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Electronic Currency

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Electronic currency also known as electronic money refers to money that is exchanged only electronically which is similarities with real cash. Usually, it must be involved in computer networks, the internet, and digital stored value when using electronic currency. It served as universal media of exchange. The main types of electronic currency are Direct deposit and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). These types of electronic money have been broadly used in some countries such as Hong Kong and Singapore.

Generally, there are few basic categories of electronic currency as below:

  • Identified Electronic Currency
    Identified e-currency encloses information revealing the identity of the person who originally withdrew the money from bank. It enables bank to track the movement of money. This category popularly as PayPal or WebMoney.

  • Anonymous Electronic Currency
    Anonymous e-currency is similar to real paper cash. Thus, the bank unable to trail the movement of e-money once the money is withdrawn from an account. Anonymous e-currency can be created by using blind signatures instead of non-blind signatures.

  • Online Electronic Currency
    Typically, online e-currency means users need to correspond with a bank via network to conduct a transaction with a third party.

  • Offline Electronic Currency
    Offline e-currency means users can directly conduct a transaction without any interaction with the bank.

The popular examples of electronic currency are e-gold, Pecunix, Liberty Reserve, e-dinar, e-Ls and etc.

At the same time, there are some pros and cons of electronic currency as below:

Pros of electronic currency

  • Easy and convenient
    Electronic currency able users transfer funds to anyone, in any country at anytime by just clicking on the computer. Thus, user does not have to go to the bank to transact any business. Moreover, bankers also obtain the benefits indirectly which not necessary to deal with long queues of people. Hence, it increases the transactions speed in the bank. In addition, the percentage of transactions accuracy is increased with the help of machines and computers.

  • Private and confidential
    The information of holders and the source of funds are highly confidential as it never disclosed to anyone during the course of a transaction by using anonymous e-currency. Generally, the account only shows numbers, nick names, or email address during transactions. Hence, no one knows the source of money, actual name, phone number and address of the particular holder.

Cons of electronic currency

  • Double-spending
    Since the offline anonymous e-currency is indistinguishable from the original, thus perpetrator might think that counterfeiting would be impossible to detect. Thus, the users might copy some e-money and spend it twice. Users do not interact with bank during transaction, so bank unable to check whether the e-money is double spent.

  • Virus
    The online electronic cash system has the same problem as email account and personal computer which can be infected with a virus if security is provided insufficiently. Thus, the users’ information such as ID and password might be hacked. Therefore, the hacker will spend the e-currency of the actual user. Moreover, the user’s loss is bear by himself.

In conclusion, electronic currency will become more important as the improvement of technology in this world. Although it provides benefits to the users, the security of online electronic cash system is needed to be improved in order to reduce the risk of users.

Electronic Government also known as E-Government is the application of IT and e-commerce to gain access to government information and delivery of public services to citizens and business partner.

In Malaysia, E-Government has implemented since the initiation of Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) in 1996. The implementation of E-Government has improved the government internal operation and delivery of services to the people. It seeks to enhance the convenience, accessibility and quality of interaction with citizens and businesses. Besides, E-Government has effectively improved the information flows and processes within government environment such as improvement of speed and quality of policy development, coordination and enforcement. The E-Government establishment would bring advantages to the public administration and citizens in several ways such as generate saving in data collection and transmission of data.

Some examples of Malaysian E-Government successful application are voter information, details for government tenders, online renewal of driving licenses and employment opportunities.


The 7 projects of the Electronic Government Flagship Application include:

1. Electronic Procurement (EP)

2. Electronic Labour Exchange (ELX)

3. Electronic Services (E-Services)

4. Project Monitoring System (SPP II)

5. Generic Office Environment (GOE)

6. Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS)

7. E-Syariah


The adoption of E-Government still not famous among Malaysian. In order to make better decision and avoid falling behind, government should identify and resolve the different issues that have arisen from the transaction period during which traditional and e-government co-exist. Government should direct and control the transformation of government into e-government rather than just focusing on introduction of ICTs. At the same time, the application of ICT to strengthen the involvement of citizens and businesses in public decision must be progress.

Reference:

Mobile payment system is a new and rapidly-adopting alternative payment method in certain country in Europe and Asia. It is a collection of money from a consumer by way of mobile device such as mobile phone, smartphone, Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) or other such device. Consumers are able to use such device to pay for wide range of services and digital or hard goods such as music, videos, transportation fare, books and tickets. Mobile payment system is convenient compare to payment by cash or check.



In Malaysia, mobile payment is just services developing speedy. Examples of mobile payments available in Malaysia are Mobile Money, and mobileExec. Both are using the mobile device to make payment transaction. Moreover, due to effectiveness and efficiency of mobile payment, certain company like HGL Capital Berhad, Maxis, and CELCOM start applies this concept of payment. The mobile channel can be effectively used as a self-funding and revenue generating medium. This service covers all mobile operators in Malaysia; it’s for prepaid and postpaid service billings.


Mobile payment services have a great potential and advantages. For example, the consumers dun have to carry money or credit card to make payment transaction in the event the transaction involve high price. Consumers are more comfortable and convenient with low-value transactions over mobile payment. Common applications will include payment for transportation, convenience stores, restaurants, e-tickets, retail outlets, and typically for low-value items. In the case where consumers do not have cash in hand, mobile payment is useful in which consumers do not need to look for an ATM machine to withdraw the payment.


In the perspective of consumers’ adoption strategies, gift or redemption of reward will be given by certain company at certain level of purchasing. Furthermore some of the company will provide extra credit to customers especially consumer from Hotlink user. With certain call and receive will accumulated the points to redeem air time or sms.

In this new era, e-learning has become more and more popular. However, we still find some pros and cons of e-learning. Compared to the traditional courses that requires the students and lecturers to meet face-to-face, e-learning may need more discipline and self-motivation.

From the students' perspectives, we find that e-learning is save cost and time. It is not only save the cost of traveling to the campus, but also the time of traveling. This can reduce the family budget. They can also reduce the extra costs of living at a state that is different from the students' home town, and thus able to get higher education. The students can continue working while they take classes, and thus will bring good impact on their studies. They can apply the knowledge that they gain from studies to work, and vice versa. Another advantage is its time flexibility. They can 'attend' lectures at anytime, anywhere that they wish to be, as long as they can access to internet. The students can also get the online resources easily, such as the lecture notes, tutorial questions and additional notes; and communicate with their lecturers. Furthermore, the students are benefiting by learning new technologies and practicing the use of internet and the office software, it may be very important to them when they start working in this corporate world.

On the other hand, there are some drawbacks in using e-learning too. Even though the students have saved the traveling expenses and costs of living, however the cost for high-speed internet connection could burden them too. Obviously, students are lacking of face-to-face communication with the lecturers by having lectures through online, therefore there might be lacking of understanding in the courses. Furthermore, the students can become lazy due to non-motivated by having lectures through online, because it could be totally exclude the emotional interactivity. The lecturers would not understand the students' needs and their feelings. In addition, as comparing to the traditional courses' students, they can get guidance from the lecturers easily when they face problems in doing their assignments, but the online students may have to work under unsupervise.

Therefore, I would conclude that, there are many advantages of taking courses through online, but there are many drawbacks too, which may require the students to over come it.

Credit card can be a very convenient tool to represent cash to purchase goods and services, but it can also be very harmful to us. Usage of credit cards has been a very common issue in this society; households, workers and even students are using it, by most of them using it without thinking of thinking of the consequences that could bring to the users. This is because the advertisements are showing the advantages of using credit cards only, which are the happiness that it could bring to your friends and families; but it will never show use the effects and consequences that can bring harm to us.

One of the reasons of people use their credit cards without thinking much on the consequences is that, they could be lacking of knowledge of how the interest charges is applied. They might not know that the interest is charged on the balance that they have not repaid to the bank. Furthermore, some people spend without proper planning and budget. The debts accumulate from time to time, getting more and more, until the user cannot afford to repay. Some people did not aware that they have spent too much by using the credit cards, which is more than they can earn. In addition, most of the students might be too optimistic about the earnings that they could earn in the future, and have too much confidence in settling their debts in the future.

However, the positive thinking, lacking of knowledge and poor money management could harm us and cause us bankrupt. Therefore, it is very important to manage your finance effectively. We should use the lowest interest rate's credit card. Furthermore, we should have self-control at the time we decide to buy the goods or services or not. Before we buy the goods, we should ask ourselves some questions, "do I need it?" "Is it an essential? Or luxury?" Moreover, limit the the credit cards in our wallet, or avoid bringing credit cards out to shopping. This makes sure that we will not spend more than the cash that we have. We should pay the balance in full and on time, so that no extra interest will be charged on the balance.




One of the biggest challenges on the internet is online security threats. The risk of computer user faced increase as the technologies on internet continue grows. Some website is not safety for users to use because people are created malicious program such as computer viruses, worms, Trojan horses and spyware. Undoubtedly, online security has been online trader’s main concern in protecting their website from potential threats.
Following are some major threats of online securities:

Phishing: (http://en.wilipedia.org/wiki/phishing)
Phising is a scam in which a perpetrator sends an official looking e-mail that attempts to get your personal information and financial information. It uses some ruse to trick users into revealing information or performing an action that compromise a computer or network in order to gain unauthorized access to system or information.

Accidental action
Accidental action consists of problems that arising from basic lack of knowledge about online security concepts and it contribute to a large number of computer securities risks.
Examples of accidental action include poor password choices, accidental or erroneous business transaction and erroneous or outdated software.

Malicious attacks
Defined as an attacks that specifically aim to do harm by malicious code and those caused by intentional misrepresentation. It consists of computer viruses, denial of services attack, and distributed denial of service attack.
(i) Computer viruses
Is a fragment of software code that insert into a host which including the operating system to spread over and damage the computer users. Today, around 80000 of viruses are discovered and 25 new viruses have been created everyday. Examples of computer viruses are I Love You virus, and AutoRun

(ii) Denial of services attack (DOS)
Is another form of malicious code, which is carefully crafted and executed. DOS growing in sophistication, attacks one computer following by another.

(iii) Distributed denial of service attacks (DDOS)
The use of multiple computers in a highly organized attack is known as DDOS. DDOS attacks functions by overwhelming a server with a deluge of message that appear to be normal. The DDOS attacker strategically builds an army of key players including:
1. One client machine for coordinating the attack.
2. Three to four host machines, which are battlefields under the attacker's direct control.
3. Potentially hundreds of broadcasters, which are the legions that run the code to generate the flood of packets that attack a target system (consisting of at least one machine). Broadcasters are recruited by port scanning software that determines the machines on which the attacker can gain root privileges. On these machines, the attacker can embed hidden programs that wait for instructions from the Host machines.


In a nutshell, increasing developed technology has increased the risk exposed by computer users. Hence, safeguards developed must be always up to date to enhance the defenses against online security threats. At the same time, users must be educated and informed about the crucial damages and loss caused by imposing online security threats. There is some ways to prevent or minimize the risk of lost of data such as installing anti-virus software and a firewall program.


















We are living in this digital world of 21th century where it is extremely hard for us not to expose our personal datas such as account numbers, credit card numbers and passwords to others. The growing number of constantly evolving security threat make our data exposed to the risk of misuse and lost. Therefore, it is important for internet user like us to take appropriated steps to safeguard our data’s.


Here are some suggestions from me to protect yours data from those threats.


  1. Keep your personal data off your computer. Many of us like to save our personal or financial data in our computer and keep the computer on for the whole day. This may exposed our data to the threat to steal by others such as hacker. It is recommended to have a external storage device such as pen drive to store our personal data and plug in to computer only when you need it. This step may help you to prevent your datas to be stolen by others.

  2. Have difference and complicated password. I believe many of us share our password for many difference sites. It is understandable, it is not going be easy to memorizing all those passwords and may get confuse on it, but definitely not only one. Beside, you may need to create a complicate password by including numbers, alphabets and also symbols. This will make unauthorized access to your account extremely hard.

  3. Clear transaction records in your browser. When we have done our online transaction, there will be some temporary file downloaded and may be unauthorized use by other. So, whenever you have done an online transaction such as online banking, remember to delete the temporary files and history record.

  4. Installed antivirus and keep it up-to-date. If your computer are attached by virus and all your data is stored inside it, that’s it, if you are lucky, u may restore part of it. It is important to have a good antivirus such as AVG, Kaspersky in yours computer and make sure they are keep up-to-date to the latest virus or Trojan horse. I believe many of us have antivirus software, but what about antispyware? It is important to have an antispyware also to prevent those cyber thieves to steal our data for unethical use.

A Revenue Model lays-out the process by which a company actually makes money by specifying how it is going to charge for the services provided. I am going to share with u all about the revenue model for three of the world wide successful website which are Google, eBay and Amazon.

Google Revenue Model

Google is adopting advertising fees revenue model which included Google AdWord, Google AdSense, Froogle.

Google AdWord is a pay per click advertising program in which the advertising fees is based on the number of times the advertising click-through. The advertisement will display in the web page when someone search for the relevant keywords about the advertisement. The advertiser will then need to pay fees every time his advertisements receive a click.

Google AdSense is an advertisement serving program which enables website owners to advertise text, image and video on their site. There are two parts in Google AdSense which are AdSense for search and Adsense for content. In Adsense for search, Google will distribute advertiser’s advertising in relevant search results. For AdSense for content, Google will display advertising in the relevant content on Google Network members’ site. Advertisers then need to pay advertising fees to Google each time a user click on the advertising.

Froogle is a Google’s service whereby a user can use this to find information about a product for sale online. Froogle did not charge any fees for listing of commission on sales like eBay. Advertising spaces are available to purchase in Froogle engine for advertisers to display his advertisement in form of AdWord advertisement.

Google is now testing on a new revenue model which called as Cost-Per-Action. This new advertising program pays site owners based on a Cost-per-click model. The site owner will get pays when a user click on the advertisement and perform an action.

Amazon Revenue Model

Generally, Amazon generates its revenue through selling products by internet which is sales revenue model and transaction fees revenue model. Amazon began its business as an online bookstore. As for now, Amazon has expended its business into retail sales of music CD, DVD, movies and other customer product.

Amazon Marketplace is a fixed price online market place that allow user to sell new or used product to each other through Amazon.com. Amazon will then charge commission and transaction fees on it.

Amazon also adopting revenue model which is Affiliates revenue model. Amazon allow website owner to create Amazon’s link in their site. The user to the website and access Amazon’s catalog directly and purchase through Amazon.

eBay Revenue Model

eBay is an online auction and shopping website which served as a intermediary for buyer and seller to gather and selling and purchasing products. User of eBay will be charged on :

Insertion fee which is charge when a seller list his product in eBay

Promotion fee which is charged when the seller put additional listing option that help to promote his product.

Final Value fee is the commission charged when a sales transaction have been successfully made between sellers and buyers.

One of the third party certification programs that is most commonly used in Malaysia is the SSL Certificates provided by VeriSign. VeriSign is well-known Certification Authority which provides trusted internet infrastructure services for digital world. One of the products provided by VerySign is the SSL Certificates, it enables the companies and consumers engage in communications and commerce without worries.

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a third party certification program that secures the e-commerce, communications, and interactions for Web sites, intranets, and extranets. The Secure Sockets Layer's function is to encrypt data, such as the credit cards numbers and passwords, to ensure data confidentiality and integrity. As the issue of phishing and spoofing attacks over the Internet is being increasingly concern by the consumers, they want to ensure that they are dealing with the trusted parties when they make transactions with each other, therefore most of the companies have involved themselves with the third party certification program to meet the customers demands.

In Malaysia, Maybank is one of the company that is using this strong end-to-end Verisign SSL Certificates to secure the data in the bank. The websites that are secured by the VeriSign SSL Certificates will have the logo in it, and thus the tendency for the customers to carry on an online transaction is higher as compared to those websites that do not have the logo. The reason is the customers would have much confident to the SSL Certificates, which will secure their transactions.

For more information about VeriSign SSL Certificates, please view http://www.verisign.com/.

First of all, do you all know what phishing is? Actually, Phishing is an act by sending a fraud email to other users and scam them in order to obtain private information for illegal activities.

“Phishers” will try to hook and steal users’ information through several ways.
  • Normally, “phishers” will send email to direct users to visit a Website where require users to verify their personal information, such as passwords and credit card, social security, and bank account numbers, which the legitimate organization already has. In fact, the Website is fake and set up for the purpose of steal users’ personal information.

bogus website

  • In order to convince the users, usually a phishing email will address itself as well known organization to ask for personal information. Besides that, they will threaten the users by closing their account if they don't reply with personal information immediately.

example of phishing Maybank email


  • “Phishers” also attack social networking sites such as Facebook. Facebook contains privacy settings leads people to disclose their information freer and thus it exposes them to phishing attacks by sending fake notification of friend confirmation to Facebook users and would request them to click on a link to confirm that they are friends. Besides, “phishers” also might send a message to users and direct them to a site called areps.at or kirgo.at or bests.at which mimic Facebook login page to hook users login Facebook again.

fake Facebook website ( see clearer at http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2009/02/informationweek_5.html;jsessionid=DX33HVY1WIKNOQSNDLPCKHSCJUNN2JVN?print=true )


It is always better to prevent before you be the next victim. So, here are the prevention methods of phishing.
  • Don’t click on links within emails that ask for your personal information.
    To identify the credibility of the emails, users can directly make a call to the particular company for verification.
  • Never enter your personal information in a pop-up screen.
    Install pop-up blocking software to help prevent this type of phishing attack.

pop-up blocker setting


  • Protect your computer with spam filters, anti-virus and anti-spyware software, and a firewall, and keep them up to date.
    Look for anti-virus programs that will automatically update frequently and keep up-to-date. For an example, Kaspersky. For further information, please visit http://www.onguardonline.gov/ and     http://www.staysafeonline.org/

Kaspersky automatic update setting


  • Be alert of forged link.
    Point the link and see whether it match what appears in the email. Don’t click on the link if it is different. In addition, usually website address that required personal information from the users will begin with “https” instead of “http”. (“s” stand for secure)


Fraud website address (without http"s" for webiste that required personal information) (more on http://www.geekzone.co.nz/juha/661)



In conclusion, internet users should be aware and prevent the trick of phishing. Government also plays an important role in educating users to avoid being cheated by the "phishers".

The term ecommerce meant the process of execution of commercial transaction over network. . It is the process of buying and selling goods, services and information through internet.

History of E-commerce (EC)

E-commerce started develops in the early 1970s. Electronic data interchange which is known as EDI is believed to be a beginning point of development of ecommerce. EDI solve the limitation of electronic fund transfer (EFT) which is used to perform financial transaction electronically. EDI enabled the big business firms to indulge in a sort of beneficial electronic transaction. However the EDI was not widely accepted due to different EDI format which is difficult to interact with each other among companies. Until the ASC X12 Standard introduced in 1984, it become more reliable for the companies to transfer the large amount of transaction.

Next, the development of Mosaic web-browser in 1992 was an important issue in the discussion of history of e-commerce. This web browser was soon given the form of a browser which could be downloaded and was named as Netscape. Consequently the scope and possibility of electronic commercial transaction was further broadened.

Other vital development of ecommerce was adoption of DSL and Red Hat Linux. These again benefited the process of online transaction. The year 2000, saw a major merger between AOL and Time Warner which marked another essential step towards the development of E-commerce. This combination proved to be very economically beneficial.

Business to Business (B2B) is the largest E-commerce in the present time, followed by Business to Customer (B2C) and evolve into Customer to Customer (C2C) and Customer to Business (C2B). Therefore, the services provided in E-commerce have diversified and this lead the E-commerce become indispensably in our future life.


Evolution of E-commerce

1984
EDI, or electronic data interchange, was standardized through ASC X12. This guaranteed that companies would be able to complete transactions with one another reliably.

1992
CompuServe offers online retail products to its customers. This gives people the first chance to buy things off their computer.

1994
Netscape arrived. Providing users a simple browser to surf the Internet and a safe online transaction technology called Secure Sockets Layer.

1995
Two of the biggest names in e-commerce are launched: Amazon.com and eBay.com.

1998
DSL, or Digital Subscriber Line, provides fast, always-on Internet service to subscribers across California. This prompts people to spend more time, and money, online.

1999
Retail spending over the Internet reaches $20 billion, according to Business.com.

2000
The U.S government extended the moratorium on Internet taxes until at least 2005.

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