I. Areas of Consideration (Facts)
The Electronic Mall Bodensee (emb.net) project was
launched in January 1995 to develop and implement a regional, electronic
marketplace in the area around Lake Constance in Europe. EMB major goal was to
strengthen the economy of the region, utilizing the potential of new telematic
infrastructures of the information age. It is based on Internet technology. EMB
serves as an example for observation of business transactions between different
partners on a regional scale.
II.
Problem
The currently prevailing problem of acceptance, which is
still a significant hurdle for electronic market platforms. Even the EMB
enables world-wide access, still business has been regionally limited, due to
the fact that some shops offer their products only in German. Currency Problem.
vendors accept only their local currency
Because of this, settlement becomes very expensive for the buyer because banks
charge high transfer and exchange fees.
III.
Alternative Courses of Action
The Electronic Mall Bodensee acts as an electronic
intermediary reducing the number of direct business partners. Instead of
sending private information to many different merchants, the customer sends it
only to the EMB. The resulting indirect relationship helps to preserve privacy.
The
BROKAT Solution
·
Brokat is
a German company which recently developed a security solution for payment
settlements.
·
Java-based
and uses a 128-bit encryption key within the applet.
·
The
loading of the applet takes more than one minute, which makes the process quite
time-consuming. Once the applet is transferred the relevant payment information
is encrypted using a 128-bit “Euro-key”.
SecureNet
·
SecureNet
is a Swiss product developed by r3, a company specializing in security and
encryption. SecureNet requires the installation of additional client software
on the customer’s local machine (r3 SSL HTTP Client). The software serves as a
secure proxy which encodes the information using a 128-bit code. The SecureNet
server also needs special software to be able to interpret the encoded information
(the r3 SSL HTTP Server).
·
most
transactions are settled using credit cards, the data is stored legibly on the
local EMB server in a SQL/Oracle database.
IV.
Evaluation of each ACAs
Computers are special technology and they raise some special
ethical issues. Electronic malls like the EMB open up many new possibilities
that were never available before. For example, people all over the globe
suddenly become potential customers for a “local” shop without ever leaving
their country or even their own homes. Can potentially serve customers world-wide, instead of
just people who happen to live nearby or tourists who happen to be passing
through. an EMB project group is studying potential improvements that
could be derived from using the SET-standard (Secure Electronic Transactions)
payment protocol which VISA and MasterCard developed to enable secure credit
card transactions via open electronic networks. GTE, IBM, Microsoft, Netscape,
VeriSign and other important players supported the two credit card companies in
developing SET as an open standard. Payment transactions which are performed
using SET result in some big advantages regarding protection of personal
customer information. These are:
1. Secured data
transfer via encryption
2. Data
integrity due to digital signatures
3. Authentication of card
holder and vendor via digital signatures and certificates
V.
Conclusion
Computer ethics is the analysis of the nature
and social impact of computer technology and the corresponding formulation and
justification of policies for the ethical use of such technology. The creators
of the EMB, their customers, the cooperating merchants and international
business organizations, the regional and national governments involved are all
engaged in a complex process of weighing considered ethical judgments,
interpreting and adjusting old policies, and creating new policies. The aim of
this complex process is to eventually formulate rules of conduct that will
preserve and protect the security and privacy of personal data that flows
through the EMB and makes Cyber business possible in the Boden see region of
Europe. It is clear that the
decision process involved is much more complex than merely applying
philosophical theories like utilitarianism and Kantianism to cases and dilemmas.
Indeed, such an abstract academic activity may not take place at all; and in
any case it would remain a very small part of the ethical policy-making
process.
