Intranet

is the generic term for a collection of private computer networks within an organization. An intranet uses network technologies as a tool to facilitate communication between people or work groups to improve the data sharing capability and overall knowledge base of an organization's employees. Intranets utilize standard network hardware and software technologies like Ethernet WiFi, TCP/IP, Web browsers and Web servers. An organization's intranet typically includes Internet access but is firewalled so that its computers cannot be reached directly from the outside. Many schools and non-profit groups have deployed them, but an intranet is still seen primarily as a corporate productivity tool. A simple intranet consists of an internal email system and perhaps a message board service. More sophisticated intranets include Web sites and databases containing company news, forms, and personnel information. Besides email and groupware applications, an intranet generally incorporates internal Web sites, documents, and/or databases. The business value of intranet solutions is generally accepted in larger corporations, but their worth has proven very difficult to quantify in terms of time saved or return on investment. Or The Intranet is a network based on TCP/IP protocols belonging to an organization, accessible only by the organization's members, employees, or others with authorization. Intranet = Network + Information Resources + Information Services Advantages of Intranets Implementation benefits : Fast, easy, low-cost to implement Based on open standards Connectivity with other systems Many tools available Scalable

Usability benefits Easy to learn and use Multimedia Hypertext links Single interface to information resources and services

Organizational benefits Access to internal and external information Improves communication Increases collaboration and coordination Supports links with customers and partners Can capture and share knowledge

Extranet :
An extranet is a private network that uses Internet technology and the public telecommunication system to securely share part of a business's information or operations with suppliers, vendors, partners, customers, or other businesses. An extranet requires security and privacy. These can include firewall server management, the issuance and use of digital certificate or similar means of user authentication, encryption of messages, and the use of virtual private networks (VPNs) that tunnel through the public network. Companies can use an extranet to: Exchange large volumes of data using Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)

Share product catalogs exclusively with wholesalers or those "in the trade" Collaborate with other companies on joint development efforts Jointly develop and use training programs with other companies Provide or access services provided by one company to a group of other companies, such as an online banking application managed by one company on behalf of affiliated banks Share news of common interest exclusively with partner companies

Advantages Extranet helps in improve company efficiency and output by automating procedures that were done manually in the past. Automation can also decrease the scope of mistake. Work is done quickly as compared to past manual systems. Extranets permit company information to be analyzed at period suitable for business customers, partners, suppliers, employees, and other stake-holders. This helps in cutting down the conference/meeting times and is also helpful when doing multinational business having with partners located in different countries and in different time zones. Information can be modified, updated and changed immediately on an extranet. All approved members thus have instant access to the most advanced information. Extranets can help in improving relationships with main or potential customers by giving them correct, precise and efficient information. Disadvantages Extranets can be costly to apply and maintain within an organization. One of big problem is the protection of extranets when dealing with precious information. System access should be controlled and checked properly to protect the system and information going into the incorrect hands. Extranets can decrease personal face-to-face contact with clients and business partners. This can cause a lack of communication between employees, clients and organization.

Automated Clearing House (ACH) Automated Clearing House (ACH) is a secure payment transfer system that connects all U.S. financial institutions. The ACH network acts as the central clearing facility for all Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) transactions that occur nationwide, representing a crucial link in the national banking system. It is here that payments linger in something akin to a holding pattern while awaiting clearance for their final banking destination. Scores of financial institutions transmit or receive ACH entries through ACH operators such as the American Clearing House Association, the Federal Reserve, the Electronic Payments Network, and Visa. In 1998, the network processed nearly 5.3 billion ACH transactions with a total value of more than $16 trillion. Advantages : ACH providers, of which Paypal (www.paypal.com) is probably the most famous, although there are many cheaper alternatives, offer a means of accepting and issuing payments from checking or savings accounts electronically. With an ACH payment, a customer's account is debited, and the funds are then credited to the trader or supplier's account. The most immediate advantage, particularly to Internet companies, is that ACH gives access to their products and services to the large number of consumers who do not have credit cards, and to those who do have credit cards, but have reached their credit limit. If these people have a checking or savings account, they can still become customers with ACH. In other words, implementing an ACH system dramatically broadens your customer base in one move.

ECash :
is a computer generated Internet based system which allows funds to be transferred and items to be purchased by credit card, check or by money order, providing secure on-line transaction processing. Ecash is used over the Internet, email, or personal computer to other workstations in the form of secured payments of "cash" that is virtually untraceable to the user The way ecash works is similar to that of electronic fund transfers done between banks. The user first must have an ecash software program and an ecash bank account from which ecash can be withdrawn or deposited. The user

withdraws the ecash from the account onto her computer and spends it in the Internet without being traced or having personal information available to other parties that are involved in the process. The recipients of the ecash send the money to their bank account as with depositing "real" cash.

Relevance to business and electronic commerce:

Even though there are more than 25,000 companies conducting business on the Internet, consumers are still not that confident with having transaction done over the Internet. This is mostly due to a lack of a readily available and secure payment system. With credit cards, consumers are concerned with the security of their information and thus deterring them from directly making purchases from the Internet. With ecash, hopefully consumers will be more comfortable with transactions over the Internet as it is a one-time transaction that cannot be traced back to the user, whereas with credit cards, hackers can obtain information of the card holder and commit frauds. With the appearance of ecash, the need for commercial banks to be involved in electronic banking and to back the electronic currencies becomes more apparent. However, there remains a skeptical view about having monetary transactions done over the Internet as it is a fairly public domain where there is easy access. Thus increasing and promoting commercial bank's interest in the Internet and conducting business over the Internet is necessary in order to further the development of ecash and commerce in the Internet, as well as improving cryptography and security features of the systems. While it is a grand idea to mimic the real world transactions with cash on the Internet through the use of an anonymous transaction system, at this moment it still poses a lot of logistics and legal problems and possible security hazards. There are still questions of the regulation of electronic money, how will the ecash be backed and redeemed, determining how much of money in the economy are circulated in ecash since the Internet covers such a vast area internationally. Moreover, with Internet business companies, how will taxes be applied to them when they conduct business all over the world? Ecash is not completely anonymous as with hard cash since there is always the computer and the network, which can be traced. But do people really care about anonymity? Some people may want to track expenses if they're conducting businesses through the Internet. Also, there is the issue of possible criminal activity within the system by allowing criminals to spend illegal money easier if ecash is untraceable. The US Department of Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network provides some information on how it is addressing these issues.

Advantages :
1. Users o

E-cash transactions are advantageous for individual users. User-to-user transactions occur without waiting for a check to clear a recipient's bank account. Consumers find e-cash handy because they avoid paying fees to banks for debit-card use, and they don't incur debt on credit cards for small purchases. With e-cash systems like PayPal and DigiCash, you can transfer money easily without having to visit a bank and withdraw cash.

Merchants o Merchants can also benefit from using e-cash systems as a marketing tool to attract customers to their online marketplaces. For example, DigiCash markets its program to merchants wanting to keep customers on their site. When a user pays with e-cash, she makes an instant transfer of cash from her digital wallet to a merchant's digital wallet. PayPal offers merchants a free option to add its functionality to their website. With PayPal, merchants pay lower fees than credit-card fees for transactions over a certain dollar amount. Why not target a merchant's marketing strategies to online shoppers? DigiCash, for instance, notes how merchants use real-time coupons to entice consumers to buy instantly instead of surfing to other websites for comparison shopping. International Exchange o A big advantage of e-cash is the possibility for international exchange. If you are a Chinese toy merchant, you can sell a $2 toy to an American consumer. A transaction is easy to complete with a service like PayPal. You will receive your customer's payment in real time and not pay a fee if the transaction is lower than PayPal's payment threshold. Of course the consumer still has to wait for

the product to be delivered--but processing a payment will not delay you in shipping your toy from China to the American consumer. Disadvantages : E-cash and E-Cash transaction security are the major concern. Frauds on E-Cash are on the catch recent years. Hackers with good skill able to hack into bank accounts and illegally retrieve of banking records has led to a widespread invasion of privacy and has promoted identity theft. There are many other tricks including through phishing website of certain banks and emails. Money flow and criminal/terrorist activities are harder to be traced by government. With the continued growth of ECash, money flow in and out of countries at immediate speed without being traced will weaken the government's ability to monitor and income in tax. Money laundering and tax evasion could be uncontrollable in e-cash systems as criminals use untraceable internet transaction to hide assets offshore. E-Cash is not for everyone. Low income groups without computer and internet access are unable to enjoy the usage of E-Cash. This issue shall be resolved so that E-Cash could be implemented widely. There is also a pressing issue regarding the technology involved in electronic cash such power failures, internet connection failure, loss of records and undependable software. These often cause a major setback in promoting the technology. A digital signature (not to be confused with a digital certificate) is an electronic signature that can be used to authenticate the identity of the sender of a message or the signer of a document, and possibly to ensure that the original content of the message or document that has been sent is unchanged. Digital signatures are easily transportable, cannot be imitated by someone else, and can be automatically time-stamped. The ability to ensure that the original signed message arrived means that the sender cannot easily repudiate it later. A digital signature can be used with any kind of message, whether it is encrypted or not, simply so that the receiver can be sure of the sender's identity and that the message arrived intact. A digital certificate contains the digital signature of the certificate-issuing authority so that anyone can verify that the certificate is real. How It Works Assume you were going to send the draft of a contract to your lawyer in another town. You want to give your lawyer the assurance that it was unchanged from what you sent and that it is really from you. 1. 2. 3. 4. You copy-and-paste the contract (it's a short one!) into an e-mail note. Using special software, you obtain a message hash (mathematical summary) of the contract. You then use a private key that you have previously obtained from a public-private key authority to encrypt the hash. The encrypted hash becomes your digital signature of the message. (Note that it will be different each time you send a message.)

At the other end, your lawyer receives the message. 1. 2. 3. To make sure it's intact and from you, your lawyer makes a hash of the received message. Your lawyer then uses your public key to decrypt the message hash or summary. If the hashes match, the received message is valid.

Advantages : Imposter prevention: By using digital signatures you are eliminating the possibility of committing fraud by an imposter signing the document. Since the digital signature cannot be altered, this makes forging the signature impossible. Message integrity: By having a digital signature you are in fact proving the document to be valid. You are assuring the recipient that the document is free from forgery or false information. Legal requirements: Using a digital signature satisfies some type of legal requirement for the document in question. A digital signature takes care of any formal legal aspect of executing the document. Compare With Offline and Online Transaction.

An offline transaction, also known as a signature debit transaction, is a payment method that uses a debit card to transfer funds from a checking account to a merchant across a digital credit card network. How It Works/Example: When you pay for goods or services with your debit card, you have the option to process your payment in one of two ways: 1) as an offline transaction via a credit card processing network, or 2) as an online transaction via an electronic funds transfer (EFT) system. Offline transactions are processed much like credit card transactions. They are sent over one of the major credit card networks -- Visa, MasterCard, Discover, etc -- depending on which credit card network your bank is associated with as a member bank. The cost of the transaction, called an "interchange fee," is typically 2-3% of the total purchase. The interchange fee is charged to the vendor/merchant, not the bank.

Why You Should Use the Offline Transaction Feature The Offline Transactions feature in EventsNow is a great tool to ensure that you can keep all of the pertinent information for your event together in one place, even if you arent necessarily using the credit card services for every transaction. When you process and Offline Transaction you wont be asked to enter any credit card information so if youre accepting donation cards or mailed in credit card information be sure that you enter those through some sort of merchant service account before entering the offline transaction. You might wonder why you should use an offline transaction, here are three ways that properly using this tool will save you time and make your event less stressful. 1) Youll have all of your attendees listed in one place, no matter how they paid or how they found your event.

2) On the night of your event you wont be combining spreadsheets from three different sources to have a check in list or make name tags every transaction type can be listed next to each other. 3) You can offer complimentary tickets for your guests and still keep all of their information in one place. (looking for advice on how to do that? OLTP (online transaction processing) is a class of program that facilitates and manages transaction-oriented applications, typically for data entry and retrieval transactions in a number of industries, including banking, airlines, mailorder, supermarkets, and manufacturers. Probably the most widely installed OLTP product is IBM's CICS (Customer Information Control System). Today's online transaction processing increasingly requires support for transactions that span a network and may include more than one company. For this reason, new OLTP software uses client/server processing and brokering software that allows transactions to run on different computer platforms in a network. How Online Transactions Work 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. The buyer submits his or her order and credit card information for the merchant to process. The information is then sent through the merchant's secure "Payment Gateway" to their merchant account's processing bank. The processing bank submits the transaction to the appropriate ultra-secure credit card network (VISA, MASTERCARD, AMEX, etc) which routes it to the cardholder's issuing bank. The cardholder's issuing bank approves or declines the transaction, based on the amount of funds available in the account. The transaction results are then relayed back to the merchant and the customer. The product(s) or services are then delivered to the customer. The card issuing bank sends the funds through the credit card network to the merchant's processing bank account. Once the funds are released into the merchant's account this is called a "settlement" and the transaction is complete. This usually takes two to four days.