Commerce on the Internet

One of the major difficulties in using e-mail for commercial success is that it has always been an open network in which it is relatively easy for a hacker to monitor network traffic. This is particularly worrying for users who are about to enter their credit card details into a Web page order form. Is the order form a real Web page? Or, is it a hoax and will the credit card details be used correctly or will a hacker run up a huge bill ordering a mountain of pizza! As a result, commerce on the Internet was slow to take off.

One solution is to send the credit card details in an encrypted form via an e-mail. The problem is that the users will first have to download an encryption utility and the amount of time it takes to encrypt the card details then start the e-mail software could turn off any potential customer.

Another solution is to establish an secure link between the visitor to a Web site and the Web server. This would be setup automatically and invisibly so that the visitor doesn't realize what's happening. This is a neater solution but requires the browser developers to support a particular security standard.

And lastly, there is the notion of on-line electronic banks. In this case, the visitor writes an electronic check on his electronic bank account the shopkeeper can then cash this. Again, the problem is convincing the users that they should set up...