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Foundations of Electronic Commerce: Computer Science at Work Foundations of Electronic Commerce: Computer Science atWork by Neal G. ShawIntroduction Many people and businesses are looking to the day when all of theirbusiness transactions can be conducted online. Rapid advancements in computertechnology and the exponential growth of the Internet have provided a reasonto believe that someday all business transactions (personal and commercial)can be processed online. Consequently, electronic commerce (EC)has become a favorite topic for both academic and commercial researchersfrom various backgrounds. The work of computer scientists has been instrumental in the developmentof EC from both the hardware and software perspectives. Advances in microprocessortechnology have allowed consumers to have PCs in their homes from whichthey may do online banking and bill payment. Software enhancements haveallowed users worldwide to have access to information from the other sideof the globe at the click of a mouse. A global electronic commerce revolutionmay take place in the near future, with computer scientists leading theway.The Area of Electronic CommerceElectronic commerce as a discipline is extremely young, and consequentlymost of its developments have been dependent upon other fields, such ascomputer science, information systems, etc. In fact, computer and systemsengineering in the service sector of the economy is, in general, a multidisciplinarytask [3]. The area of electronic commerce is full ofconfusion and lack of organization [2], and variousmodels and frameworks have been proposed to give some organization to thefield. A comprehensive framework for understanding electronic commercebased upon the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model for networkarchitectures is given in Figure 1 [8].(For one online book about OSI, see http://www.salford.ac.uk/docs/depts/iti/books/osi/osi.html.) Figure 1: A Comprehensive Framework for Understanding ElectronicCommerceNotice that eight of the ten layers of the framework depend upon outgrowthsfrom computer science. Consider the following applications of computerscience necessary for the components of the bottom eight layers of theframework: Information Layer - The information layer provides informationin a variety of formats to the upper layers of the framework. At the informationlayer, research is being done to enhance the quality and quantity of informationthat is available. More effective and efficient forms of information areneeded. For example, can we develop standards for digital video that willensure smooth video as well as manageable file sizes? Distribution and Retrieval Layer- With the tremendous amountof information available at the click of a button, how can it ever be organizedso that a company can make a profit in EC? Internet search services suchas Yahoo, Infoseek, etc. must be continually refined and updated. In addition,users would be eternally grateful to any developer who could find a wayto merge all of the existing search engines in use today (like some ofthe Multi-Search engines listed at http://www2.gol.com/users/steve/search/multi.htm).User Interface Layer - At the user interface layer lies theissue of how users will interact with online electronic commerce systems.With the ongoing battle between Microsoft and Netscape for web browsermarket share, it is difficult to predict if we will ever have one defacto standard for an EC interface. As researchers have pointed out,any EC application developed today will have to support both browsers inorder to compete in the EC market [9]. Messaging Layer - The messaging layer deals with the fundamentalquestion of how electronic commerce transactions will be processed. Willthe World Wide Web be the vehicle for EC? What about electronic datainterchange (EDI)? (For a short introduction to EDI, see http://ksi.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/courses/547-95/seanh/edi.html.)Can a reasonable mix of the WWW and EDI be used to facilitate electroniccommerce? Are there any new messaging services that can potentially beused? Authentication Layer - The authentication layer ensures thatthe party on the other end of a transaction is verifiable. Much researchhas gone into the issues of authentication and certification, especiallyin the area of public key authentication. (For one article about authentication,see "Mutual Authenticating Protocol With Key Distribution in a Client/ServerEnvironment" at http://www.acm.org/crossroads/xrds2-4/authen.html.)What still remains unanswered though, are the questions about who willbe the certificate authorities, etc. Data Layer - The data layer calls for investigation into theissues of the various platforms that are available for online business.For example, must a firm limit itself entirely to one platform, e.g. ActiveX,or can a firm successfully integrate all possible platforms so that itscustomers may choose according to their preferences? Security Layer - The security layer deals with low level securitybreach prevention mechanisms. Firewalls, encryption, and proxies are examplesof security layer issues that must be addressed. (There are several articleson computer security Crossroad's issue 2-4, the index of which can be foundat http://www.acm.org/crossroads/xrds2-4/xrds2-4.html.)Transmission Layer - At the transmission layer, basic researchis needed to solve the bandwidth bottlenecks of today's networks, specificallythat of the Internet. Emerging technologies such as ATM (see, for example,the Cell Relay FAQ at http://www.pku.edu.cn/new/on_line/ATM/atm_faq_html/FAQ/ATM-FAQ/FAQ.html), ADSL (see, for example, http://www.matisse.net/files/glossary.html#ADSL), etc. need to be enhanced and refined before they can become mainstreamtechnologies. Without efficient, fundamental physical transmission of data,even the most advanced networking applications will not be usable.Future Research and DevelopmentElectronic commerce is one of the hottest issues for businesses andresearchers today, and the business potential held by EC is immeasurable.In spite of recent technological advances, however, individuals and businessesalike seem to be hesitant to commit on a large scale to this new meansof conducting business. What, then, is slowing the proliferation of sucha promising idea in the online world?Insecure Transactions Almost certainly, the single most powerful deterrent against the widespreadimplementation of EC is the lack of security in electronic transactions,especially those on the Internet [1, 4,6]. Currently, open networks such as the Internetfoster security attacks on business transactions in many ways, i.e. eavesdropping,password sniffing, spoofing, data modification, repudiation, etc.[4]Unreliable Data Transmission Another potentially damaging problem that concerns businesses is thelack of reliability inherent in networks such as the Internet. Given thecurrent state of the Internet, there is no way to avoid an occasional lostpacket or a server that is temporarily (or permanently) out of service.Internet links go down all the time, and sometimes, there is simply toomuch network traffic to have a reasonable response time. For businesses,any server down time or lost packets can mean lost revenue. Consequently,many businesses have been unwilling to place their future in the handsof current technology.Lack of Standardization Another thorn in the side of electronic commerce is the inherent lackof standardization in the various protocols necessary for EC to becomepractical. As different companies back different standards, e.g. Microsoftvs. Netscape, DigiCash vs. CyberCash, etc., consumers and businesses areoften forced to choose between standards. For companies, this often meansalienating a large part of the customer base that adheres to a differentstandard. Businesses are unwilling and unable to sacrifice potential revenueto support electronic commerce, and research shows that EC systems mustbe capable of supporting multiple standards [9].Research and Development The previous three issues, along with various others, must be addressedby both academic researchers and commercial research and development teamsif electronic commerce is to succeed. Future research and development effortsare likely to fall into four major categories: Extracting value from EC: Once technology is in place, the mostpressing issue for companies is how to extract value from that technology.In other words, how can a company use electronic commerce to enhance itsvirtual value chain [7]? Firms must learn to leveragethe benefits and advantages provided by the use of computers and EC.Developing cross-platform software: As noted above, there isincreasing pressure on companies to provide support for all of the variouscombinations of hardware, software, and settings that are possible withtoday's technology. Developers of EC applications must be particularlyaware that each user defines his own unique interface by what browser andsetting he uses. Also, it is impossible to predict which standards, ifany, will emerge above the others as the de facto standards forEC. Thus, systems must be designed to support multiple standards.Using security and authentication technologies: Consumers andbusinesses alike are wary of transmitting sensitive data across open networkssuch as the Internet. Large scale electronic commerce will never becomemainstream until security solutions are developed to ease the fears ofthe masses. In addition, an interesting study would be one that attemptsto determine if security concerns are actually real problems or if theworries are mainly from perceived problems that actually do not exist.Developing an information infrastructure: A recent study ofinformation systems executives indicated that the most pressing concernto businesses today is building a responsive information technologyinfrastructure [5]. Computer and telecommunicationshardware and software must continually be improved to handle the globalflow of information that is increasing exponentially. Bandwidth concerns,in particular, must be addressed before the Internet simply bogs down completely.Conclusions The era of electronic commerce is upon us. Executives dream of the possibilityof cutting costs by migrating to electronic transactions from paper-basedtransactions. Consumers fantasize about paying all bills from home andbuying anything they need from the comfort of an easy chair. Before theEC revolution can truly begin, though, some fundamental issues must beaddressed on all parts of the EC spectrum. Financial and organizationalresearchers are vigorously investigating the effects of EC on people, companies,and revenues. The most pressing issues, however, must be addressed by computerscientists. Security, standards, and infrastructure issues are just a few of themany basic issues that must be addressed before widespread EC will becomeprevalent. Once these problems are solved, then as computers changed businesswith the PC revolution of the 1980s, so too will computers change businesswith the electronic commerce revolution of the future.References1 Ahuja, V. Secure Commerce on the Internet, Boston: AP Professional,1997.2 Applegate, L.M., et.al. Electronic Commerce: Building Blocks of NewBusiness Opportunity. Journal of Organizational Computing and ElectronicCommerce (6:1), June 1996, pp. 1-10.3 Berg, D. and J.M Tien. Systems Engineering in the Growing Service Economy.IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (25:5), May 1995,pp.721-725.4 Bhimani, A. Securing the Commercial Internet. Communications ofthe ACM (39:6), June 1996, pp. 29-35. 5 Brancheau, J. C., B. D. Janz, and J. C. Wetherbe. Key Issues in InformationSystems Management: 1994-95 SIM Delphi Results. MIS Quarterly June1996, pp. 225-236. 6 Liddy, C. Commercial Security on the Internet. Internet Research:Electronic Networking Applications and Policy (6:2/3) 1996, pp. 75-78.7 Rayport, J. F., and J. J. Sviokla. Exploiting the Virtual Value Chain.Harvard Business Review November-December 1995, pp. 75-97. 8 Shaw, N.G. and S. B. Yadav. A Comprehensive Framework for UnderstandingElectronic Commerce. In Proceedings of the 8th International Conferenceof the Information Resources Management Association Vancouver, B.C.Canada, May 1997. 9 Shaw, N.G. and S.B. Yadav. Characteristics of System Requirements forElectronic Commerce. In Proceedings of the 3rd Americas Conference onInformation Systems August 1997 (forthcoming). Neal G. Shaw (N.Shaw@ttu.edu,http://www.ba.ttu.edu/~odsha)is currently a Ph.D student in Management Information Systems in the Collegeof Business Administration at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas.He has authored several papers on various aspects of electronic commerce,and he received his Bachelor of Science from Texas Tech University wherehe studied mathematics and computer science.Want more Crossroads articles about Information Technology?Get a |
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