Thomas C. Richards

E‐commerce policies and customer privacy

The rapid growth of the Internet and the number of online consumers have resulted in increased fears from privacy advocates, legislators and consumer groups regarding the guarantees of privacy when using e‐commerce and the Internet. Some companies collect marketing information on consumers’ Internet habits without their knowledge or consent. This study looks at stated policies appearing on the Web sites of a number of major e‐commerce companies regarding Internet privacy. This was accomplished by the examination of information related to current Internet policies posted on these firms’ Web sites. Also examined was whether these policies have been changed over a three‐year time period. Five policy categories were examined over this three‐year period using a consistent rating scale. These categories were privacy, returns, shipping, warranty, and security.

Training, empowerment, and creating a culture for change

Examines an innovative first step which one organization took on the road to employee empowerment. States that although this first step was a small one, it resulted in large benefits to the organization. Reveals that this field study was conducted during the information system conversion phase of a larger organizational change, at 52 recently‐acquired branches of a

A manager’s guide to electronic data interchange: doing business on the information superhighway

40‐billion interstate bank. Discovers that the payoffs were surprisingly large when employees are given a small empowering opportunity just before their training. Indicates that empowered employees are more able to adapt to change and less likely to resist it, and their need for control is being met through their empowerment, rather than by their resistance. Finds that even in small quantities, empowerment can be a large contributor to success. Also believes that small, low‐cost empowerments with large payoffs can almost always be found.

System insecurity – firewalls

Provides an introduction to EDI for those managers who are new to the field and wish to know more about it. Covers what EDI is, how it works and the technology involved, and provides a comprehensive account of the development, implementation and use of EDI. Gives guidelines for the successful adoption of EDI, from planning, analysis and design to construction, installation and operations, and lists critical success factors for EDI projects.

A computer fraud survey

The firewall is normally an intermediate system between the secure internal networks and the less secure external networks. It is intended to keep corporate systems safe from intruders, hackers, and accidental entry into the corporate system. The primary types of firewalls are screening routers, proxy servers, and stateful inspectors. Before choosing a firewall architecture, a company must have the right mind set regarding the threat. The purpose of this paper is to provide an introduction to firewall concepts and help develop this mind set.

A historical prospective of computer related fraud

The informed reader will agree that it is very difficult to obtain hard facts regarding computer fraud. The literature contains many articles quoting one or two of the primary studies discussed below. One of these studies of computer related crime is the SRI project, which has been underway for over ten years. This study has resulted in the publication of numerous reports during the last ten years (3,4,8), plus a number of articles (6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16). The SRI project includes statistics from some 700 to 800 cases of computer crime. Unfortunately, for privacy and confidentiality reasons, the complete details of these cases are not readily available to the interested researcher. The National Computer Centre in Manchester, England is developing a case file similar to SRIs. The Caulfield Institute of Technology in Australia also has a file of computer crime cases. Another source of cases is the National Center for Computer Crime Data in Los Angeles. The General Accounting Office (17) produced a study of sixty-nine cases of improper use of computers within Federal Goverment agencies about ten years ago.

Using Social Network Analysis to Test an IT-Enabled Business Process Reengineering Theory

Two sets of data on computer-related crime provide an interesting view of this type of fraud. One set of data appears in a study prepared for Lawrence Livermore Laboratories (18) during 1979 and lists characteristics of 461 cases collected by Stanford Research Institute between 1958 and 1978. Another report prepared by the Stanford Research Institute in 1973 gives the characteristics of 148 computer-related crime cases between 1958 and 1973. This investigation presents an analysis of these 551 cases. Duplicate cases reported in both studies have been eliminated.

Distance education copyright, intellectual property, and antitrust concerns

After more than a decade of research in information technology-enabled business process reengineering (BPR), no clear theory explains the link between information technology (IT) and organizational transformation. This paper introduces the use of social network analysis (SNA) methods to analyze this link. SNA is a social structural approach that focuses on dynamic relationships among the technology, its adopters, and the social context they are in. It is used in this study to test Galbraith’s Organizational Information Processing Theory (OIPT) in describing three IT-enabled BPR efforts. The results of the research show that SNA coupled with the OIPT is capable of explaining how technological innovation and process innovation interact within the context of BPR. The results of the research also provide measures that can be used by practitioners and researchers as leading indicators of BPR success.

Microcomputer software backup: legal and ethical considerations for the individual and small business user

Abstract An empirical examination of accredited American higher education institutions was conducted to obtain baseline data regarding distance education copyright, intellectual property, and antitrust concerns. Additionally, a multiple‐case study involving ten of the top thirty accredited distance education institutions in America was conducted. Policy approaches were examined for all institutions, and differences were discussed between public and private institutions as well as between the following Carnegie Classification institutions: Research I and II, Doctorate I and II, and Masters I and II. Data indicated that, out of the schools surveyed, 22% of the institutions in these Carnegie Classification categories published copyright and intellectual property policies on their institutions Web site. In the case study, it was found that 90% of the institutions centrally controlled their distance education program administration as well as the copyright and intellectual property policies related to it.

Computer crime legislation update

The software user is concerned with the acquisition of microcomputer software that provides ease of access in a manner that allows the completion of tasks with as much efficiency as possible. The ease of access includes readily available backup copies of software in case of the destruction the original copy.