E-Government in Malaysia: its implementation so far and consumers' adoption strategies

Malaysia's electronic government (e-government) initiative began in 1997 with the launch of the Multimedia Super Corridor's (MSC) E-Government Flagship Application. In fact , the Malaysia e-government is one of the 2020 visions. The purpose of launching MSC is to lead Malaysia into an information and communication technology (ICT) country. The initiate of e-government enable Malaysia to become a more advance country by using e-government effectively in operating internally and externally in term of businesses, interaction with citizens, government services or other transactions inside or outside Malaysia. Basically, the E-government has divided into 7 pilot of Flagship Application which include:

Project Monitoring System (SPP II)
An online system which government used to monitor and supervise the existing development programs as well as future development plans.

Human Resources Management Information System (HRMIS)
An integration of Human Resources Management Information System for the Malaysian's public services.

Generic Office Environment (GEO)
A powerful document and office management solution that enable users to effectively and efficiently manage their office environment.

Electronic Procurement (EP)
A system enables suppliers to supply goods and services to government efficiency through ICT system including goods advertising and deliveries.

Electronic Services (E-Services)
A system facilitating in conduction of transactions with Private Government Agencies, such as Road Transport Department (RTD), Tenaga National Berhad (TNB) and Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM).

Electronic Labour Exchange (ELX)
An one stop center for labor market information which is supervised by Ministry of Human Resources (MOHR), enables employers and job seekers to communicate with each other.

E-Syariah
A management system that intergrates the processes related to management of cases for the Syariah Courts.

Currently Malaysian e-government has success in several applications like:

• Government's drive for e-government services
• Electronic Labor Exchange which has match more than 75000 potential employees with employers since 2005
• SMS alert on e-government services
• Online renewal of driving licenses
• Electronic filling of income tax forms
• Voter information
• Details for government tenders
• Employment opportunities


However the e-government in Malaysia is improving there are still some problems where Malaysia government requires putting more effort to tackle it. Such as lack of public awareness to the particular e-government services, ease of use, language barriers, and trustworthy of the online transaction via e-government by users.

Especially the senior citizens (baby boomer), they refuse to adopt e-government instead of spending plenty of time on traveling for paying utilities bills. The factors behind are the doubtful of the system as well as language problems.

In another dimension, generation X and Y are continuing accept the e-government services. The introduction of computer education in the primary school since earlier represents a mainstream to the contribution. The major problem is availability of the sources like PC and internet connection by the user. In order to improve the e-government services in Malaysia, the faith as well as trust between citizens and government must be built.

Sources from :

• http://www.adb.org/Documents/Papers/e-Government/egov-techgov.pdf
• http://www.government.ae/gov/en/gov/projects/e-portal.jsp
• http://www1.american.edu/initeb/ym6974a/egovernment.htm
• http://www.giti.waseda.ac.jp/GITS/news/download/e-Government_Ranking2009_en.pdf
• http://www.elx.gov.my

Review on a post on e-retailing from My E-commerce blog

Electronic Retailing (E-Tailing) is a process of selling retailing products or services online via a world wide web. E-tailing was used in internet since early 1995. Basically, E-tailing is synonymous with business-to-consumer(B2C) transaction. There are top 10 e-retailer was rank recently in UK which include:

1. Amazon UK
2. Argos
3. Play.com
4. Amazon.com
5. Tesco.com
6. Marks & Spencer
7. Epson UK
8. Expedia.co.uk
9. Next
10. ASOS

The success of electronic retailing has resulted in the development of e-tailware. Which is a software tools for designing online catalogs and managing the business connected with doing e-tailing. Besides, there is a new trend where the price comparison sites enable e-retailers to compare prices from a number of different e-retailers from there to gain competitive advantages.

One of the e-retailing examples is sales of digital music online. This online business is growing dramatically in a 10 years time. Particularly in year 2004 the downloaded as well as sales of digital music was increased by 900% compared to 2003 said International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFBI). And an estimation was made in UK on December 2008 where the sales of digital music will increase heavily by year 2013, mainly in UK. How about world wide estimation? There will be a critical mass.


Besides, a lot of music devices such as Ipod is encouraging consumer to buy digital music to facilitate them in transferring digital music in the Ipod player instead of buying CD which cause inconvenience. Amazon.com is one of the e-retailers who provides online music sales to consumer.

Advantages of buying digital music :

1. Much wider choice at fingertips
2. Price discrimination as well as comparison
   
3. Customized product placement
   

Disadvantages of buying digital music :

1. Limited only to on line users
2. Ease of use problems
3. Trust, security and privacy problems

Source from :

• http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/5975.cfm
• http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/travel/news/article6372457.ece
• http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/16167.cfm

A review on a post on Legal from my E-commerce blog

While the internet was booming, many people tends to purchase online due to conveniency. On the contrary, online purchasing is no longer secure. One might be cheated just because of the cheaper prices.

The post is about the fraud in an online website named Big Pussycat which sell skincare products such as facial and eye masks. The company has cheated at least 66 of them after making online payment amounting to RM73,445.10. This is because it offer the customers chepaer price than off the self.

In order to prevent from online purchases fraud, one needs to buy only from secure websites and ensures that the websites is secured with encryption. The examples of safe website are Amazon.com and also Microsoft website. In order to check the security of the website, one can take note of the address bar. It will be more secure if the address bar is https.

Besides that, one should also check the validity of the company before enter into online purchases. He or she sshould check with the company's registry to make sure that the company is legitimate. However, there are few resources that can verify the legitimacy of newly established companies. Therefore, one should be pay extra attention when dealing with new comapnies.





Sources from:

• http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-6070906.html
• http://www.diytrade.com/china/4/doc/fraud/Prevent_Online_Fraud.html
• http://secure-online-purchasing.suite101.com/article.cfm/how_criminals_get_information_online_fraud#ixzz0KYoFcmOI&D
• http://ecommerze.blogspot.com/search/label/Legal

Corporate blogging:A new marketing communication tool for companies

In this Internet age, corporate blogging has becoming an authentic marketing for a company. Do you know what is a corporate blog? Corporate blog is basically refer to a company that create a blog in order to accomplish with the business goals. It has becoming the hottest communication tools on the web. Nowadays, corporate is not only develop into private sectors but also government sectors as well.

There are two type of corporate blog which are internal and external blog. Internal blog is generally being accessed through the corporation's Internet where the employees can view it while an external blog is available to public to share their view.There are few companies that are so successful with their corporate blogging that provide the people information. Among them are Dell, Lenovo, Sun Microsystems as well as Southwest Airlines.

Corporate blogging is an easy and inexpensive weblog unlikes other websites that require design and HTML skills. Corporate blog can be easily being established and promoted. Besides that, corporate blogging also helps to extend corporate communications. It enable the company to communicate directly with the customers and prospects. This type of communication can enhance trust between the customer and the company.

Furthermore, a corporate blog also enables the customers to get the latest and accurate information about the company new products and services. It helps the customer to be more familiar with the products and services too. A company can closely detect where and what condition its products and services being categorised through corporate blogging.

Corporate blogs can be very effective communication tools within a corporate community. The company will pay attention to their feedback because a negative view will damage the company's reputation.



Sources from:

• http://www.businessknowhow.com/internet/corporate-blog.htm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_blog
• http://www.iabc.com/cwb/archive/2007/0607/cornett.htm
• http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2008/08/08/15-companies-that-really-get-corporate-blogging/

Example and prevention methods of phishing

Phishing is a process in which criminal sending a fake email to user and acting as if a legitimate body to request for personal confidential information such as credit card password, bank account number and user name. basically, the bogus email will direct user to a website and request for personal information update in fact it is a trap.

One of the real cases was reported on 31 March 2009 where a lot of Maybank customer including non-customer were received a phishing scam as follow:



As we can see the phishing email is trying to grab the recipient's confidence by adding the logo as well as image copied from the legitimate website as convince recipient to observe the steps given by the scam artists. The trap under step 4, most of the recipients may click in the link and being
directed to a new website to update their personal information with procedures provided.

Besides, a similar case in Malaysia (Malacca) was reported in thestar news on 23 of June 2009. A man loses RM 5000 to online phishing scam in a local bank.

In order to prevent phishing scams effectively we need to be acknowledged on some prevention
method:

1. Install an anti-phishing software such as GFI MailEssentials which is an anti-spam and anti-phishing solution for Exchange Server and other email servers.
2. Don't trust and be suspicious toward e-mail headers, which can be forged easily.
3. Never ever click the link within the text of the email.
4. Avoid filling out forms in e-mail messages where requesting your confidential information.
   
5. Verify the legitimacy of a web address with the legitimate company directly before submitting your personal information.
6. If u had clicked the link provided by an unsolicited email you should check whether there is an 's' after the http in the address and a lock at the bottom of the screen that indicates the link is secure and encrypts data. Because in an an online form of asking consumer to submit sensitive personal information should always be encrypted.
7. Contact the legitimate company named in the email to double confirm whether the email is sent them for information request. In fact, most of the companies do not ask customers to confirm personal information by sending an email.
8. If you have accidentally provide the sensitive personal information to cyber-thief you should contact the legitimate company to suspend your account, change password as well as change your user name.
9. lodge a report about the suspicious email to the Federal Trade Commission's address for unsolicited commercial email.
10. Notify the Internet Fraud Complaint Center of the FBI by filing a complaint on their website: www.ic3.gov

Year-in-year-out the case of phishing is tremendously increase. As we can see in 2007, There were 147 phishing cases while there were 1,057 in 2008, an increase of 619% . Apparently, the case of phishing is tremendously increase. As a naive user, we need to strengthen our awareness toward every phishing email.



Sources from:

• http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/P/phishing.html
• http://www.shaolintiger.com/2009/03/23/maybank-phishing-scam-e-mails-in-malaysia/#comments
• http://star-space.com/news/story.asp?file=/2009/1/18/pfinance/3011417&sec=pfinance
• http://www.hoax-slayer.com/phisher-scams.html#avoid-phishing

The application of third party certification in Malaysia

In fact, third party certification has exist over the years through the internet.

Just see it from Internet explorer. Click the tool button on the top, then click the internet option, and you will see something like this:

Click the "content" as has circled in red on above.


And click the "certificates".


All the above are the certificates for different software we used normally.

In fact, this application has existed in Malaysia too. For example, MSC Trustgate.com Sdn. Bhd.



It was established in 1999 as a licensed Certification Authority (CA) in Malaysia under the Digital Signature Act 1997. [1] Trustgate provides complete security solution and trusted service to secure the open network communications and network electronic transaction. The projects that have been implemented by trustgate such as:

• E-banking security deployment
• E-procurement integration
• User authentication and customer clearance approval system
  

According to Wikipedia, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a protocol which provide security and data integrity for communication over the network.

It enables applications to transmit information securely. The applications that use SSL protocol will know how to give and receive encryption keys with other application. Besides, it knows how to encrypt and decrypt data too. There are over millions of e-Business providers are using SSL protocol. The reason is that it can ensure customers' online transactions are secured and remain confidential. Sites that will use SSL are those contained login boxes, credit card payments or any personal information. Thus, to use the SSL protocol, a web server need to get an SSL certificate. One of the example will be XRamp Premium Wildcard Certificate.



Besides that, Malaysia government has started to use MyKey which utilize MyKad (Malaysian identity card). It is a digital software governed by Malaysia's Digital Signature Act 1997. [2] MyKey enables the citizen to authenticate themselves online, digitally sign documents, or make transactions with government agencies or private sectors.

Sources from:

• http://www.trademal.com/global/index.php/id/17463/key//MSC_Trustgate_com_Sdn_Bhd/index.html [1]
  
• http://www.digicert.com/ssl.htm
• https://www.mykey.com.my/Website/downloaded/MyKad%20PKI%20Enrollment.pdf [2]
  
• http://www.trademal.com/global/index.php/id/17463/target/product/task/viewdetail/cat/31626

Credit Card Debts:Causes & Prevention

Nowadays, it seems like credit card has become a necessity for the people in the world. What is a credit card? A credit card is exactly what the name implies. It is a card that enable you to use on credit. Each time swapping the credit card represent you are borrowing money from the credit card issuer and debts are increasing. Credit cards are convenience while using. However, once it is being abused, it can be a nightmare as well as cause unbelievable stress.

Causes of credit card debts:

Poor money management - Money management include saving for emergency. Without saving or save too little, one will reach to credit card during emergency. Besides that, one should also have a monthly planning where it will give you an idea where the money would be spent. Without planning, you might be spending unnecessarily and increase the debts.

Excessive spending(Maintaining expenditure on a reduced income) - Spending excessively is one of the most common things that people is facing. People always cannot control and manage their expenses according to the deduction on salary. They often let the debts to fill their needs. It will make themselves to double or even triple the monthly chargers on the credit cards.

Medical expenses - In this modern society, there are many unpredictable medical problem which occur suddenly without any sign or warning. Due to the enforceability, people often being trapped to the medical debts through credit card.

Too depending on credit card - Since the credit card is easy to be used, one tends to be depend on it. They will prefer to make payment by credit card rather than cash or write a check. Once people is getting into this habit, they will be easily cause a lot of debts.

Prevention of credit card debts

Manage the finances - One needs to set up a budget planning in order to plan for the monthly transactions. They are required to determine their income and needed expenses. They are able to cut out unnecessarily expenses. Besides that, people need to have a saving plan too. With the saving plan one can avoid from credit card debts. They are also able to purchase what they desired without getting into debts.

Choose the right card - People is encouraged to choose the right credit card that provide the best services as well as benefits. People should get their credit card with no or low interest and fees. This will enable them to pay lesser when come to payments.

Pay on time - Paying the debts on time is the best solution to avoid from debts. Moreover, one should often remember to make payment before the due date to avoid from any interest being charged unnecessary. One should also make sure that they make full payment and not only the minimum payment.

Right perception on credit card - One should always view the credit card as the same with cash. Having this perception will create more awareness on spending too much through credit card.

Prevention is definitely better than cure. Being caught in the debts problems is usually a tough process to go through. Hence, there are some useful tips in order to prevent credit card debts.




Sources from:

• http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/debt/debtguide2004/top-10-causes2.asp
  
• http://www.3debtconsolidation.com/creditcardmistakes.html
  
• http://www.cardratings.com/howtoavoidcreditcarddebt.html
  
• http://www.buzzle.com/articles/tips-on-debt-prevention-and-management.html
• http://www.stop-credit-card-debt.com/2008/07/24/tips-on-credit-card-debt-prevention/

How to Safeguard Personal & Financial Data

In the internet age, there are millions of people accessing to internet database every seconds. Therefore, the need of safeguard the data is more important than previous time. Failure to safeguard the data will lead to major threats such as data corruption, identity theft and malicious attacks.

One of the easiest way to safeguard the data is to eliminate own paper trail. People are advised to shred the old documents such as bank account statements, credit card bills or even direct mail before they are being thrown. This is to ensure that no other people can access to those data. Therefore, one should own a paper shredder.

Besides that, one should choose their pin or password wisely. Although it is often better to choose something which are easier to remember, avoid setting birth date or identity card number which can easily figure out by the thieves. Moreover, a password or pin which consists of symbols, numbers, and letters is always more security compare to non combination password. However, password should be changed regulary to alleviate others from accessing the data.

Furthermore, one should often aware and check the expenditure items to avoid any abnormal expenses. If any unrelated expenditures are found, they need to search for the causes to ensure that their personal data is not being abused by other unathorised people.

Whenever is possible, pay cash when shopping at stores and minimized the usage of credit cards. It is advisable to use only a single credit card for online shopping or financial transactions. Limit a small credit for the credit card that use for online purposes. This is to prevent once the card is being stolen, the thieves are unable to swap much before the card is being terminated.

Since nowadays computers are wisely used for personal and financial transactions, one should protect the computer's security. People should install anti software in their computer to avoid the virus from disrupt or corrupt the data operations. As viruses are created everyday, the anti virus should be updated all the time so that the security is protected.

An essential tool to further safeguard personal and financial data is to employ a good, secure data encryption program. When the data is being encrypted, only the customers and data owner can access to it. Data must be encrypted while it is stored on the storage array, as well as during transmission over private or public networks.





Sources from:

• http://www.fool.com/personal-finance/general/2006/09/23/safeguard-your-financial-life.aspx
• http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/2007/03/11/104334/FSC-urges.htm

The application of pre-paid cash card

Prepaid card, is a payment card, pre-loaded with your own money, which can then be used wherever the payment is accepted, including on the internet and abroad. [1] Prepaid cash card has been used widely. More and more consumers and businesses are using prepaid cash card as its alternative payment method.

To name few, here it is:

Public Bank UTAR Debit Card


Debit Master Card

All of the above are the companies that offering prepaid cash card, with the same concept - paid first and use it later. Let me give you an example on debit card. Debit card consumers can only make thier payment or spend their money when they have deposited money into thier prepaid debit card account.

So why most people prefer prepaid card?

Controlling
The main reason is that prepaid card can control consumer's spending. So it is suitable for everyone including those who has bad credit control. By using this card, consumers can clearly see how much the balance is available in thier account. This can limit thier spending to certain level every month.

No debt risk
If there is no balance in consumers' account, the transaction of purchasing goods or paying bills will be declined. Therefore, consumers do not have the chance to spend over the limit and they are able to control the amount of money that they wish to spend in certain period.

Safe
Carrying prepaid cash card is much safer compared to carrying cash since it is accepted worldwide. As long as those credit cards come with Visa or Master Card logo, it will be accepted anywhere.

Convenient
Prepaid cards will be the best option for going overseas. Firstly, consumers need not to bring huge amount of cash in hand. Secondly, they need not to worry if they lost thier cash when travelling. Unlike cash, prepaid cash card can be replaced if it is stolen or lost. What users need to do is by reporting the loss of card. Besides, prepaid cash card is as easy as ATM card, where you can withdraw and transfer money to friends and family.



How does e-commerce has taken place?

In fact, there are many e-commerce site which introducing, offering, and selling various prepaid cash card. This includes debit card, prepaid visa card and prepaid master card from different banks (CIMB, Maybank, Hong Leong).

Here are the websites:

• 

• 

• 

Sources from:

• http://www.what-prepaid-card.co.uk/features/what-is-prepaid.html [1]
  
• http://ezinearticles.com/?Advantages-And-Disadvantages-Of-A-Prepaid-Card&id=372866
• http://www.financenewspro.com/advantages-of-prepaid-card/
• http://www.moneysupermarket.com/c/prepaid-cards/guide/

Ecommerce Failure and Its Causes

In this modern society, ecommerce has been widely used all around the world. However, there are still some large ecommerce companies that are unable to maintain themselves through ecommerce. There are some failures include Kozmo.com,Flooz.com,Webvan.com and Boo.com.

Boo.com was launched in 3rd November 1999. The funding is around $125million which was invested by the investors such as Benetton and Bernard Arnault, the chairman of LVMH. At that time, Boo.com was a famous ecommerce site with high profile. After some times, Boo.com was flopped.

Boo.com failed due to not well planning before doing so much. They just established online shops in many countries without proper considerations. Besides that, Boo.com also faced poor web design as well as usability. All the visitors are not able to reach their desired destination once they click due to annoying animated graphic. Moreover, the visitors are being limited to the transaction they made to three per twenty minutes which will discourage them to shop at Boo.com again.

On the other hand, Boo.com also having bad marketing. They have marketed themselves as premium products with an expensive charges. This is one of the causes of failure because most of the people buy online is attracted by the cheaper price.

Furthermore, the bad planning in several fields have causes Boo.com to fail. The founders are too ambitious over their business planning and affected their quality of service. They wanted to dominate the market once Boo.com was started and did not want to start from the beginning(small). The founders also did not have brick and mortal experience.

Inefficiency in managing the capital is the cause of failure. They spent $125million just within the six months in order to dominate the market without proper planning. Therefore, they had faced some issues problems such as languages. They involved huge amount for their monthly maintenance fees for 3D photograph, employees benefits and technology costs.

Perhaps, if Boo.com had given good customers experience, convenience as well as speed of process that would won the customers' heart they would be sustained in the ecommerce now.


Sources from:

• http://edigitalretail.com/greatest_dot_com_failure.html
  
• http://edigitalretail.com/Most_Famous_Dotcom_Failure.pdf
  
• http://www.witiger.com/ecommerce/dotcomfailures.htm

Review a local,transactional e-commerce site

Commonly, we know that e-commerce consist of the process of buying, selling or exchanging products, services and information through computer networks. It other words, it is a business activity that conducted by using electronic data transmission technologies.

One of the local e-commerce site will be Lelong.com.my


Lelong.com.my was founded by the Interbase Resource Sdn. Bhd. which is a relatively young company that has come long way from its humble beginnings. However, the firm established a firm footing in the e-commerce arena. Therefore, Lelong became a pioneer aution e-market place in Malaysia. Thus, their mission is "Serving the community and bringing a high standard of quality into homes and businesses by providing an avenue for online trading at a low cost."

Consequently, Lelong is using a method that everyone is familiar with, which is an international comparison. Thus, the style and function of Lelong.com.my is similar to the international auction site such as eBay.com. Lelong auction site is taking off with enormous response because it is influencing an energetic and secure avenue for the trading in Malaysia. Previously, Lelong was started based on consumer-to-consumer (C2C) transaction. And now, it is changing to a channel for business-to-consumer (B2C) relationships.

However, a lot of distributors have started to realize the use of auction system power. Now, they are using Lelong.com.my to trade and expand their businesses.


Lelong is providing many products and services to the public such as book, comics, watches, pens, clothing, accessories, begs, clocks and others. All these products are auctioned by the complete picture and state with prices.

Additionally, Lelong provides a search engine to make it convenience to the consumers. It is able to fulfill the consumers' need by typing the keywords.


Moreover, Lelong.com.my provides a double secure verification system too. It requires the users to verify their members status and telephone numbers when users wanted to trade with the items in the website. Consumers have different options to make their payment, such as online banking or by credit card which is verified via visa or master card. In order to bid and sell, Lelong has provided 2 types of verification to the consumers such as handphone verification and email verification. This can avoid the fraud and phising from occuring by giving a request code.

Sources from:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_commerce
• http://www.lelong.com.my/
• http://www.lelong.com.my/Auc/help/details.asp?productid=121

E-commerce Sucess And Its Causes

Michael Dell, the founder, CEO, and chairman of Dell incorporation, he became the youngest CEO in history and transformed Dell incorporation from a traditional virtual e-commerce to a modern click-and-mortal e-commerce.

In fact, Dell incorporation is an example of e-commerce success today. In order to survive in the competitive environment, Dell had established his owned model and framework to tackle any bottleneck faced in the information age.

Dell is not the biggest innovator in the computer industry but he just wants to move one step further than all his competitors. Dell always sticks to the framework and strategies which had created by shrinking the operation cost, eliminating middleman to direct deal with customer, and study about the customer needs as opposed to his competitors instead of spending a huge amount of money in doing research and development. Since Dell was incorporated it is directed in the way of customer-centric operation by providing product customization and better customer services and needs including after sales services.

Business man acknowledges that the success of a particular corporation is depends on the surrounding people (Labor source) rather than one person itself. Thus, one of the strategies Dell emphasize is building the loyalty of the organization staffs and motivating them by granting more responsibilities and authorities to let the employees feel themselves as part of the company encompass identical interest in achieving organization goal.

Besides, Dell adopts just-in-time basis in managing his inventory in order to prevent inventory overload. With the internet conveniency, Dell is able to connect with suppliers and customers without using phone calls which are high in cost. Obviously, the finished good inventories are curtailed tremendously. Dell does not aim to be perfect however he is much more concern about the changing of the business trend and how to effectively adapt to the changing environment to become more flexible. And this is how DELL become a well-known brand in global aspect as well as computer industry.



Sources from:

• http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/corporate/speeches/msd/1999_11_01_msd_economy.pdf
• http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2007/tc20070131_658871.htm?campaign_id=msnbc_dell
• http://www.inc.com/articles/1999/09/15567.html
• http://news.cnet.com/2100-1014_3-5170114.html
• http://ect5.blogspot.com/2009/06/example-of-e-commerce-success-and-its.html

Review on Internet Security on ecommerze.blogspot.com

New Spamming Tactics

In the post, spamming is defined as the flooding of the electronic mail systems with "junk e-mail". The writer discussed about the new tactics of spamming which are the PDF spam, Piggyback spam, and Greeting Card spam. The post continues on to explain what are these kind of spams and includes solutions for them.

Well, we in E-commerce Gazette also give a thumbs up to this post as we ourselves find spam to be very problematic as well.

Every now and then, we do receive emails such as the PDF spam, and without any knowledge, we download the file, and our computers get infected by sypwares, trojans, and viruses as well.

So, how are you going to eliminate the viruses after infected by it?

What you need to do is just by following the Do's and Don'ts to prevent it.

Don't:

Do not click any link in the spam mail and never ever reply them.

You might not know whether the mail is from spammer, but for sure, if the mail was sent by a stranger, do not click any link in the mail, and do not reply them, because this will add the spammers' credibility on the existence of you.

Do not forward e-mails from strangers to your friends and family.

Familiar with kind of sentence "Please send this mail to 30 people and your love one will appear in 5 days"? This is the best way for spammer to harvest e-mail addresses.

Do not use your e-mail address as your name in chat rooms.

This will be the convenient way for the spammers to get your e-mail address easily.

Do:

Do make your e-mail address be more complicated.

For example, "emay1988@hotmail.com" will obviously tell the spammers about my identity. Instead, you should make your mail address to be more complicated and not easily be identified such as tem252@hotmail.com.

Do preview messages before click them.

Outlook is a software that provide you a preview mode which allows you to peek the contents before you open it. It is easy, just select the preview pane by clicking the view menu. For more information, you can click this.

Do ensure you have set the privacy setting.

By doing so, you may prevent from receiving marketing from other sites in your AOL and Yahoo profiles. Please do ensure that the webmaster will not sell your email address.

(The solutions are provided by TechSoup Technology Analyst Kevin Lo in November, 2007)


Other recommendations:

Blog Spam

It is a form of spamdexing [1], where spam appears in blogs, especially in the comment box. Spammers will post some random comments on it automatically which may contain some commercial services promotion.

The solution for this is by installing "Askimet" plugin. This benefit is most appropriately applied in Wordpress.

Spam Blocker

According to our research, there are two types of spam blocker that are found to be effective which give excellent results.

1. Cloudmark Desktop

This software is made specially for junk and phishing solution. However, Couldmark Desktop is only available to Outlook, Outlook Express and Mozilla Thunderbird on windows. [2] One of the real strength of Cloudmark is that it will never delete the genuine e-mail by classifying it as a spam. According to Peter Solomon, the user of Couldmark, the system is able to block 50 or more spam messages within a minute. [3]

2. MailWasher

MailWasher is a spam filter software, where it helps you to remove the spam in your e-mail or from your e-mail server before you download it to your computer. That's mean, you download file from e-mail which is free from spamware, and it allows faster speed in downloading.

Sources from:

[1] Spam in blogs (n.d.). Retrieved June 12, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_in_blogs
[2] Richard. G. (2008). Spam Blockers: The Best Products for Home Use. Retrieved June 12, 2009, from http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-antispam.htm
[3] Couldmark Desktop - It just works (n.d.). Retrieved June 12, 2009, from http://www.cloudmark.com/desktop/

Mobile Payment Systems In Malaysia:Its Potential and Consumers' Adoption Strategies

Nowadays, there is is a marvelous potential for mobile telecommunication networks because it become a significant electronic payment way in Malaysia. This is because, 88% of Malaysian are subscribing to mobile phone services.

Mobile payment system is a system that collects money from consumer through his or her mobile phone, smart phone, personal digital assistance (PDA), wireless tablets and any other devices that can connect to mobile telecommunication network. It make it possible for payment to be made.

E-purse application includes credit cards, ATM cards and debit cards which is embedded in My Kad. However, it is one of the card payments possibilities in Malaysia. Therefore, mobile money plays a significant role in mobile payment system because it helps users to reduce the bottlenecks that created by cash, check and credit cards. It also provides users a convenience function which is cash-free and card-free shopping as well as make it an out-of-the-way payment.

There are 2 ways of mobile payment.

1. Premium SMS
2. Mobile Web Payments (WAP)

Premium SMS is a based transactional payment which required registered customers send his or her payment through a SMS text message that indicates his or her registered 6 digits security code to merchant's mobile phone number. Or, they can use their bank accounts to make their payments as they purchase goods and services at anytime. If consumers made payment via SMS, a premium charge will apply to their phone bill. Consumers will get SMS instructuons to purchase products, can check balances and last transactions. By using premium SMS, they even can top up consumers' Money Mobile Wallet. Contrary to mobile web payments which only allow consumers to make their payment by using mobile phone connect to web pages.

Potential of Mobile Payment:

Cost
Mobile payment method would not less cost than existing payment merchanism. However, the only way to solve the mobile payment is to compete with other modes of payment in term of cash and convenience.

Speed
Mobile payment must be performed to acceptable speeds.

Cross border payments
The mobile payment should be accepted globally and world wide.

Security, privacy and trust
There must be a trust between consumers and the mobile payment application. They should assure the consumers that their information will not be misused or disclosed.

Interoperability
The evolution should be based on standards and open technologies. It must be confirm that it permits for an implemented system to interact with other systems.

Simplicity and usability
User friendly is the key point for the mobile payment application to deal with the consumers. However, consumers must be able to personalize the application that suit the convenience and request.

Universality
The transactions provided by mobile payment service is from one consumer to other consumer, from business to consumers or from business to business. Therefore, it must be universality for each users. Thus, the coverage is including domestic, regional and global environments. Hence, they payment must make either in the low value micro-payment or high value macro-payment.

Consumers' adoption strategies:

Credit card based mobile payment
According to the credit card based mobile payment model, the customers' mobile phone number is linked by the credit card number because when customers make a mobile payment transaction with a merchanct, then the credit card will be charged and the amount will be automatically credited in the merchanct account.

Bank account based mobile payment
There is a win-win solution for the banks and telecommunication if they both co-operate to provide a mobile payment solution. The reason is that customer's mobile phone number is linked by the bank account. So, when they make the transaction through a merchant, it will be automatically debited the customer's bank account and the amount of payment will be credited to the merchant account.

Complexity
A low adoption of variety of payment systems includes smart cards and mobile banking will lead to complixity and usability problem.

Compatibility
The stability between an innovation and the values, experience, and needs of potential adopters will be captured by the compatibility.




Sources from:

• http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/workshops/techade/pdfs/presentations/linlor.pdf
• http://www.venturewoods.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/mobile-payment-systems-and-services.pdf
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Payment_Services_Association
• http://www.mindcommerce.com/Publications/Mobile_Commerce_OnTheGo.php
• http://lifeofecom.blogspot.com/2009/02/mobile-payment-systems-in-malaysia-its_15.html

The threats of online security

One of the biggest challenges on the Internet today is the online security threats. This is because of the internet attacks are increasing in number and complexity, therefore, everyone will get the risk when online. Besides that, every person who owns a computer with internet connection is competent to train themselves with ‘hacking’ knowledge by making a number of researches online. Moreover, Internet is also providing the opportunities for users to share the knowledge without filtering the content. However, everybody can learn the skills that may endanger online security through internet as raise the online security risk.

Since users are rely on computers to create, manage and store important information, thus, users need to know that computer security is actually playing the most important role in protecting their data from misuse, damage, steal and loss. Consequently, the best way that user can do is to use security software and hardware such as firewalls and authentication servers to protect their computer and personal information as they get on the Internet.

In addition, the reason of user need to learn how to protect their computer is because of everyday there will be new viruses and security threats launched all over the Internet, which means user need programs that can be updated continuously and don’t just only focus on a specific type problem.

The followings are some of the potential online security threats that can be found.


1.Instant messaging

It is a general enough means of communication tool and it also a way to attack one’s system by hackers. However, user need to learn how to configure the instant messaging services correctly so that user can have comprehensive control over any file transfer that can take place by the way of instant messaging can easily prevent this.


2.Spyware Attacks

The most common online security threat faced by Internet users is spyware attacks. This is because spyware attacks are a computer program which is designed to embezzle other user’s information and data. In general, spyware attack is software that needs to be installed in one’s computer without his/her realization. Therefore, after the complete installation of the software into the computer, it will automatically send user’s personal information such as documents, passwords, credit card numbers, bank accounts and other private information to another person.

Those familiar spyware are Trojan Horses, Key Loggers, Dialers and Adware Programs. However, user need to install trusted anti spyware programs to protect user’s computer from spyware. Besides that, one of advice for those users is don’t simply download software that never ever heard of as well as stick the name that you know.

3.File sharing applications

Nowadays, most of computer users are used file sharing applications to share files. This is because the easy way to share files between computer users is peer to peer file sharing. The information can be shared is because it is use a network to link the computers to one another. But there is a potential problem which is let the hackers easy to take this chance to access and even download files from any computer on the network. So that, most of expert advice user that it basically is not a good idea by using peer to peer program to share files.

4. Password Protection
Passwords are definitely a huge part of your online security. You'll discover that approximately each website that you visit is deal with online transactions, emailing, and shopping use passwords to validate who you are. Thus, it indicates that each user not only requires choosing a password and the password must not so easily to figure out. Furthermore, user shouldn’t share it with other else and must keep it as safely and securely. Consequently, users are advice not to use the similar password for all of accounts and try to come up with a password that contains letters, numbers, and special characters.

5. Web servers and services

A lot of default HTTP web servers able to expose visitors every time when they log on to these websites is because of there are many patches have been liberated over the previously years. However user need to confirm that all the patches are up-to-date and didn’t use the default configuration or application. This is because of these vulnerabilities may lead to denial-of-service attacks and other types of threats.

6. Mail client
Most of the hackers are use email to spread overwhelming viruses and worms to destroy user’s computer system. This is because all those viruses and worms will create multiple files and affect the user’s computer run slowly. These viruses and worms will include into the attachments of emails. However, this is can be prevented and limited by configuring those mail servers correctly so that user can block those doubtful attachments or files.

In order to protect the system, there are some ways that can deal with the threat of security online.

1. Firewalls

Install the firewalls are a protective barriers between user’s computer and underlying harmful attacks by hackers or offensive websites. Moreover, firewalls also can prevent the intrusion by restricting the network traffic passing through it and denies or allows passage based on a set of rules.

2. Anti-virus software

However install anti-virus software is one of the way to protect computer by reduce computer viruses and other malicious code that come through email and other else. Therefore, good anti-virus software will automatically update itself on a regular basis and they can identify the new threats on the Internet.

3. Get the latest security updates and patches

Users must keep the security and system patches up-to-date because there will have a helpful information about vulnerabilities in programs and how to find the fixes. In additional, user must turn on window’s automatic-update function to get Microsoft’s regular security patches.

4. Read the password advice

Carefully read the password advice and keep them safe because passwords are the key to user’s online account information.

5. Honey pots

It is an intentionally or unintentionally left vulnerable to attacks user’s computer by crackers. Therefore, user need pay more attention to the messages that pop up on the screen from the Window’s, especially in the new Vista operating system. Thus, user is advice to don’t click on any unknown links in the social network messages from unknown user.

As a conclusion, risk uncovered by computer users is rising as the rising developed technology. So that, safeguard must always develop up to date to improve the defenses against online security threats. Hence, users must be learn about the important damages and loss caused by imposing security threat. In addition, user needs to have a good backup method to keep their data and files.

Sources from:

• http://utar-ecommerce.blogspot.com/2008/06/threat-of-online-security.html
• http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-the-primary-online-security-threats.htm
• http://www.hsbc.com/1/2/online-security
• http://www.tech-faq.com/online-security-threats.shtml