How to Get Burned by Your Internet History

Burned by your Internet history? What do you mean? Perhaps you are not aware but your personal computer is one big, powerful recorder of all your computer activity. Whether you are searching the Internet, browsing the Internet, having chat sessions, sending or receiving files or doing whatever your computer is capturing every keystroke and recording your tracks about where you have been, what you have viewed and what you have done.

Oh, you say that is no big deal. I’ll just delete my Internet history and temporary files with the tools offered by my favorite browser. Well, think again. Are you aware that there are numerous visible and hidden files where all this information is written and stored? Unfortunately, the tools offered by your favorite browser do not erase or eliminate all these files and it’s not all your Internet browser’s fault.

Did you know standard Windows file deletion options utilized by your browser do not physically delete the files? What are deleted are the index records detailing the file’s location and physical properties. The physical or actual file is still there and ready to be recovered by data recovery software that can be successfully used by both novice and experienced users. Until the original deleted physical file has been overwritten by another physical file, the original physical file is recoverable.

So what does all this mean to me? Absolutely nothing if you have not been visiting websites or doing activities that could create a compromising situation if discovered by your employer, spouse or significant other. Now, if you have been to websites, sent questionable emails or had off-color chat sessions that you shouldn’t have then you are in position to be placed in an embarrassing and compromising situation if discovered by the wrong individual. Perhaps, you are in this last situation and don’t want to get burned by your Internet history and tracks?

If so, then protect your privacy by using a privacy control software solution that insures the elimination of Internet and computer activity history on your personal computer. Don’t rely on the deletion tools provided by your Internet browser or Windows! Their shortcomings may be your downfall as you get burned by your Internet history creating personal anguish or employment troubles.

Don’t get burned by your Internet history. Get your privacy control software tool today and insure your privacy and confidentiality!

Would you like to learn more about protecting your Internet privacy and erasing your Internet or web activities? Check out http://www.InternetErasers.net now! Internet Erasers is an independent review site helping you make informed decisions about Internet privacy and security software. Our trusted reviews are created with knowledge and passion for the subject.

Each product featured on our website is compared with its competitors for functionality, performance and value providing you with the knowledge to make an informed selection and buying decision. In addition to our in-depth product reviews we offer other helpful tips and advice to improve your computer's performance, privacy and security.

Ecommerce Implementation - A case study Technical Report

The e-commerce implementation at CanCric

Sam Harnett

Document Introduction

This document presents the analysis of an e-commerce implementation in the CanCric, a Canterbury based company that sells cricket products to sports stores around the UK. This document will aim to give a more inside picture of the e-commerce implementation the management has envisaged and will provide a basis for the feasibility analysis of the project.

Document Audience

This document has been prepared primarily for the senior management. However, as there are no current employees who have sufficient in-depth expertise to develop the application ‘in-house’, it is likely that a commercial service provider will be contracted for the job. This document will provide the basic understanding of “what to do” for the contractor.

Document Contents

This document contains analysis of the CanCric e-commerce implementation and following artefacts will be included in the overall report.

· Project Introduction

· Project Benefits

· System Requirements

· Implementation Plan

· Risk Assessment

· Conclusion

Project Introduction

CanCric is a Canterbury based company that sells cricket products to sports stores around the UK. Their products include crickets equipment (gloves, helmets, balls, bats, pads, shocks etc.) and memorabilia (flags, T-Shirts, prints etc.)

CanCric is a market leader because of its high quality products and listening to its customers. The company wants to further improve the quality of its products and create a stronger relationship with its customers by implementing an e-commerce system.

Project Benefits

The project will bring following envisaged benefits to the company:

1. The new website will provide a better marketing place for the company to capture much more business by publicizing their products on internet.

2. The company will be able to increase its profit by the increasing sales. Increase in sales is part and parcel with the e-commerce implementation.

3. The company will be able to expand the size of the market from regional to national or national to international. Currently the company is only selling its products within the UK.

4. The company will be able to decrease costs in different areas elicited below:

a. Costs of creating the product

b. Cost of Marketing since online marketing is cheaper than other print media

c. Costs of distribution in few cases, like providing online brochures will reduce cost of printing and shipping information to prospective clients

d. Costs of processing orders from the customers are the most important cost reduction the project will achieve. The online application will ease the repeating activities and information processing for the overall order processing.

e. The cost of handling customer phone calls will also be reduced by providing online discussion forums and suggestion boxes which most of the customers will willfully accept.

f. Online presence of information will decrease the manual handling of sales inquiries, thus reducing a lot of cost in terms of time and resources.

g. E-commerce project implementations can be enhanced to perform thousands of other operations to provide the user with very rich information. One is the inventory forecast. E-commerce systems can be enhanced to forecast the sales in the upcoming months by analyzing the past trends. This can greatly reduce the cost of extra inventory management.

5. Electronic content management services will be provided to reduce the cost of content retrieval and provide security and controlled access rights features.

6. Websites provide easy change management. The point here is that with a web site, you can have the prices listed, and change them - you simply edit the web page - whereas in a printed catalogue you are stuck with the expense of printing a new version if you need to change many of the prices.

7. Websites enables customization of products if CanCric ever want to support it.

8. The project will enable CanCric to build more collaborative and stronger relationships with its suppliers. This includes streamlining and automating the underlying business processes, enabling areas such as

a. Online procurement of material

b. Replenishment

c. Information Management

d. Reduced inventories due to efficient information exchange

e. Reduced delivery delays.

System Requirements

Given below are the requirements of the system, listed with respect to the modules in the system

Web Site

1. The website of the system should be very user friendly

2. The website should show the overall mission statement and vision of the company

3. The website should clearly give a complete catalogue of all products the company is manufacturing, along with the pictures of the product.

4. The website should also highlight the future plans of CanCric about the product expansions.

5. The search functionality should be provided on the website

6. The website search should be to display the closest results to the search strings

7. The search functionality should support input of multiple search criteria.

8. The functionality to display the whole site map of the website should be provided.

9. The website should also be maintaining the sponsored players’ information

10. The sponsored players’ information should be shown in the column form

Discussion Boards

11. The website should also have functionality of online discussion boards

12. The registered users should be able to participate in the discussions

13. Any visitor can see the discussions

14. The system should be able to maintain discussions in the form of tree and chronological order

15. User should be able to delete the post from discussion boards

16. User should not be able to edit the discussion posts

17. Administrator should be able to administer the discussion boards.

Online Order Processing

18. The website should allow users to maintain their user profiles.

19. The website should make sure that the user information will not be misused.

20. The website should provide the facility to the user to pre-enter the credit card information of the user for the future use by the user

21. The website should allow the user to maintain a shopping cart along with its profile

22. The user should be able to add cricket products in its shopping cart.

23. The user should be shown the overall cost of the current selection in the shopping cart

24. The user should be able to delete entries from the shopping cart

25. The user should be able to preview the shopping cart any time it want to

26. The user should be able to save the current shopping cart for future use

27. The facility to buy the items in the shopping cart should be provided with complete security measures.

28. The shopping cart should be empty after the transaction

29. The delivery options should be shown to the user.

30. The user should be given option to choose a courier company of its choice.

31. The user should be able to change the billing details any time during the whole procedure of online order processing.

32. The payment options available should include:

* Payment through personal credit card

* Payment through company credit card

* Payment through the monthly billing option

Research and development

33. The option to host a online survey should be provided

34. The data collected from surveys should be available for reporting and analysis purposes

35. Support to generate reports on given criteria should be provided in the system

36. Multiple types of reports should be available in the system

37. The sales data, the visit history on the websites and the survey results; all should be available for the analysis purposes.

38. For the analysis purposes, application should support technologies like data mining and data warehousing.

Implementation Plan

The iteration from current business to new computerized system will take following steps to be completed:

1. Training of resources who will be using the new application

2. Development of confidence for the new system among the CanCric employees

3. Web Hosting Plan

Web Hosting

E-Commerce Web hosting is adding an e-commerce application to a Web hosting package, which is what allows you to have a store on the Internet. To have a Web site or store on the Internet we will need a Web server. Unfortunately, owning a Web server can be very costly and requires technical expertise that CanCric lacks. So, we will have to outsource this management and hosting to some Web Hosting Company. Web hosting companies will provide the equipment and other technical resources.

I have identified these ecommerce packages and hosting plans as suitable for CanCric’s needs.

Hosting:

1. http://www.bluehost.com – This site offers 10 GB of storage and 250GB of transfer each month as well as SSL, PHP and MySQL, which are commonly required for a lot of ecommerce applications. It also has an excellent account administration system that incorporates management of databases and private server settings. The package also comes with free wiki and forum software that can be easily integrated. Bluehost is available from £30 per year.

2. http://www.newnet.co.uk – Newnet offers hosing packages from £57 per year and collocation from £150. Although our needs don’t require co-location yet, having the option to upgrade to co-location on the same premises will be an asset. The host offers scripting and SSL services necessary for ecommerce and a managed back up timetable to secure our businesses data.

3. http://www.ukip.co.uk – UKIP is a broadband provider that also offers hosting services. They offer the same hosting scripting services as Bluehost and Newnet, they also offer support for active server pages and java server pages which will allow us to consider a wider range of ecommerce applications.

Ecommerce:

1. http://www.actinic.co.uk – Actinic is one of the most popular systems currently available with over 10,000 users in 40 countries. Actinic can integrate with dreamweaver MX and has a range of features not just suitable to the ecommerce but also to many other facets of business management such as stock monitoring. Actinic Business is suitable for our level of development as cost £799 per license. Actinic is also capable of both B2B and B2C practises.

2. http://www.storefront.net – Storefront is an API that can be integrated into dreamweaver or front page or used independently. It provides mechanisms form displaying products and managing a shopping cart. It is designed to allow maximum creativity for the designer while still taking part of the technicalities such as shopping and paying.

Risk Assessment

There are also a few risks associated with the e-commerce system implementation at CanCric, which must be mitigated to make the project successful.

1. The hardware and network infrastructure should be sufficient to run and access the system

2. A level of confidence must be built within the company for the usage of the new system. The employees are expected to resist to such change in the organizations.

3. Customer fear of personal information being used wrongly. Such issues should be catered in the system.

4. Rules and regulations must be redefined according the new system.

5. Security and privacy must be handled carefully since the CanCric system involves online transaction support.

Conclusion

The e-commerce implementation will definitely provide CanCric an excellent opportunity to capture the international markets of cricket goods. However, there are few things we should take care of; first of all we must avoid over-expecting e-commerce lest we create a backlash when its promises are not fulfilled. E-commerce will not, in and of itself, correct all the businesses problems. Secondly, the benefits of e-commerce will be restricted if we do not recognize its full system implications, and instead implement it in limited ways that only partially meet its requirements.

Computer Forensics Services Against Computer Vandalism

Computer crime, cybercrime, e-crime, hi-tech crime or electronic crime generally refers to criminal activity where a computer or network is the source, tool, or target of a crime. Although computer crime and cybercrime are more properly restricted to describing criminal activity in which the computer or network is a necessary part of the crime, they are also used to include crimes like fraud, theft, blackmail, forgery, and embezzlement, in which computers, information technology or networks is used.

A computer is an excellent device for record keeping, particularly given the power to encode the data and can be used as a source of evidence. This evidence can be obtained and decoded, which can be used by the criminal investigators with the technical help provided by Computer Forensics Services.

Computer Forensics Services makes use of analytical and investigative techniques to identify, collect, examine and preserve evidence or information that is magnetically stored or encoded against such crimes. A forensic investigation by Computer Forensics Services can be initiated as part of criminal investigation, or civil litigation, through the sophisticated digital forensic techniques.

Computer Forensics Services like Data Triage Technologies provides digital evidence when data has been lost in the instances like:

* Employee internet abuse

* Unauthorized disclosure of corporate information and data

* Industrial espionage

* Damage of the system in an accident

* Criminal fraud and deception cases

* Criminal cases where criminals have used computers to store information

Investigation by Computer Forensics Services offers to:

* Secure the system from tampering

* Generate a copy of hard drive

* Identify and recover files deleted

* Access or copy the hidden files

* Retrieve the protected and temporary files

* Generate data from the residue of deleted files

* Analyze data/settings concerned

* Identify installed applications/programs

* Assess the system

* Discover electronic evidence of the user activity

At Data Triage Technologies, the computer forensics experts identify, preserve and analyze potentially discoverable electronic evidence, while maintaining a cost effective approach throughout the process to support ongoing investigation. Their digital interrogation techniques ensure that computers “talk” for discovery purposes. Computers don’t lie, but it takes an expert to uncover the truth.

Can Data Breaches Be Expected From Bankrupt Mortgage Lenders?

The stock market is in a tumult. Actually, it has been for about a year, ever since the subprime fiasco (anyone take a look at Moody's performance over the past year?) Now that that particular issue has been beaten to death, other mortgage related issues are cropping up. Most of the stuff covered in the media is financial in nature, but some of those mortgage related issues do concern information security.

It's no secret that there are plenty of companies in the US that discard sensitive documents by dumping them unceremoniously: leave it by the curb, drive it to a dumpster, heave it over the walls of abandoned property, and other assorted mind boggling insecure practices. In fact, MSNBC has an article on this issue, and names numerous bankrupt mortgage companies whose borrowers' records were found in dumpsters and recycling centers. The information on those documents include credit card numbers and SSNs, as well as addresses, names, and other information needed to secure a mortgage.

Since the companies have filed for bankruptcy and are no more, the potential victims involved have no legal recourse, and are left to fend for themselves. In a way, it makes sense that companies that have filed for bankruptcy are behaving this way. (Not that I'm saying this is proper procedure.) For starters, if a company does wrong, one goes after the company; however, the company has filed for bankruptcy, it is no more, so there's no one to "go after." In light of the company status, this means that the actual person remaining behind to dispose of things, be they desks or credit applications, can opt to do whatever he feels like. He could shred the applications. He could dump them nearby. He could walk away and let the building's owner take care of them. What does he care? It's not as if he's gonna get fired.

Also, proper disposal requires either time, money, or both. A bankrupt company doesn't have money. It may have time, assuming people are going to stick around, but chances are their shredder has been seized by creditors. People are not going to stick around to shred things by hand, literally.

Aren't there any laws regulating this? Apparently, such issues are covered by FACTA, the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, and although its guidelines require that "businesses to dispose of sensitive financial documents in a way that protects against 'unauthorized access to or use of the information'" [msnbc.com], it stops short of requiring the physical destruction of data. I'm not a lawyer, but perhaps there's enough leeway in the language for one to go around dropping sensitive documents in dumpsters?

Like I mentioned before, inappropriate disposal of sensitive documents has been going on forever; I'm pretty sure this has been a problem since the very first mortgage was issued. My personal belief is that most companies would act responsibly and try to properly dispose of such information. But, this may prove to be a point of concern as well because of widespread misconceptions of what it means to protect data against unauthorized access.

What happens if a company that files for bankruptcy decides to sell their company computers to pay off creditors? Most people would delete the information found in the computer, and that's that-end of story. Except, it's not. When files are deleted, the actual data still resides in the hard disks; it's just that the computer's operating system doesn't have a way to find the information anymore. Indeed, this is how retail data restoration applications such as Norton are able to recover accidentally deleted files.

Some may be aware of this and decide to format the entire computer before sending it off to the new owners. The problem with this approach is the same as deleting files: data recovery is a cinch with the right software. Some of them retail for $30 or less-as in free. So, the sensitive data that's supposed to be deleted can be recovered, if not easily, at least cheaply-perhaps by people with criminal interests.

Am I being paranoid? I don't think so. I've been tracking fraud for years now, and I can't help but conclude that the criminal underworld has plenty of people looking to be niche operators, not to mention that there are infinitesimal ways of defrauding people (look up "salad oil" and "American Express," for an example). An identification theft ring looking to collect sensitive information from bankrupt mortgage dealers wouldn't surprise me, especially in an environment where such companies are dropping left and right.

The economics behind it make sense as well. A used computer will retail anywhere from $100 to $500. The information in it, if not wiped correctly, will average many times more even if you factor in the purchase of data recovery software. Criminals have different ways of capitalizing on personal data, ranging from selling the information outright to engaging in something with better returns.

Is there a better way to protect oneself? Whole disk encryption is a way to ensure that such problems do not occur: One can just reformat the encrypted drive itself to install a new OS; the original data remains encrypted, so there's no way to extract the data. Plus, the added benefit is that the data is protected in the event that a computer gets lost or stolen. However, commonsense dictates that encryption is something ongoing concerns sign up for, not businesses about to go bankrupt. My guess is that sooner or later we'll find instances of data breaches originating from equipment being traced back to bankrupt mortgage dealers.

The stock market is in a tumult. Actually, it has been for about a year, ever since the subprime fiasco (anyone take a look at Moody's performance over the past year?) Now that that particular issue has been beaten to death, other mortgagerelated issues are cropping up. Most of the stuff covered in the media is financial in nature, but some of those mortgagerelated issues do concern information security.

It's no secret that there are plenty of companies in the US that discard sensitive documents by dumping them unceremoniously: leave it by the curb, drive it to a dumpster, heave it over the walls of abandoned property, and other assorted mindboggling insecure practices. In fact, MSNBC has an article on this issue, and names numerous bankrupt mortgage companies whose borrowers' records were found in dumpsters and recycling centers. The information on those documents include credit card numbers and SSNs, as well as addresses, names, and other information needed to secure a mortgage.

Since the companies have filed for bankruptcy and are no more, the potential victims involved have no legal recourse, and are left to fend for themselves. In a way, it makes sense that companies that have filed for bankruptcy are behaving this way. (Not that I'm saying this is proper procedure.) For starters, if a company does wrong, one goes after the company; however, the company has filed for bankruptcy, it is no more, so there's no one to "go after." In light of the company status, this means that the actual person remaining behind to dispose of things, be they desks or credit applications, can opt to do whatever he feels like. He could shred the applications. He could dump them nearby. He could walk away and let the building's owner take care of them. What does he care? It's not as if he's gonna get fired.

Also, proper disposal requires either time, money, or both. A bankrupt company doesn't have money. It may have time, assuming people are going to stick around, but chances are their shredder has been seized by creditors. People are not going to stick around to shred things by hand, literally.

Aren't there any laws regulating this? Apparently, such issues are covered by FACTA, the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, and although its guidelines require that "businesses to dispose of sensitive financial documents in a way that protects against 'unauthorized access to or use of the information'" [msnbc.com], it stops short of requiring the physical destruction of data. I'm not a lawyer, but perhaps there's enough leeway in the language for one to go around dropping sensitive documents in dumpsters?

Like I mentioned before, inappropriate disposal of sensitive documents has been going on forever; I'm pretty sure this has been a problem since the very first mortgage was issued. My personal belief is that most companies would act responsibly and try to properly dispose of such information. But, this may prove to be a point of concern as well because of widespread misconceptions of what it means to protect data against unauthorized access.

What happens if a company that files for bankruptcy decides to sell their company computers to pay off creditors? Most people would delete the information found in the computer, and that's that-end of story. Except, it's not. When files are deleted, the actual data still resides in the hard disks; it's just that the computer's operating system doesn't have a way to find the information anymore. Indeed, this is how retail data restoration applications such as Norton are able to recover accidentally deleted files.

Some may be aware of this and decide to format the entire computer before sending it off to the new owners. The problem with this approach is the same as deleting files: data recovery is a cinch with the right software. Some of them retail for $30 or less-as in free. So, the sensitive data that's supposed to be deleted can be recovered, if not easily, at least cheaply-perhaps by people with criminal interests.

Am I being paranoid? I don't think so. I've been tracking fraud for years now, and I can't help but conclude that the criminal underworld has plenty of people looking to be niche operators, not to mention that there are infinitesimal ways of defrauding people (look up "salad oil" and "American Express," for an example). An identification theft ring looking to collect sensitive information from bankrupt mortgage dealers wouldn't surprise me, especially in an environment where such companies are dropping left and right.

The economics behind it make sense as well. A used computer will retail anywhere from $100 to $500. The information in it, if not wiped correctly, will average many times more even if you factor in the purchase of data recovery software. Criminals have different ways of capitalizing on personal data, ranging from selling the information outright to engaging in something with better returns.

Is there a better way to protect oneself? Whole disk encryption is a way to ensure that such problems do not occur: One can just reformat the encrypted drive itself to install a new OS; the original data remains encrypted, so there's no way to extract the data. Plus, the added benefit is that the data is protected in the event that a computer gets lost or stolen. However, commonsense dictates that encryption is something ongoing concerns sign up for, not businesses about to go bankrupt. My guess is that sooner or later we'll find instances of data breaches originating from equipment being traced back to bankrupt mortgage dealers.

An Essential Tips For Novice Marketers For Internet Marketing

There are definitely lots of people like you but they all should not worry because the answer is very simple, the Internet marketing is not at all complicated and it is subject to the same rules as that would be called conventional business. Most of the time great amount of people in their brain campaigning, a traditional business would be running around all other businesses tearing their hair out and if they have any sense then make a business and marketing plan and stick to it so at least until it ceases to work.

There is going to be only difference with an Internet business is that you have to make yourself known to a very large audience and also you have to enter into a dialogue of trust with your prospective market because this is not different from any other business except that the audience or market is much wider spread.

Like in any other type of business there is going to be many methods of attracting your market but you cannot do them all especially at the start and take no notice of what other marketers may tell you does not work anymore so many products today are presented as the magic bullet to success and most bullets do more harm than good, particularly if you are just novice to the arena then it has worked before it still will given patience and there is a degree of fashion in any business not the least the Internet Marketing business, what is hot today will cool tomorrow hence don't be running around in circles trying to keep up.

Few years ago when people first introduced to Internet Marketing the advice they were given was to find a marketing method that they felt at ease and passionate about and learn more as how to use that method and refine their skills and being new many didn't take a great deal of notice at the time so they forgot the fundamental of business and wasted money but some of them did not give up and just went very quiet for a time.

Time is not the essential issue here because Internet marketing is a business not a get rich quick lottery and getting traffic to your site is very important but trying to attract thousands of poorly targeted traffic that is questionable. So the more skilled you become in your chosen method, the more useful information you can give and more targeted traffic you will attract. Many people hate this idea of driving traffic to site in fact they much prefer attracting traffic and in no way are their client’s cattle because they are a very valuable resource not only to their business but to themselves as well.