Electronic Commerce Technology

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Electronic Commerce Technology

• Patrick McKeown
• Professor and Head
• Dept of MIS, Terry College of Business

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Todays Topics

• Electronic commerce infrastructure
• Electronic commerce technology problems and
  solutions
• The HTTP protocol
• Counting visitors
• Creating a shopping cart
• Electronic commerce security and payment systems

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Infrastructure
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Electronic Commerce Infrastructure
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Global Information Infrastructure Layer

• Global information infrastructure (GII) layer -
  composed of various national information
  infrastructures, in which some components may
  differ depending on the country

Can you use yours in Europe?
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National information infrastructure (NII)

• communication networks and protocols, including
• satellite and cable television networks
• telephone networks
• mobile communication systems
• computer networks
• EDI and Internet protocols (TCP/IP)

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Message Distribution Infrastructure Layer

• The software layer of electronic commerce that
  sends and receives messages.
• Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)
• E-mail (SMTP)
• File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
• Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) The Web

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Electronic Publishing Infrastructure Layer

• Permits organizations to publish text and
  multimedia over the message distribution
  infrastructure.
• Messages are composed in Hypertext Markup
  Language (HTML)
• Associated multimedia files are linked to the
  message
• Includes the uniform resource locator (URL),
  which uniquely identifies any Web server

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Some HTML
Welcome to FarEast
Foods
Select a country China/a
Japan
href"china.html"Korea
href"china.html"Thailand
href"china.html"Vietnam
Thanks
and enjoy your food!
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Business Services Infrastructure Layer

• Software layer that handles the services required
  to support business transactions
• encryption
• decryption

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Electronic Commerce Layers

• Electronic Commerce Application Layer
• transactions take place in this part of the
  electronic commerce infrastructure
• Catalogs of books and CDs
• Listings of automobiles

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Electronic Commerce Infrastructure for DVD
Distributor
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Client/Server Model for Electronic Commerce
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Web-Based Electronic Commerce

• Process begins with the customer finding a Web
  site
• URL of an electronic commerce site is sent over
  the Web
• User receives one or more Web pages
• User makes a purchase from the Web
• Process ends with customer receiving verification
  of order

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Finding Web Sites with Search Sites

• Computer-driven search sites
• Search engines
• Spiders
• eg, Google
• Human-indexed search sites
• Humans create categories
• Humans add sites to categories
• eg, Yahoo, MSN

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Use of Search Engine Spider
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Transacting an Order over the Web
Web server
Browser sends URL
Database server
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Transacting an Order over the Web
Web server
1. Browser sends URL
2. Server returns HTML
Database server
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Transacting an Order over the Web
Web server
1. Browser sends URL
2. Server returns HTML
3. Browser sends data
Database server
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Transacting an Order over the Web
Web server
1. Browser sends URL
2. Server returns HTML
3. Browser sends data
4. Server processes data using database
Database server
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Transacting an Order over the Web
Web server
1. Browser sends URL
2. Server returns HTML
3. Browser sends data
5. Server sends confirmation
4. Server processes data using database
Database server
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Client and Server-Side Processing

• Client-side processing- on the browser
• Applets- Java app on browser
• Server-side processing- on the server

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Server-Side Processing using CGI
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Microsoft or Open-Source Web Server

• Open-source software - software that is created
  and supported by volunteers who make it freely
  available to users who can then add personally
  desired features
• Apache Web server software - runs 60 of Web
  servers and is an open-source software similar to
  Linux
• Microsoft IIS - developed by Microsoft and has
  close to 30 of the Web server market

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Electronic Commerce Technology Problems and
Solutions
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Problems ... and solutions

• The Internet and Web
• The HTTP protocol
• Counting visitors
• Creating a shopping cart

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The Internet

• Can be thought of as a Network of Networks
• Created in 1969 by a consulting company to
  connect universities
• Enabled researchers to use computers at other
  universities
• Insecure
• Was NOT created as a way to send messages in time
  of nuclear war
• Was NOT invented by Al Gore

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Internet Protocol

• Protocol an agreement about how messages will be
  sent
• TCP/IP the Internet protocol
• universal agreement so no need for a central
  computer
• not very secure
• Packet switching used to send messages
• messages broken up into packets each with an
  address and sequence number
• all make their way to destination computer
  separately

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The World Wide Web

• The Web software, protocols and conventions
  based on hypertext and multimedia that make the
  Internet easy to use and browse
• Invented by Tim Berners-Lee
• Sends data as plain text with tags
• Browser then formats data using the tags
• Very low overhead since only plain text is being
  sent
• Uses hypertext and multimedia

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Advantages of the HTTP Protocol

• Modest amount of code
• Efficient linking
• Works regardless of previous operations
• Unrestricted set of formats
• Some privacy built in

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Problems with the HTTP Protocol

• Session a client/server protocol in which a
  continuous sequence of transactions occurs
  between client and server
• HTTP is a Stateless protocol
• No memory of previous visit
• No real session exists
• Causes problems with
• Counting
• Shopping

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Counting Web Site Visitors

• Why count Web site visitors?
• Indicates how good the site is at attracting
  visitors
• Used to determine rate charged advertisers on
  site
• Indicates audiences served by Web site
• HTTP does not handle counting unique visits to a
  Web site
• Visitors who come from behind a firewall, a
  dial-up, or cable ISP can not be accurately
  counted
• Dynamic IP address allocation

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Using Cookies for Counting Visitors

• A cookie is information that a Web site stores on
  a computers hard drive to enable it to identify
  the computer at a later time.
• Session cookie - a cookie that exists only during
  the current series of interactions between the
  browser and Web server.
• Persistent cookie - a file that exists
  indefinitely on the users hard disk and that the
  browser uses to identify the user to the
  corresponding Web site.

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Cookie for Amazon.com
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Using Cookies for Counting

• First time user visits a Web site, they are
  assigned a cookie
• Each subsequent time user visits Web site, they
  cookie is used to identify them as a unique visit
• Firewalls and ISP dynamic IPs dont effect the
  counting using cookies

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Using a Cookie to Count
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Passing Cookies

• Cookies are passed through the URL

Used to recognize me
My cookie at Amazon.com
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Problems with shopping using the Web

• Since the HTTP (Web) protocol is stateless, it
  forgets you!
• Web site would not recognize you on multiple
  visits to the same shopping site
• This is true even if you are just trying to
  purchase an item and then check out
• It is also true if you are trying to purchase
  multiple items

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Solution to shopping problems

• Use a session cookie so the Web site remembers
  you between visits
• Link a session cookie to each item purchased and
  put in a virtual shopping cart
• At checkout, it is used to retrieve those items
  you have purchased and sum their costs

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Use of a Cookie for Electronic Shopping Cart
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Securing Electronic Commerce Transactions

• Consumers remain afraid to use electronic
  commerce
• Because the intent of the Internet is to give
  remote access to information, it is inherently
  open
• The same technologies that form the basis of
  electronic commerce can be used to attack
  computer systems
• Server security is generally not easy to breach

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Encryption

• Encryption - the conversion of readable text into
  characters that disguise the original meaning of
  the text
• Decryption - the conversion of an encrypted,
  seemingly senseless character string into the
  original message
• Key - an algorithm used to encode and decode
  messages
• Encryption systems public key and private key

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Public-Key Encryption

• An public key encryption system with two keys -
  one private and one public
• Public key - in a public-key encryption system,
  this is the key that is freely distributed to
  encrypt messages
• Private key - in a public-key encryption system,
  this is the only key that can decrypt the message

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Public-Key Encryption
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Message Before Encryption
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Message After Encryption
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Another approach Steganography
Steganography hiding messages or images in
other, unrelated images
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Digital Signatures

• Digital Signature - a digital code that is
  attached to an electronically transmitted message
  and that uniquely identifies the sender

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Message Before Signing
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Digitally Signed Message
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Electronic Payment Systems

• Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) - any transfer of
  funds from one account to another without paper
  money changing hands
• Digital cash - the storage of value in a digital
  format in one of two broad forms
• Card-based digital cash - the storage of value on
  a plastic card, such as a prepaid telephone card
  or a smart card, that can have value added to or
  removed from it.
• Computer-based digital cash - the storage of
  value on a computer, usually linked to the
  Internet, allowing for payment directly between
  the customer and merchant computers or for a
  transfer of funds between individuals

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Characteristics of Electronic Money
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Use of EFT for a Credit Card Purchase
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Use of Digital Cash for Individual Purchase