so this website is important for me to buy the ticket, check the time of the flight, price and other.

Kiew Teck Fatt

Hi, I am Kiew Teck Fatt.Nickname is Ah Fatt.I am 21 years old this year.I come from Sabah,Tawau.Are you know where is it?That is a place full of mystery and it is near Pulau Sipadan.Now i live at Cheras Sungai Long and i am studying at Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman.My hobbies is talking.I have this hobby because i am staying under a talkative house.All my housemate is very good in presenting and talking because they study marketing.My favourite food is KFC.Although the soft drink at KFC cannot be refill but their chicken is delicious.I am football fans of Liverpool football club.This is because Liverpool is the hero in my heart.

So that, my top 5 favourite websites i visit are:


1.www.livescore.com .
I like to check the football result in this website.

2.uk.premiership.fantasysports.yahoo.com
This website is an EPL football website.I can act as a manager of a football club.

3.www.google.com.my
I search my assignment details in the website.

4.www.mail.yahoo.com
I check the yahoo mail everyday

5.www.hotmail.com
I open this website when i log in my msn.

Thats all my introduce about myself.Happy reading.

Myself - Kor Shi Yin

Hi, my name is Kor Shi Yin. I come from Johor Bahru and now living in Bandar Sungai Long because I am UTAR student. The course I'm studying is Accounting. Why i choose accouting? Because my father want me become a accountant, so i choose it. Is it very funny? I am 21 year old and my birthday on 1st August. I also have a classmate born on that day. My hobbies are reading novel, listening music and watching drama. My favourite fruit is durian but I have a very long time not to eat it.

Top 5 website i always visit are:
1) http://www.google.com/ - it can let me find out many information when i needed. Besides, i also have using iGoogle, you can create a google home page by yourself. You also can add some stuff eg: youtube search, dictionary, flash game and etc.

2)http://www.yahoo.com/- many purpose i visit this website only for checking mail.

3)http://www.jbtalks.cc/ - it is a forum contain many kind of information. It also provide a trading center. eg: you can sell your second hand clothes, shoes, handphone, computer and etc.

4)http://www.haoting.com/ - i always go to this website for listening music and see latest album. You also can create a music box in this website and add in which song you prefer.So, you can use music box to listen music.

5)http://www.youtube.com/- many purpose of this website of course is watching drama and some video.