Janine S. Hiller

Competitiveness through Management of Diversity: Effects on Stock Price Valuation

This studys premise is that firms that can lower their costs and enhance their differentiation through the effective management of their human resources have a competitive advantage. Using data fr...

A framework for e‐government: privacy implications

Purpose – The paper proposes a conceptual framework of the stages of electronic government that describes and integrates the unique relationship between the government and its varied constituents, and identifies and applies the global constraints that affect the implementation of e‐government at each stage.Design/methodology/approach – Building on and expanding stages of e‐government suggested in prior literature, a framework is designed to recognize that the five stages of e‐government will have differing impacts when considering six different categories of constituents. In addition, the framework considers three global constraints superimposed on these stages and relationship; laws and regulations, technical feasibility, and user feasibility. The paper then provides an example of implementation of the framework by exploring the issue of privacy in electronic government.Findings – The relationships mapped the stages of e‐government, affected by global motivators and constraints, are unique and complex. P...

Evaluation of Online Resources in Assisting Phishing Detection

Phishing is an attempt to fraudulently acquire users’ sensitive information, such as passwords or financial information, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in online transactions. Recently, a number of researchers have proposed using external online resources like the Google Page Rank system to assist phishing detection. The advantage of such an approach is that the detection capability will gradually evolve and improve as the online resources become more sophisticated and manipulation-resistant. In this paper, we evaluate the effectiveness of three popular online resources in detecting phishing sites—viz, Google PageRank system, Yahoo! Inlink data, and Yahoo! directory service. Our results indicate that these online resources can be used to increase the accuracy of phishing site detection when used in conjunction with existing phishing countermeasures. The proposed approach involves examining the following three attributes of a target site (site being examined): (1) the credibility of the target site’s hosting domain, (2) the credibility of in-neighbor sites that link to the hosting domain, and (3) the correlation between the target site’s web category and its hosting domain’s web category. The aforementioned online resources by themselves are insufficient to address the phishing attack problem. We provide discussions on how each of those resources may be integrated with existing phishing detection techniques to provide a more effective solution.

The Regulatory Framework for Privacy and Security

The internet enables the easy collection of massive amounts of personally identifiable information. Unregulated data collection causes distrust and conflicts with widely accepted principles of privacy. The regulatory framework in the United States for ensuring privacy and security in the online environment consists of federal, state, and self-regulatory elements. New laws have been passed to address technological and internet practices that conflict with privacy protecting policies. The United States and the European Union approaches to privacy differ significantly, and the global internet environment will likely cause regulators to face the challenge of balancing privacy interests with data collection for many years to come.

What's mine is mine; what's yours is mine: private ownership of ICTs as a threat to transparency

In the face of ubiquitous information communication technology, the presence of blogs, personal websites, and public message boards give the illusion of uncensored criticism and discussion of the ethical implications of business activities. However, little attention has been paid to the limitations on free speech posed by the control of access to the Internet by private entities, enabling them to censor content that is deemed critical of corporate or public policy. The premise of this research is that transparency alone will not achieve the desired results if ICT is used in a one way system, controlled by the provider of information. Stakeholders must have an avenue using the same technology to respond to and interact with the information. We propose a model that imposes on corporations a public trust, requiring these gatekeepers of communication technology to preserve individual rights to criticism and review.

POCKET: A tool for protecting children's privacy online

article i nfo Childrens privacy in the online environment has become critical. Use of the Internet is increasing for com- mercial purposes, in requests for information, and in the number of children who use the Internet for casual web surfing, chatting, games, schoolwork, e-mail, interactive learning, and other applications. Often, websites hosting these activities ask for personal information such as name, e-mail, street address, and phone number. In the United States, the childrens online privacy protection act (COPPA) of 1998 was enacted in reaction to widespread collection of information from children and subsequent abuses identified by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). COPPA is aimed at protecting a childs privacy by requiring parental consent before collecting information from children under the age of 13. To date, however, the business practices used and the technical approaches employed to comply with COPPA fail to protect childrens online privacy effec- tively. In this paper, we describe the design of an automated tool for protecting childrens online privacy, called POCKET (Parental Online Consent for Kids Electronic Transactions). The POCKET framework is a novel, technically feasible and legally sound solution to automatically enforce COPPA.

Privacy in Crises: The NIST Privacy Framework

Information systems are essential for crisis management; therefore, maintaining the security of those systems is important. Furthermore, during a crisis, privacy and personal integrity issues can sometimes be overlooked. Yet, both security and privacy are fundamental to the survival of a civilized and democratic society. If an information systems security plan also includes privacy considerations, then the resilience of the system can provide for the resilience of privacy. The problem is that privacy principles as they have traditionally been identified are not amenable to being incorporated into system design. This study discusses the NIST Privacy Framework, privacy engineering and its relevance to crisis planning and response.

Internet content regulation: what method?

The law and regulation of electronic communications in the United States (Us) is fragmented, overlapping, and controversial, with overarching First Amendment limitations for government action directed toward content. Because the law was written for “legacy” systems of telecommunications without regard for the present convergence of the industry and media, there are different laws, different administrative oversight, and sometimes conflicting legislative policies depending on the delivery mechanism and media. Because of this complexity, this article focuses on content regulation of internet communications broadly defined, how it impacts providers of telecommunications, and conversely how the private actions of providers impact content regulation. We begin with a discussion of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, as it is essential to an understanding of the limitations to federal regulation. Then, federal statutory attempts to regulate internet content are examined followed by a discussion of the applicable administrative law. The last section of the article describes how private entities have filled in the gap in the absence of government regulation by private terms of use, and in conclusion compares this approach to other regulatory mechanisms.RésuméAux Etats-Unis, les lois et réglementations sur les communications électroniques sont fragmentées, se chevauchent, sont sujettes à controverse, et sont soumises aux limitations fondamentales du Premier Amendement pour toute mesure gouvernementale sur les contenus. La loi a été écrite pour des systèmes traditionnels de télécommunication sans considérer la convergence actuelle entre l’industrie et les médias. Le résultat est l’existence de lois différentes, de supervisions administratives différentes, et parfois de politiques législatives contradictoires selon les mécanismes de distribution et les médias. En raison de cette complexité, cet article insiste sur la réglementation du contenu des communications par l’Internet (définies de façon large), la manière dont elle affecte les fournisseurs de télécommunication, et comment, à leur tour, les actions des fournisseurs affectent la réglementation des contenus. Nous commençons par une discussion du Premier Amendement à la Constitution des Etats-Unis, car il est essentiel à la compréhension des limitations à la réglementation fédérale. Ensuite, nous examinons les tentatives fédérales pour réglementer le contenu de l’Internet et nous discutons les textes administratifs qui s’appliquent. La dernière partie de cet article décrit comment des entités privées ont compensé le manque de réglementation gouvernementale en établissant des conditions d’utilisation privées et conclut en comparant cette approche à d’autres mécanismes de régulation.