Signs of the Times
Electronic Commerce is defined by Webster's Dictionary as using computer networks to conduct business, including buying and selling online, electronic funds transfer, business communications, and using computers to access business information resources. The Electronic Commerce Association describes electronic commerce as 'doing business electronically'. More precisely we could describe electronic commerce as involving the exchange of information using a combination of structured messages (EDI), unstructured messages (e-mail and documents), data access and direct support for business processes across the value chain. The Internet is only a small fraction of e-commerce applications. Intranets, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems all contribute to business to business marketing, operations and financial services (Wareham, 2000). The Internet was designed to be used by government and academic users, but now it is rapidly becoming commercialized. It has on-line "shops", even electronic "shopping malls". Customers, browsing at their computers, can view products, read descriptions, and sometimes even try samples. They could pay by credit card, transmitting the necessary data by modem; but inte
rcepting messages on the Internet is trivially easy for a smart hacker, so sending a credit-card number in an unscrambled message is inviting trouble. It would be relatively safe to send a credit card number encrypted with a hard-to-break code. That would require either a general adoption across the Internet of standard encoding protocols, or the making of prior arrangements between buyers and sellers. Both consumers and merchants could see a windfall if these problems are solved. For merchants, a secure and easily divisible supply of electronic money will motivate more Internet surfers to become on-line shoppers. Electronic money will also make it easier for smaller businesses to achieve a level of automation already enjoyed by many large corporations whose Electronic Data Interchange heritage means streams of electronic bits now flow instead of cash in back-end financial processes (E-commerce, 1999). We need to resolve four key technology issues before consumers and merchants anoint electric money with the same real and perceived values as our tangible bills and coins. These four key areas are security, authentication, anonymity, and divisibility. Commercial R&D departments and university labs are developing measures to address security for both Internet and private-network transactions. The answer to securing sensitive information, like credit-card numbers, is to encrypt the data before you send it out. MIT's Kerberos is one of the best-known-private-key encryption technologies. It creates an encrypted data packet, called a ticket, which securely identifies the user. To make a purchase, you generate the ticket during a series of coded messages you exchange with a Kerberos server, whom sits bet
Some common words found in the essay are:
MIT's Kerberos, Planning ERP, Internet Electric-money, Commerce Association, Data Interchange, Webster's Dictionary, Commercial R&D, electronic commerce, Electronic Commerce, electric money, secure hash, consumers merchants, spending habits, Electronic Data, authentication anonymity divisibility, security authentication, anonymity divisibility, kerberos server, electronic data, authentication anonymity, electronic data interchange, security authentication anonymity,
Approximate Word count = 1150
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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