Lifez sTarts wHen WE mAk3 ONE........: 2009

Sunday, July 12, 2009

A Discussion On E-learning Offered In Malaysia Universities: Pros and Cons From The Students Perspective

Electronic learning or E-Learning is a term for all types of technology-enhanced learning (TEL), where technology is used to support the learning process. Often the medium of instruction is through computer technology, particularly involving digital technologies. It is essentially a learning system that is supported by electronic hardware and software either online (synchronous) or offline (asynchronous). The learning is carried out either individually or on a small or large group basis and can be used as a hybrid to the face-to-face format, or exclusively in open and distance learning (ODL). In some instances, no face- to- face interaction takes place. E-learning is used interchangeably in a wide variety of context. E-learning is used to define a specific mode to attend a course or programmes of study where the students rarely, if ever, attend face-to-face for on-campus access to educational facilities, because they study online.

The Advantages of E-learning from the Students Perspective:

Ø Learning is self-paced and gives students a chance to speed up or slow down as necessary as the learning is self-directed, allowing students to choose content and tools appropriate to their differing interests, needs, and skill levels.

Ø Besides that, it accommodates multiple learning styles using a variety of delivery methods geared to different learners; more effective for certain learners, where geographical barriers are eliminated, opening up broader education options which made up 24/7 accessibility makes scheduling easy and allows a greater number of people to attend classes.

Ø Travel time and associated costs (parking, fuel, vehicle maintenance) are reduced or eliminated, which also included the overall student costs are frequently less (tuition, residence, food, child care).

Ø Fosters greater student or instructor contact where students and lecturers can contact with each other and lecturers uploading recent notes or students downloading any notes that they missed during the class.

Ø Moreover, it will provide higher retention where online learning will draw you to topics you like and enjoy. Studies show that because of this and the variety of delivery methods used to reach different types of learners, retention is frequently better than in a traditional classroom.

Ø Greater Collaboration of technology tools which make collaboration among students much easier. Since many projects involve collaborative learning, the online environment is far easier (and often more comfortable) to work in since learners don't have to be face-to-face.

The Disadvantages of E-learning from the Students Perspective:

Ø The lack of face-to-face communication with lecturers, contributes lack of understanding between a student and a lecturer. While a lecturer cannot easily feel a student’s demands, interests and motivations, a student can simply be lazy and being non-motivated enough and having free time schedule for his or her e-learning. This may result a low scope of the student’s knowledge and the lecturer’s accusation in lack of proficiency.

Ø Next, online classes, conferences and discussions are limited in time and totally exclude emotional interactivity. Though some universities and colleges which provide online courses and give online degrees evolve voice communication through networking technologies there is still lack of gestures, vivid dialogue and feeling of a student’s and a lecturer’s interlocutor’s presence.

Ø Moreover, not all people have self discipline. A student can avoid classes for the week and fall way behind. This makes learning even harder when trying to get caught up with the class. Lecturers may have to make a set plan and stick to it. This is sometimes very hard for people who like to put things off.

Ø Furthermore, in some cases, students are not always able to talk to a lecturer if they need help. This can be very frustrating if a student is not able to understand the material being studied. When taking the online course, he or she is the only one in the class. Some lecturer may need the interaction with other students as they may think one to one communication may be uncomfortable, making this another disadvantage to online learning.

References:

Corporate Blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies

Nowadays, corporate blogging is used by an organization to reach its organizational goals and published. Besides that, corporate blogging advantage is that posts and comments are easy to reach and follow due to centralized hosting and generally structured conversation threads. For example, all major browsers including Firefox, Opera, Safari and Internet Explorer 7 support RSS technology. It can visit the blog without actually visiting and enables readers to easily read recent posts. Moreover, it is very useful for low-volume blogs. In addition, corporate blogging have a lot of types, but most can be categorized as either external or internal.

How does the corporate blog help the organization?

Corporate blogging is a new marketing communication tools for companies. It can offer the ability to build a community and can interact with your organization and each others. It can through comments and out-of-the-box widgets, blog catalog, social bookmarking sites, cross linking and cross posting to get people interact with your organization and each others. Besides that, corporate blogging can also build a community within own organization. It gives the opportunity for your staff members to bring out their stories, and make them feel part of your organization’s community.

Meanwhile, corporate blogging help the organization ease of publishing. It allow organization publish information to public much faster than a traditional website. Therefore, it offers an easy-to-update, easy-to-work with contents management system (CMS).

For instance, General motor is a great example of corporate blogging because GM has clearly realized that regurgitating press releases is not what blogs are made for. GM corporate blog mainly is talks a lot on their blog about their cars and trucks and the design choices they make while creating them, but they also throw in interesting treatises on current hot-button issues, such as alternative energy.

Therefore, there are some advantages of corporate blogging:

• Blogs give the writer an opportunity to answer critics in a controlled forum.
• Leaders can communicate directly with customers, suppliers and investors, as well as employees, helping disseminate and explain strategy.
• Sharing their ideas freely in an honest voice brings the blogging companies new connections and generates trust which will lead to business opportunities galore.
• Blogs have a broad impact on the nature of online media by giving an opportunity to publish words, pictures and ultimately - multimedia to the web without specialized geek skills.
• They boost your search engine rankings if you add fresh content on a regular basis. Google and other search engines rewards sites that are updated often, that link to other sites and most importantly, that has many inbound links.

• People are far more likely to give great feedback if they know someone specific is listening. The power of these feedback loops can generate big benefits.
• Customers mark your company as authentic and forward-looking.
• Being informal, blogs can provide you with a measure of value. Publish an idea and see if it generates interest.
• If your blog has a positive effect on your company’s reputation then it is very beneficial to your career.

However, there is also having some disadvantages of corporate blog:

• It can be trick

y to drag public comment out of a company without first routing through the sanitizing filter of a press office.
• There is a risk that an ill-judged comment could be seized upon by the media or disgruntled investors.
• Poorly written corporate blogs can look fake or perhaps worse, they reveal incompetence on the part of the writer.
• Blogs are easy to start and hard to maintain. Writing coherently is one of the most difficult and time-consuming tasks for a human being to undertake. So, far from blogs being a cheap strategy, they are a very expensive one, in that they eat up time. As a result, many blogs are not updated, thus damaging rather than enhancing the reputation of the organization.

References:

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Review A Local E-commerce Site

myPinkyHouse

myPinkyHouse is an online gift shop that specialized in selling the variables of gift products such as soft toys, crafts, accessories, souvenirs, flowers, greeting cards, and so on. The overall of the site design layout is match with the name of the site (myPinkyHouse) as it used white and pink color in the design of most of the pages. Besides that, the web site has uploaded some pictures in order to described the products that they sell.

On the other hands, the font size that used by this web site is normal font size which still can be see and read it clearly. The download speed for this web site is fast, which the page will loaded in between 2 to 3 seconds. This can make customers feel more comfortable as compare to those site which need to take few minutes in order to load one page. Meanwhile, the site's navigation is quite easy which customers can just click on the 'home' icon in order to go back to main page. Besides that, the side links such as products, browse categories, price range, and so on is available in every pages no matter where the customers are browse through. This provides customers the convenient as they can browse whatever pages of the site that they want.

The web site also provides customers with the browsing categories which can make them feel more convenience while searching for the products that they want to purchase. In addition, it also have the same features such as price range, shop by size, themes list, new product categories, and the best sellers. these features enables customers to search for the products more quickly based on their needs and budget in stead of browse through all the categories of the products.

Furthermore, the web site consists of search engine feature. Customers who wish to purchase specific products such as bears or flowers can just type in the product name in the search engine. After that, the site will appear the relevant page of the product that the customers want. Other than that, the shopping carts feature is available in this web site. By having this feature, it enables customers to add in a number of different products that they want to purchase by just click on the 'add to cart' icon before making the total payment.

Finally, while customers want to make payment, they just need to click on the 'checkout' icon. Moreover, the web site has provide customers with several methods of payment. For example, they can choose to make payment by using credit card, by bank in or account transfer, by cheque or bank draft or money order.

Source:http://www.mypinkyhouse.com/index.asp

E-Government in Malaysia: Its Implementation so far and Citizen's Adoption Strategies

E-Government is the short form for electronic government. It also known as e-gov, digital government, online government or transformational government. E-government is the use of information and communications technologies (ICT) to transform government by making it more accessible, effective and accountable. E-government includes:

Providing greater access to government information
Promoting civic engagement by enabling the public to interact with government officials;
Making government more accountable by making its operations more transparent and thus reducing the opportunities for corruption; and
Providing development opportunities, especially benefiting rural and traditionally underserved communities.

The E-Government implementation seeks to improve the convenience, accessibility and quality of interactions with citizens and businesses; simultaneously it will improve information flows and processes within government to improve the speed and quality development, coordination and enforcement.

The Current Application of E-Government in Malaysia include:

E-Filing : It means that filing income tax and other governmental forms online.

Renewing Road Tax: The consumer may just enter its insurance details (cover note, etc) and make its payment online using a credit or debit card, and the road tax disc can be delivered to its home or office.

Renewing Driving License online: Under the online system, drivers need only log on to a website and pay for the renewal with their credit card.

KWSP(EPF) Account: With Online EPF service , the employees can check their balance, print EPF statement, EPF detail like when employer bank in EPF money into thier account, detail information about their EPF “Account 1″ and “Account 2″, and etc. The employee just need to have an online EPF account , so call “i-Account”.

E-Perolehan: E-Perolehan is the new procurement system allowas the Government ministries to electronically select items to be procured from the deskstop, initiate an electronic approval process and also create, submit and receive purchase orders, delivery orders and other-related documents electronically.

Common Problems Encountered by Consumers
Although E-Government Malaysia has provided many services to the citizens/consumers, many of them still do not use e-government. This may because of several reasons such as:

Unfamiliarity with ICT
Although the citizens/consumers have known about the services provided by E-Government Malaysia, many of them still do not use it because of the unfamilarity with information and communications technologies ICT. The citizens/consumers may not have to knowledge to fully use the services online.

Concerns about privacy and security of information
Privacy refers to the right for information attributed to an individual to be treated with an appropria

te level of protection. Meanwhile, security generally refers to the protection of information system assets and control of access to information.As problems relating to the privacy and security of information has been occured, citizens/consumers tend to be fear of giving out their information online.

Protecting the privacy of citizens and assuring them that their personal information will not be compromised is critical in e-government because this is the key to user trust. Without this assurance, no one will be prompted to use e-government services.

Inaccessiblity
Besides that, a most common problems encountered by the citizens or consumer is inaccessibilty. An E-Government site that provides web access and support often does not offer the “potential to reach many users including those who live in remote areas, are homebound, have low English proficiency, exist on poverty line incomes, suffer from chronic illness, are single parents or older adults.”

Ways to Encourage Citizens to use E-Government Application
In my opinion, it think that E-Government may provide ease and convenience in the delivery of public services, and offer innovative government services to encourage the citizens to use E-Government application.

Besides that

, i think that training is necessary to be provided for the citizens who do not have the knowledge or unfamiliar to the use of E-Government application. On the other hand, E-Government has an environmental bonus which will helps to encourage the citizens to use the E-Government application. Why do I say so? This is because, online government services would lessen the need for hard copy forms. This will helps to reduce the use of paper as people tend to be more and more environmental friendly.

Last but not least, I would like to conclude that, E-Government in Malaysia has provided many services for the citizens. As a result, Malaysian citizens should make use of these services and benefit from it.

References:

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Credit Card debts: Causes and Prevention

Credit card is a small plastic card issued to users and allowed the users to 'revolve' their balance, at the cost of having interest charged. Most credit cards are issued by local banks or credit unions, and are the shape and size specified by the ISO/IEC 7810 standard as ID-1.

Besides that, unsecured consumer debt is an example of credit card debt, accessed through credit cards. Debt results when a customer of a credit card company purchases goods or service through the card system. When the customer does not pay on time for the company for amount of he or she has spent, debt can be increases and accumulates through interest and penalties. As a result, this debt will charge for a late payment penalty and report the late payment to credit rating agencies. Moreover, the late of payment sometimes referred to as “default” and the late payment penalty itself increases the amount of debt the consumer has.

Nowadays, credit card debts become serious problem. There are several causes of credit card debts will be discussed in the following:

1)Poor money management
Poor money management is one of the causes of credit card debts. It is because if credit card users purchase something without spending plan then will lead to overspend. Thus, it will rise and accumulated credit card debts.

2)Gambling
Gambling is a one of the entertainment and it can become addictive, so it will be hard to stop. Therefore, it will be lead to a financial disaster if borrowing money through credit card for gambling.

3)Unemployment
If people who are unemployment, it will lead to those people use credit card for their utilities, groceries and any expenses purpose to support the main breadwinner. Thus, it might lead to increase credit card debts.

4)Medical expenses
Credit card can be used if family member suffer serious illness. It might be health insurance can’t cover the medical bills. So it will lead to use credit card is one of the ways to settle the bills. Thus it will increase credit card debts.

This several causes of credit card debts will create a huge of credit card debts for user. So credit card user should take some ways to prevent credit card debts. There are some prevention credit card will be discussed in the following:

1)Limit what you use your credit cards for
Limit use credit card is a good ways to control your credit card debts. Do not always using your credit card to make daily purchases like groceries. If you prefer not carry cash around you can get yourself a debit card which works the same as a credit card, however, it is direct cash purchases. You are not charge often times to use these and you are using cash to make your purchases. Keeping your credit card debts under control is not easy for some people but we can all learn to avoid the many pitfalls that we all get used to falling into.

2)Always set up a budget
Before using credit card to purchase something, you must have make budget for yourself to estimate your spending. It will prevent you from overspending and fall under deeper debt load.

3)Keep your credit cards to a limited number
Try to keep your credit card as few as possible. It is because most of the people who have mounting credit card debts are having this problem because they have too many cards in the first place. If you want to have a card that you can use everywhere, try just having a Visa, MasterCard, or others card which are all used everywhere.

4)Avoid making any purchases during peak seasons
Try to prevent making any purchases with credit card during peak buying seasons such as Christmas and New Year. It is because they know that everyone is buying more items with their credit cards. So credit card companies will charge you more interest during these peak seasons. Most of these companies will not make a point to tell you this, but they make a mint off of us at these times.

References:

The Application of Pre-Paid Cash Card for Consumers

People who have problems with staying on budget is better for them to use a pre-paid cash card. It works just like a credit or debit card except that a person needs to load the card with money first before a person can use it. By doing this, a person can know how much money he or she has to spend as well as how much a person have spent. It can lead to a better money management and the user won’t get into a credit card liability.

In Malaysia, we have a pre-paid cash card so called Touc h ‘n’ Go card. It is an electronic purse that can be used at all highways in Malaysia, major transport in Klang Valley, selected parking sites and theme park. The card looks similar to a credit card. User can continue using the card as long as it is pre-loaded with electronic cash. User can reload the card at toll plazas, train stations, Automated Teller Machines, Cash Deposit Machines, Petrol kiosks and at authorised third party outlets. Touch ‘n Go enhances the speed of paying for low value but high frequency transactions and it is very convenient because user no longer need to prepare for small change or wait in queue at the cash lane to complete the transaction.

The Touch ‘n’ Go card can be used for ticketless parkings at Kuala Lumpur area (Bangsar Shopping Mall, Sg. Wang Plaza, Pantai Medical Centre, Megan Avenue I & II, Ampang, etc), Petaling Jaya area (1-Utama Shopping Centre, Kelana Square, Armada Hotel, Selangor Turf Club, Assunta Hospital, Jaya One, etc), and other area like The Summit, USJ, Sunway Pyramid, KLIA, Century Square, Cyberjaya and other places that have implement this system. Besides that, the card acts as an alternative in paying its admission fees

at the Bukit

Merah Lake Town Resort. Moreover, it can be used at certain merchants like A&W, Burger King, Dunkin Donuts, Baskin Robbins, Station 1 Café, 7-Eleven, Caltex Star Mart, Carrefour, Cathay Cineleisure and other selected location. In the future, Touch ‘n’ Go card may be used for Express Rail Link like the KLIA Ekspres and KLIA Transit.

Let’s move on to the Octopus Card that is widely used in Hong Kong. The card is to pay public transportation fees (except Taxis and some public minibuses), as well as retailers who accept Octopus, such as convenience stores or restaurants. It is debuted in 1997, where it instantly became widely used in the public, as it simplified the transporation payment process to take only a couple of seconds. There are now over 10 million Octopus Cards in circulation, which exceeds Hong Kong's population of 7 million. Pioneered in Hong Kong, and now mirrored in London and New York, the Hong Kong Octopus card is a stored value card, which allows a person to access to all of Hong Kong’s public transport. Local ferries, trams, subway, buses and minibuses all accept the cards, you can even, with the MTR regional rail, travel to China with an Octopus.

The card is ubiquitous around Hong Kong, with almost all residents using it and it’s an excellent way to save time. It is usable in MTR, KCR, Light Rail, Trams, Peak Trams, Star Ferry, convenience stores such as 7-Eleven, Circle K, supermarkets, fast food outlets or public telephone booths, even the wet market (Chung On Allmart Wet Market, Ma On Shan), personal care store (Sa Sa Cosmetics, Watsons, Angel Cosmetics) and many other places.

Other country that are using pre-paid cash card is Singapore. The card is called EZ-Link cards and it is be used commonly in Singapore for paying transportation fees in the city-state’s Mass Rapid Transit (MRT), Light Rail Transit (LRT) and public bus services. As of 2007, there are over 10 million EZ-Link cards in circulation, with 4 million card-based transactions occurring daily. The system has since been expanded as being used for payments in Singapore branches of McDonalds. Some schools in Singapore have also started to adopt the EZ-Link card as a way to mark the attendance of students and to pay for food served within the school campus.

The holders of the current EZ-Link card will get new Contactless ePurse Application (CEPAS) compliant cards in a free one-for-one card replacement exercise which will start in January 2009. The new EZ-Link cards also have a higher storage capacity of S$500.00 instead of the previous S$100.00 limit. This means that users can use EZ-Link card to pay for purchases at retailers and eventually for Electronic Road Payment (ERP) and car park charges, on top of paying for train and bus rides.

References:

Mobile Payment Systems In Malaysia : Its Potential and Consumer's Adoption

Introduction

Mobile payment systems or called as M-payment has been well adopted in many parts of Europe and Asia. It has emerged as one of the popular and convenient methods of payment. Mobile payment is a point-of-sale payment made through a mobile device, such as a cellular telephone, a smart phone, or a personal digital assistant (PDA). By using mobile payment systems, a person with a wireless device could pay for items in a store or settle a restaurant bill without interacting with any staff member. In addition, a consumer can use a mobile phone to pay for wide range of services and digital goods instead of paying with cash, cheques or credit cards.

Current Mobile Payment System That Are Available In Malaysia

Mobile Money (MM Wallet)

Mobile Money is a PIN-based Mobile Payment Solution designed by Mobile Money International Sdn Bhd to address the limitations and bottlenecks created by cash, cheques and credit cards. It allow customers to pay for goods and services at anytime, anywhere using only a mobile phone coupled with a 6-digit security PIN (Personal Identification Number) via SMS.

In Malaysia, the major obstacles that faced by merchants who are doing online selling transaction is when selecting a payment gateway. The reason is because there are too few choices available, and worse, none of these limited choices are cost effective. However, Mobile Money has been addressed this problem, since it allows merchants to take online order without the need for online shopper to disclose their credit card information.

In order to pay using Mobile Money, a shopper must have either a savings, current or credit card account with participating banks such as Hong Leong Bank and Bumiputra-Commerce Bank. It functions like a Credit Card if a shopper applies for a "Pay by Mobile Phone" credit card account (eg. Hong Leong Mobile Credit Card). The shopper will be billed by the bank accordingly by month's end. In addition, it functions as a Debit Card if it is tied to shopper's savings or current account. The amount will be deducted instantly from the account upon successful transaction.

Maxis FastTap

Maxis FastTap is launched by Maxis Communication Bhd, in collaboration with Nokia, Visa, Maybank and Touch 'n Go. It is an integrated mobile payment service that utilizes Near Field Communication (NFC) technology. By using this, the customers can use their mobile phone such as Nokia 6216 Classic phones to purchase goods and services at more than 1,800 Visa payWave merchant location. In addition, customers also can pay for toll, transit, parking, and theme park.

According to Maxis, FastTap service marked a few "first-in-the-world" milestones for contactless mobile payments using NFC, a shot-range wireless technology that allows communications between devices at close range. Besides that, it is also the first global service that integrates multiple NFC applications for contactless credit card payment and Touch 'n Go electronic payment for transit, toll an parking payment on the same device.

Paymo

Paymo is the trusted mobile payments network that allows consumers anywhere in the world to buy online and pay with their mobile phone. According to research, more than 70 percent of the world’s online population has no credit card, but over 3 billion consumers own a mobile phone. By having this opportunity, Paymo opens the world of online commerce to these people, offering them the ability to buy online and pay using their mobile phone.

By using Paymo, it helps to simplifies and streamlines the e-commerce process for digital items such as virtual goods, video games, and applications for social networks and mobile devices. Furthermore, it eliminates the need for log-ins and passwords, remembering credit card numbers or setting up separate accounts to facilitate online transactions that are linked to a bank account or credit card. Moreover, it provides a trusted global payment system for online purchases that is fast, easy and secure.

The Current Customer Base and The Merchant
Current customers base who will used mobile payment systems in any transaction are those online shoppers who want a simple and secure method of payment that can be used in as many online shops as possible. Besides that, it also included business entity who may purchase goods or services from a merchant and teenagers as they cannot access regular financial services.

As for the merchant, it included those individual, business entity, hardware and/or software that receives a card number to facilitate a transaction, whether or not in exchange for goods or services. Therefore, it may be an online bookstore such as Amazon, an online auction such as eBay, or a local restaurant.

How to Encourage Customers to Adopt Mobile Payment Systems
To encourage more customers to adopt mobile payment systems, we can describe the relative advantages of mobile payment systems :

Compatibility. Mobile payment systems are compatible with small value payments contemplating cash payments. For example, electronic ticketing such as car parking, public transportation, movies; mobile content such as music, games; small value payments at Point-of-Sales such as a chocolate bar or a newspaper on a kiosk and so on.

Convenience & ease of use. Mobile payment systems will increase consumer's convenience by reducing the need for coins and cash in small transactions and increasing the availability of purchase possibilities. Besides that, there is no pre-registration and no new mobile software is required

Time and place independent purchases. By using mobile payment systems, consumers can make their purchase anytime and anywhere without any restriction.

Queue avoidance and speedy. With mobile payment systems, customer do not need to have to queue up when making their payment of purchase as they can just use their mobile phone. Moreover, by using mobile payment systems, most transactions are completed in less than 10 seconds.

Sources:

Electronic Currency

Evolution and reform of currency/money has kept taking place since the birth of money. In the age of rapidly changing science and technology and in the time where computer has taken place, it is natural to imagine, think and search for the possibilities of a kind of currency which is more suitable for this contemporary age. This kind of currency is known as 'electronic currency'. Electroni currency trading is a growing industry as more and more people are purchasing items online in the form of electronic currency.

Electronic currency, which is also known as e-money, electronic cash, electronic money, digital money, digital cash or digital currency refers to money that is exchanged only electronically. In other words, electronic currency is simply a unit of exchange using internet. Computer networks, internet and digital store value system is required to ensure the effectiveness of the exchange .

On the other hand, electronic currency allow a person to send and receive money instantly to family,

friends and business associates worldwide. Furthermore, it also can be used to make online payments 24 hours a day from anywhere. Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) and direct deposit are examples of electronic money. EFT is a computer-based systems that is used to perform financial transactions electronically whereas direct deposit refers to the deposit of funds directly into a bank account as a form of payment.

Electronic currency were being used by several companies. One of them is Click and Buy.In the year of 1999, Norbert Stangl founded FIRSTGATE Internet AG. The Internet payment system ClickandBuy is a full-service solution for e-payment and billing. It was launched in the year of 2000. Click and Buy offers the possibility to make safe and convenient purchases of Internet content and services.

PayPal is also one of the company that uses electronic currency. PayPal is an e-commerce business that allow payment to be made through internet. In other words, the customers may transfer their money through internet. Some other examples of companies that uses electronic currency include payloadz, peppercoin, paystone technologies, etc.

Benefits of Electronic Currency
There are pros and cons of using electronic currency. One of the benefit is convenience. The electronic currency is an online electronic cash systems that are operated through the Internet. It provides convenience to the user as well as the banker. This online system can be accessed through the Internet from anywhere in the world. Hence, the user does not have to actually go to the bank to transact any business. Meanwhile, the online system also provides convenience to the banker, as he does not have to deal with long queues of people. This will in turn increases the speed of transactions in financial organizations.

Another benefit of using electronic currency is that small-scale and local level merchants can also access and transact in the global market. Electronic currency truly globalizes the economy, since the user can download money into his cyber-wallet in any currency desired. The merchant can accept any currency and convert it to local currency when the cybercash is uploaded to the bank account.

Besides that, electronic currency provides privacy to the user as it is fully anonymous and untraceable digital cash. It gives the user with the confident that their user ID will not be revealed in anyways

Limitations of Electronic Currency
However, there will also be limitation in using electronic currency. One of them would be failure of technology where a breakdown of network may occur. Besides that, the this online electronic cash system may be defected by virus, worms and so on.

Other limitations of electronic cash include serious misuse of a stolen smart card. Criminals who have strong knowledge of the technology of these systems can easily misuse it, if a reliable security system is not deployed.

Last but not least, many pros and cons are bound to appear as the technology of electronic cash develops even further. However, overcoming the cons of the technology will make electronic currency a very convenient system and a widely accepted, revolutionary mode of cash.

References:

Friday, June 26, 2009

Phishing: Examples and its prevention method

The webopedia define Phishing as the act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely

by claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft. The e-mail directs the user to visit a Web site where they are asked to update personal information, such as passwords and credit card, social security, and bank account numbers, that the legitimate organization already has. The Web site, however, is bogus and set up only to steal the use information.

Phishing can be called a synonym to actual fishing. Scammer throws in bait by sending you an email, pretending to be a representative of the company. He wastrying to get sensitive information from you. If you eat the bait, the scammer will obtain your username and password, credit card information or whatever you have sent him.

There are a several examples of phishing that have been identified.

Firstly, we are going to look at the example of ‘eBay phishing.’ Nowadays, sophisticated and clever scams are arising with javascript. eBay allows javascript, which is a programming language to be implemented into the templates of auctions, giving scammers opportunities to scam right on ebay.com! You may get scammed even in the original ebay site itself . The scammer uses a fake feedback in order to make buyers believe he has a reputation at eBay. Look at this:

A fake feedback score of 120, fake paypal buyer protection button and power seller!

The true feedback:

Bellow is also one of the example from ebay:

This genuine looking email is a masquerade. As soon as you clicked on “respond”, you were directed to an exact clone of eBay and your personal information was stolen. These messages come in different styles and writings.

The second example is phishing emails and scam attacks. In this example you are informed of a payment made by you. Though the email is very nicely formatted and looks quite like a legitimate Paypal email, it does not included your name. Besides that, if you mouse point over the "Item Title" link, the URL points to an I.P. address but not to the Paypal web site, which is http://www.paypal.com/.

The Third example would be Citizens Bank.The phish site looks like a simple ligitimate survey, except the demand for a debit card number.The debit card information is demanded with the explanation that 'this is where we will credit your $5 reward'. However, the real bank would normally send you a special page, linked to your account as they already know who you are, and not demand this information via an unsecured session

Many users are suffering from phishing attacks. The attacks of the Phishing are increasing day by day on to the computers. Prevention is the best approach and you can prevent yourself in many ways.

Keep Your Email and Instant Message Addresses Private
The best way to keep yourself from being tempted to respond to a phishing scam is to prevent them from landing in your email box in the first place. You may find it useful to have a separate email address for financial institutions, one for trusted friends and family, and one for general or public use. Many email providers will allow you to redirect emails from each of these different addresses to one account to minimize the inconvenience of checking each account. Do everything possible to keep the address you use for financial transactions as private as possible.

Password Privacy

The individuals will be able to get the services an information by rendering a trusted institution. Sometimes you might have received an email from back about the confirmation of your password. In this case you should verify from the email sender who they are. It might be some virus which will get your personal data by automatic installation.

Immediately Report Suspected Phishing Contacts
If you do receive a message you suspect to be a phishing scam, call the customer service phone number right away to confirm whether you've received an actual message or not. In addition, almost every bank and credit card lender has a website where you can report suspicious emails and instant messages. Typically, they will ask you to fill out a simple form that will give them enough information to trace the origin of the perpetrator.

Education

It is important for the computer users to recognize the phishing and other attacks in the form of fraudulent emails and websites. If you are receiving these email then you should report other as well to prevent from these emails. You can contact the Anti Phishing Working Group who can guide and you and recommend some suggestions for your help.

It is a good thing to monitor credit changes along with taking measure to prevent phishing attacks. You can save yourself from severity of problems with quick response to credit card response.

As a conclusion, we should act as the role of 'phisherman' to protect ourselves from being the victim.

References:

The Application of 3rd Party Certification Programme in Malaysia

VeriSign Inc. is the trusted provider of Internet infrastructure services for the networked world. It provide SSL ( the leading Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate Authority enabling secure e-commerce, communications, and interactions for Web sites, intranets, and extranets) identity and authentication, and domain name services that allow companies and consumers all over the world to engage in trusted communications and commerce.

VeriSign is part of the Standard and Poor’s 500 index and manages two of the world’s 13 Internet root servers, a.root-servers.net and j.root-servers.net, considered national IT assets by the U.S. Federal government. Besides that, VeriSign protects more than one million Web servers with digital certificates, protecting the majority of secure Web sites on the Internet, including 93% of the Fortune 500 sites. The VeriSign Secured® Seal is displayed by over 90,000 domains in 145 countries and viewed over 150 million times every day. There are over 2.3 million VeriSign Identity Protection Credentials have been issued to use for strong authentication.

Whereas, MSC Trustgate.com Sdn Bhd is a licensed Certification Authority (CA) operating within the Multimedia Super Corridor. MSC Trustgate was incorporated in 1999 to meet the growing need for secure open network communications and become the catalyst for the growth of e-commerce, both locally and across the ASEAN region. At present, MSC Trustgate has 12 million in paid up capital.

Trustgate is licensed under the Digital Signature Act 1997 (DSA), a Malaysia law that sets a global precedent for the mandate of a CA. As a CA, Trustgate’s core business is to provide digital certification services, including digital certificates, cryptographic products, and software development. Trustgate is working together with VeriSign Inc. in delivering the service of identity and authentication in Malaysia.

On 20th October 2008, VeriSign, Inc., announced that it has extended its

existing reseller relationship with MSC Trustgate Sdn Bhd by entering into an additional agreement. Their services offer businesses strong authentication for protecting the online identities of their customers, business partners and employees. This is because identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in Malaysia, with personal information, such as credit card and NRIC numbers, netting criminals thousands of Ringgit in a very short time frame and his has become a reported concern by 78% of Malaysians.

One of the products that are offered by Trustgate is MyKad PKI (MyKey), where Malaysian government has put in place a smart National Identity Card (“MyKad”) for every citizen. MyKad with PKI capability allows its holder to conduct online transaction with government agencies and private sectors. MyKey is the MSC Trustgate.com Sdn. Bhd.'s Digital Certificate which is loaded into MyKad. It is governed by Malaysia Digital Signature Act 1997 and is accepted by the courts of law in Malaysia. It is class 2 certificate and has 1024-bit key length.

Besides that, Trustgate also offers MyTRUST for Mobile Signature. It can turns a

SIM card into a Mobile Digital Identity for secure mobile banking and other financial services. Mobile digital signature provides non-repudiation on transactions under the Digital Signature Act, 1997. It runs on Wireless PKI platform and Mobile Operator infrastructure. PKI-enabled SIM cards are preloaded with MyTrust application and a digital certificate from a licensed Certification Authority. Users are able to digitally sign any transaction with ease and convenience via their mobile phone.

Other than that, there are also CryptoSuite. Everyday businesses are exchanging thousands of files and documents over the unsecured network.Some documents contain highly confidential information such as trade agreement, pricing information, business strategies, or even personal data. Sending unencrypted file is just like sending postcard, it can be easily read by anyone.

CyptoSuite from MSC Trustgate allows sender to secure their files and documents with a single-click of the mouse button. This utility uses digital certificate to encrypt the file so that only the intended recipient can only decrypt it using their private key. The encrypted file can be safely stored in any medium or send over the less-secured web-mail.

References:
http://www.verisign.com/ssl/ssl-information-center/index.html
http://www.msctrustgate.com/
http://littleangele-commerce.blogspot.com/2009/02/application-of-3rd-party-certification.html
http://ecommercesite.wordpress.com/2008/06/21/the-application-of-3rd-party-certification-programme-in-malaysia/

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