Touch-n Go for E-tailing

The Octopus card is a rechargeable contact less stored value smart card used to transfer electronic payments in online or off line systems in Hong Kong. There are four types of cards that are On-Loan, Sold, the Airport Express Tourist and the MTR Airport Staff.

On-Loan cards are issued for usage in daily functions, first and foremost for fare payment in transport systems. If an owner loses a card, only the stored value and the deposit of the card are lost and no identification is necessary to buy the card. This type of Octopus card is anonymous; no personal information, bank account or credit card details are stored on the card.

Sold cards are sponsored and branded cards. Octopus Cards Limited only distributes Sold cards as souvenir cards. These cards are sold at a premium, have limited or no initial stored value, and cannot be refunded, but they can otherwise be used as ordinary cards. Mcmug and Mcdull collection are the example of Sold cards.

Octopus Cards Limited also introduced Airport Express Tourist to target tourists in Hong Kong. There are two versions of this card are accessible, a HK$220 card with a free single ride on the Airport Express, the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) train line that runs between the Hong Kong International Airport and the city areas, and also a $300 card with two free single rides included. The airport journeys are valid for 180 days from the date of purchase. These tourist Octopus cards may be used only by tourists staying in Hong Kong for 14 or fewer days.Users might be need to buy a passport showing their arrival date in Hong Kong. Airport Express Tourist Octopus is available for purchase at all MTR stations.

The MTR Airport Staff Octopus is obtainable for the staff of Hong Kong International Airport and Asia World-Expo for commuting at a reduced fare between the airport and MTR stations via the Airport Express. For those staff got the card may use it for a discount of up to 64 percent for Airport Express single journey fares. The MTR Airport Staff Octopus is obtainable upon application via the company for which that a staff member works.

The Octopus card used to pay fares for all public transport in Hong Kong and to make purchases for consumer products at many stores in the city. It is accepted by more than 160 merchants. The card can be used in many soft drink vending machines, photo booths, parking meters, pay phones and car parks

Famous businesses that accept Octopus cards include PARKnSHOP, Watson, 7-Eleven, Starbucks, McDonald's, and Circle K.. Octopus cards can also be used for admission control in buildings and for school administrative functions.In 21 November 2004,all parking meters in Hong Kong had been changed to using the Octopus card as the form of payment.

Mobile payment systems in Malaysia: It’s potentials and consumers’ adoption strategies

Mobile payment also referred to as mobile web payment or WAP billing is the collection of money from a consumer via a mobile device such as their mobile phone, Smart Phone, Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) or other such device.

Mobile payment can be used to purchase any number of digital or hard goods, such as music, videos, ringtones, games, wallpapers and other digital goods. Besides that, it is also can be used to purchase books, magazines, tickets and other hard goods.

Nowadays, there are some companies start promote mobile systems in Malaysia, such as Visa and Nokia. Visa and Nokia have teamed up to release the world's first credit card payment system in Malaysia, they allow consumers to shop and pay by using their mobile phones. PayPal has launched a somewhat similar service called PayPal Mobile that lets people transfer money through their cell phones.

Nokia phones will use the Visa Wave smart card technology that utilizes the radio frequencies to eliminate the need to swipe credit card into a reader. During the trial period, Visa Wave cardholders in Malaysia will be given a special Nokia phone that can be used for such payments.

Pilot implementations of mobile payments have shown that consumers find mobile payments both functional and convenient. However, while consumers are receptive to innovative mobile payment devices and services, they are also still looking for a strong value proposition. Consumers are aware that they have alternatives and are educated about other options. Finally, consumers are showing a heightened awareness of security and privacy issues. Mobile payment scenarios can enhance security and privacy. However, if the perception exists that mobile payment potentially involves loss of privacy, consumers will not accept it.

Review on post on e-tailing My E-Commerce blog

I’ve done a lot of blog surfing lately, in search of new (best) blogs. What I found often, however, was that there are things people could do to improve the relationship and interaction value of their blogs, which would in turn build a better bridge between blogs and their readers.
Here are certain recomendation in my point of view of a post on e-tailing frm E-Commerce blog

1.Display Contact Info Prominently- Put the author’s name right up there easy to read, and add a photo, an email written out to avoid spiders ( chris at lifehack dot org instead of actually clickable), and even a phone number, if you want people to reach you. Add your IM username, and other contact info. If it’s a multi-author blog, display an “About the Authors” link prominently. .
2.Format Your Text- Take the extra time to write “pretty” posts, such as it were. Make it so that people can read what you’re typing, and do your best to keep the tone communicative, and not too dense. Translation: big fat paragraphs of dense text usually don’t make for “friendly” blog reading.
3.Use Tagging- The best thing about using Technorati tags and other tagging features is that it helps you AND others. As a blogger, it gets you more traffic from people interested in the words you’ve selected as tags for your post. As a reader, it helps you determine quickly if something is relevant to your interests.
4.Link, Link, Link- When you talk about 43 Folders, give them a link. When you write about a hilarious video on New Year’s Resolutions, share the direct link. This has two effects: one is that it makes it more useful to your readers. Two, it shows Google that you’re alive and sharing information back and forth (which benefits you *and* the linkee). BONUS: it’s good karma, and people feel warm and fuzzy when they see you’ve linked to them.

Credit Card:Causes & Prevention

A lot of people use credit cards as a "crutch." If they can't afford something they really want, they charge it. Then when it comes time to paying the bill they pay the minimum amount due (very bad thing) only. This then accumulates a good awful amount of interest and the next month when you get your bill, the balance is about the same.

Prevention

1.Limit the number of cards that you have. If your cards offer low interest balance transfers, transfer the balances from your other cards onto the card with the lowest rate.
2.Pay at least twice the minimum. Paying the minimum will prevent you from paying off the credit card for many years.
3.Renegotiate your APR at least twice a year. Give a call to your credit card company and speak to a representative to see if you are eligible for a lower APR.
4.Stop charging everything. An effective way to manage a credit card is to charge only things that you can afford to pay off at the end of the billing cycle.
5.Try to pay off the balance during the interest free period. If your credit card offers an interest free promotional period, make the most out of it by paying off any debt that you have accumulated by the end of the period.
6.Look for a rewards card. These cards allow you to get merchandise from your credit card company.

Causes

1.Public are not aware of the danger of improper and excessive use of credit cards.

2.The process to get a credit card is very easy.So many people tend to have many credit cards

3.The interest keep on accumulates and cause difficulties to pay bay due to the delay payment

4.Credit card being used even for small sum of amounts.

Phishing:An examples and prevention methods

Phishing is a crime technique to steal the identity of a target company to get the identities of its customers (by turban e-electronic commerce 2008 a managerial perspective) It is also recognized as a scam.

An Example of phishing is an eBay phishing email such as the eBay logo, the attacker attempts to gain authority. In the purporting email warns the victim that there is a billing incorrect may have been made on the account and urges the eBay victim to login
and confirm the charges.

Besides that, another example is Citibank phishing. The attacker will trick the victims by instructed them to visit a fake website and enter personal financial details for their confirmation shake of security online banking. The attacker will then use to disturb the very security and integrity they claim to be protecting.

Prevention Methods is if there is a suspicious email received that instructs you to login to any account for any reason should be viewed with suspicion, users should report and send it to the US Federal Trade Commission at spam@uce.gov or you can just click the “Report As Junk” button on your email program. Or verify the authenticity of the email by call the bank or commerce site to seek for confirmation. However, scammers may use phone number to trick victims in the suspicious email as well.

There are few ways to prevent from attacked by phishing such as using Phishing Filters,
Look for online websites for known phishing sites,try to avoid for any suspicious emails asking for private information which you feel unsecured.Phishing Filter helps identify and warn about possible phishing scams. There are ways that these can be used such as

Built-in filters.It built into the browser and scan web addresses and pages for characteristics that are known as phishing scams and also will warn the users if any sites visited are found disbelieving.Other than that, , according to Microsoft Online service is the most triumphant phishing sites appear and disappear in 24-48 hours. These services provide up-to-the-hour information about reported phishing Web sites.

Reference;

http://antivirus.about.com/od/securitytips/a/stopphish.htm

www.cwu.edu/~balea/page5.html

How to safeguard our personal and financial data?

Nowadays, computer and internet are very common to everyone. We will rely on computer to save our personal data and using online financial services to do financial transactions such as online purchases or online banking in order to safe time. Before we do any financial transaction in the website, we need to register to become a member to fill in some personal information. The information is including name, date of birth, gender, address, telephone, e-mail address, occupation and interests. “Personal Financial Information” means any record containing a customer of a financial institution, whether in paper, electronic, or another form, that is handled by behalf of the institution or its affiliates.

But, is it security to protect consumer avoid embezzled by other people? Therefore, there are some ways I suggest to safeguard our personal and financial data.

1. Use strong password or pass-phrase to protect your access data. When using the computer, password plays an important role to many aspects. We do not reveal any personal information or particularly passwords to anyone. After using any of the Financial Data Center or member services, must remember to log out properly before leaving the Financial Data Center. Besides that, if share information with another users or use our services on a public computer such as in a public library, school computer lab or Internet cafe, must remember to close the browser window. That is to prevent other users from reading your personal information and mail. Besides that, we also need to avoid using passwords that are easy for someone to guess, such as the your personal identity card numbers. Then, it is also strongly suggested to change regularly and different passwords make to different accounts.

2. Install and update antispyware and antivirus programs. To safeguard our personal and financial data, we can install an antivirus program such as Symantec and Norton antivirus, AVG antivirus or other more in order to protect ourselves against viruses and Trojan horses that may steal or modify the data on our own computer. Besides that, we always need to make sure our antispyware and antivirus programs is up to date.

3. Install a firewall. Firewall can also prevent the unswanted data coming into computer and unauthorized data leaving from computer. Most new computers come with firewalls integrated into their operating systems. If we have an older computer or using dial-up, then we may need to buy a firewall separately and install it ourselves.

4. Regularly scan your computer for spyware. Spyware or adware hidden in software programs may affect the performance of your computer and give attackers access to our data. Use a justifiable anti-spyware program to scan our computer and remove any of the infected files.

5. Avoid unused software programs. We need to always make sure that we do not clutter our computer with unnecessary software programs. If there have programs on our computer that we do not use, consider uninstalling them.

6. Use separate local or network accounts. By using separate accounts, individuals can be assigned very specific access rights and privileges. Using separate accounts with differing access levels limits the potential for accidental or malicious data exposure.


7. Identify where the data is stored. When we need to store any sensitive or confidential data temporarily on a memory stick, laptop, or other device, remove that data from the device when we have finished, and ensure that data has been completely erased and not just deleted.

References:

http://www.msisac.org/awareness/news/2007-03.cfm

http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/103893/Six-Ways-to-Safeguard-Your-Online-Assets

The Application of 3rd Party Certification Programme In Malaysia

VeriSign is the most trusted mark on the Internet of the 3rd party certification programme.
VeriSign secures more than one million Web servers worldwide, more than any other Certificate Authority. The world’s 40 largest banks and over 93% of Fortune 500 companies choose VeriSign SSL Certificates.
Over 75% of Web sites using Extended Validation SSL choose VeriSign, including biggest names in e-commerce and banking. Over 90,000 domains in 145 countries display the VeriSign Secured Seal, the most recognized trust mark on the Internet.

Benefits

VeriSign offers the strongest SSL encryption
High-level encryption, at 128 bits, can calculate 288 times as many combinations as 40-bit encryption. That’s over a trillion times a trillion times stronger.
Only True 128-bit SSL Certificates with Server Gated Cryptography (SGC) enable every site visitor to experience the strongest SSL encryption available to them.

VeriSign is the leading SSL provider of SGC-enabled SSL Certificates, enabling 128- or 256-bit encryption for over 99.9% of Internet users.

VeriSign is the leading SSL Certificate Authority
It makes it easy to keep track of all your SSL Certificates and maintain the security of your online services with VeriSign® Certificate Center, a single-point control online management portal. If you already have a SSL certificate, Verisign also offers payment processing solutions. You will need a merchant account in addition to these solutions. You will also need to have a shopping cart that will integrate with Verisign. When you use the Verisign payment processing gateway, you are ensuring that your customer’s information will not be stolen while they are being redirected to your merchant account processing system. The payment processing solutions all offer the ability to use the Verisign Seal on your website.

VeriSign helped lead the development of Extended Validation to give Web site visitors a visible sign of trust and security in the browser bar on high security browsers.